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Nash Motorsportz Senior Max Saturday Report
The first driver to retain the top spot from Friday Final Practice to Saturday Qualifying was
Brenden Baker. Recently moving from California to Texas, the Nash Motorsportz driver set the
fast time on his second lap. The Tony Kart driver continued to get quicker little by little, reset-
ting the pole position mark on his seventh lap with a 50.601-second lap. Louie Pagano (Tony
Kart) came just 35 thousandths off Baker’s time to secure the second spot. 2014 Team USA
driver Mason Marotta (Tony Kart) made a late surge, getting quicker in the final laps of the
15-minute session, but ended up third. Luke Selliken (Kosmic) ended up fourth with his Rolison
Performance Group teammates Walker Hess (Kosmic) and Blaine Rocha (Kosmic) just behind.
Baker and Marotta led the field to the green flag for the Prefinal, with Baker holding the
lead through the opening lap. Marotta took over the position, and fighting for second gave
him the room to pull away during the first half of the race. Baker came under attack from Sel-
liken, who jumped from fourth to second, moving past both Pagano and the pole sitter in turn
one. Pagano took second before Selliken and Baker pushed by for position the following lap.
Lap five, Baker took over the second spot away from Selliken, and the top four would run that
way to the checkered flag. Baker and Selliken were able to close up the gap on Marotta, but
the margin was a full two tenths at the line. Pagano dropped back, running fourth, with Jake
Craig (Formula K) into fifth after starting seventh.
The second half of the Senior Max Final was
one for the memory banks. It appeared to be a
two driver battle for the victory including Marotta
and Baker. Lap after lap, Baker looked to be the
quickest of the two. On lap 16, the two were
enjoying about a one-second advantage when
Baker made his move for the lead. That prompted
Marotta to strike back, and just that quick there
lead was eliminated with Pagano, Selliken and
Craig now on attack mode. The group began to
shuffle, dropping a driver from the lead back to
fifth in turn five, and then changing position at the
end of the straight.
By the end of lap 20, it was nine drivers in
the lead group as the shuffling continued. On lap
24, Selliken was into the lead with Baker on his
bumper. The two made contact at the end of the
long straight, with Baker going off-road and com-
ing back on track, only to have the chain come
off. Selliken dropped down the order, with Pa-
gano in the lead. Twice, he along with Marotta
and Jonathan May (FA Kart) went three wide on the exit of turn one into turn four. Contact
was made going into and on the exit of the corner, with May getting the brunt of it. Pagano
retained the lead and took the checkered flag first with Marotta second.
The emotions went from a high to low, as in technical inspection, Pagano was removed
from the results for an improper carburetor part, while Marotta suffered a five position penalty
for a float height infraction. This moved Cedrik Lupien (Tony Kart) onto the top step of the
podium, after running 12th on the opening lap. Craig was classified second with Selliken in
the third spot. Rocha recovered from a tough Prefinal to end up fourth with Christian Brooks
(Tony Kart) finishing fifth in his first Senior Max Final.
Sr. Max