With a drop of the green flag, the 2023 United States Touring Car Championship was on.

The 2023 USTCC season began at the Las Vegas Speedway for The Speed Traveler #37 BMW, driven by

Chris Evertsen and prepared and engineered by Ben Penn.

But it was not easy getting the “Bomber” to the first race. During the off season, Ben had to do a

complete rebuild on just about everything on the car. Ben was still working on the car through Friday

night before Saturday's qualifying round, and he still had to drive from Idaho to Las Vegas.

With the help of excessive quantities of espresso shots, Ben arrived safely at the track midday on

Saturday. He immediately went to off-loading the Bomber from the transporter, and with the help from

Raymond Brenneman, David Penco, Reza Arsham and a number of other GoGoGear Racing drivers, we

got her race-ready. However, with very little track time and no qualifying lap, we had to start from the

very back of the field.

By the start of the race, it was apparent that the hard work and dedication during the off-season hours

were quickly paying off.

The Bomber got an amazing start and went from last to first position before getting to turn one!! For the

next several laps the battle was on for the top 3 positions. Passes were being made everywhere, putting

on quite a show for the spectators on hand. In the closing laps the battle was down to two cars,

teammates Charlie Frank in The Speed Traveler Honda S2000 and myself in the Bomber.