Unpredictable but successful 2003 for Francis Racing

Francis Racing's successful 2003 season was the most volatile
and unpredictable in a decade of competing in the SCCA's San
Francisco Region events. The tumultuous season started at the
April 9th event at Infineon Raceway (Sears Point) when Francis
picked up where he left off the previous championship-winning
season by earning a strong second place in the weekend's first
race. After a good start in the second race, Francis' BMW encount-
ered mechanical problems with the shift linkage and was stuck in
third gear throughout the rest of the race. Francis carefully
maneuvered his wounded racer home to a respectable 8th place
finish, but saw his second straight title's hopes take an early hit
that would be difficult to recover from.

At the halfway point in the season, Francis had scratched his way
back to second in the SCCA San Francisco Region's points
standings. A critical DNF from his season-long nemesis at the
Laguna Seca round left Francis in a virtual tie for the champion-
ship and with momentum going into the last third of the season.

By the next to last race at Thunderhill Park, the title was still on
the line and Francis didn't disappoint when he stormed to the pole ensuring the top spot for the critical race. Francis took the lead
from the start and battled with several top contenders lap after
lap. A rare mistake from the Sherwin-Williams sponsored driver
allowed two of Francis' major competitors by and dropped him to
third. Francis was able to battle back and reclaim second place and
then he set his sights on the race leader. With Francis' Goodyear
tires coming up to optimum temperature, he mounted a spirited
attack on the leaders BMW for several laps. Jeff carefully pressured
the leader who was employing some "defensive driving" techniques
to keep him in front of the charging Francis. On the white flag lap,
the leading BMW finally bowed under the pressure put on him by
Francis and made a critical mistake that allowed Jeff to sail past
the leader on the inside. The competing BMW then made a move
under Francis' racer nudging the new leader several times and sent
Jeff off course in both turns 11 and 12 and drove by to take an unpopular win over Francis. After the race, event marshals concluded
an infraction was made and they penalized the race winner for rough driving and handed the victory to the deserving Francis.

At the last event of the season, Jeff needed to finish at least 3
positions ahead of the points-leading racer to win the champion-
ship. With that in mind Jeff qualified on pole and drove a skilled
race, but could only finish one spot ahead of his championship
rival and lost the title. Although Francis accumulated the highest
point total for the season, the point adjustment (dropping one race
worth of points) dropped Francis to second and Jeff lost the
championship by a total of 308 to 300.