Yorio to campaign new Piper chassis

Jesse Yorio

Jesse Yorio will be back in 2010 in a brand new Piper DF5C chassis. Joining a 30-car F2000 Championship Series field dominated by Van Diemens, with expected new cars from Radon and Ralph Firman Racing, in addition to standing entries from Citation and Mygale, the new Piper will make it a season of chassis wars in the F2000 world. Yorio, out of New York, will be back for his fourth straight season, driving under the Company Motorsports banner alongside teammate Jeff McCusker.

“Doug Learned at Fast Forward Components and I wanted very much to put one of his show pieces on the grid this year, and with my new sponsor, NewSeed Advisors, we were able to make it happen," commented Yorio.

“The goal for 2010 is to win races and with some luck, be in the hunt for the championship," Yorio said. “2009 was a disappointing year, I had a strong start at VIR and we proved that the improvements made to the bell housing and cooling system on the Piper DF-5 had achieved what was necessary to get the car back up front."

At Lime Rock, Yorio was sidelined by a practice crash that kept him out of the race car until the finale at Mid-Ohio. 2006 F2000 Champion Matt McDonough took over the driving duties of the #11 at Watkins Glen. McDonough put on a show, nearly winning both races before being involved in on-track incidents.

“Matt McDonough's performance at the Watkins Glen demolition derby further confirmed the car has the speed to be at the front," Yorio continued, “so I come into 2010 looking to pick up where I left off at VIR in 2009.

While the delivery of any new race car can be surrounded by delays and the paddock grapevine, Yorio insists the car is ready to go. “The new car is arriving from Doug next week and will be track ready straight from the factory. How many of the silly British cars can that be said about?"

The American recently returned from a seat fitting at Fast Forward Components in California and was left very impressed by Learned’s operation.

“I was out in California last weekend for the seat fitting and watched the Learneds piece the car together with tremendous attention to detail. Doug started with Don Sievenpiper's excellent design and made improvements to many areas. I have to keep the details of the new whizzy bits under wraps, but can tell you about the non-secret ones. The car has a slightly larger fuel cell of aircraft grade and is rated for alcohol based fuels. The pedal assembly is a work of art, as are the bell housing and shift linkage. To give you insight into the attention to detail, the oil tank and firewall have vibration isolating 3M tape on their mating surfaces."

The Company Motorsports crew is compromised of Kenneth Company, who Yorio said, “will continue to maintain the car in his typical meticulous fashion." And trackside, Yorio will “be in the good hands of Daryl Mayhew, David Schuler and Ove Falc."

Like most of the F2000 community, Yorio will miss Joe Stimola in the VIR paddock: “Jeff (McCusker) and I both greatly miss Joe Stimola as he was a mentor to us both. I was fortunate to know Joe for 10 years and he epitomized the term 'class act. Joe always led me in the right direction and never failed to deliver on a promise. The paddock won't be quite the same without Joe, but fortunately he insisted we take one of his setup guides every time we visited his trailer, so we still have a piece of his knowledge with us."

The 14-race, seven-weekend 2010 F2000 Championship Series gets going on April 9 at VIR, followed by Road Atlanta in May and Mosport in June. Then it’s Watkins Glen with IndyCar and Lime Rock with ALMS in July before Road America in August and the season finale at Mid-Ohio over Labor Day. The F2000 Series posted the highest average car count on the open wheel development landscape in 2008 and 2009 with an average of 30 entries per race.