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

encountered 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 championship 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 championship. 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.