What do you want for a good club race? Great tracks, good turnout, a fun atmosphere, excellent hosts, a mixture of new and old racers, unexpected twists, close racing with different drivers on the podium? The April 2024 Northwest retro race checked all the boxes.
Since we restarted the program after the pandemic, Leroy and Cheryl Sanders have hosted 22 club races:
5 in 2021
7 in 2022
8 in 2023
2 so far in 2024
In that span, only one race was canceled because we couldn't get a good quorum of racers. Our average turnout is 9. Our highest turnout has been 12, and we hit that number on only 2 occasions in the last 3 years. But on this typical spring day in 2024, we reached that mark again.
In addition to the normal contingent, we had 2 rookies make their debut at the club (Denis Tando and Mike Earing) and we saw the return of a former racer (Shiggy Person) that we had not seen in several years. Despite the learning curve, all three would show flashes of competitiveness during the day, and the mix of veterans and newbies in a full field made for exciting racing.
As usual, we rotated back and forth between the two tracks, starting with the stock car class on the red track. Track owner Leroy showed us the way in this class, pulling away to a comfortable 6-lap win. Paul Dwyer and Robert Clements rounded out the podium.
John Wimett, Tom Brown, and Ken Bryan made up the second tier, with 1 lap separating the three of them. Tom was originally awarded 4th, but a review of fast laps revealed a very obvious rider, and we deducted a lap to drop him to fifth (adjusting the minimum lap time to tighten up this issue going forward.)
There was close racing amongst the "newby group" as well, with Denis, Mike, and Shiggy all within 3 laps of each other. Final results:
1. Leroy Sanders 139 laps, 4.51 in green
2. Paul Dwyer 133, 4.65 in green
3. Robert Clements 130, 4.54 in yellow
4. John Wimett 124, 4.83 in blue
5. Tom Brown 123, 4.82 in red
6. Ken Bryan 123, 5.02 in green
7. Frank Sperle 116, 4.98 in green
8. Denis Tando 102, 5.15 in green
9. Mike Earing 100, 5.64 in green
10 Shiggy Person 99, 5.37 in red
11. Larry Flyn 97, 6.31 in green
12 Tom Sunday 58 (DNF), 4.99 in green
We had a potential 13th racer who decided not to race (after we took the pictures), so I marked out that entry in the pictures.
From here, we flipped back to the blue track for formula cars. This is always the most entertaining combination, with 3.5" lane spacing on open wheel cars. And as usual, cars went airborne on several occasions, although they all survived. It turned out to be the closest race of the day on many levels, with 7 laps separating 1st place and 7th place. This is my favorite class, using my all-time favorite (Paul Dwyer-built) z-rail, and the car was hooking up well, so I knew I had a shot.
Robert Clements and Tom Sunday are the most frequent winners in this class, and both has some traffic issues in early heats. But as the draw worked out, we were all on the track for the last heat. I had a 2-lap lead on Robert, and it evaporated early on. For most of the final heat we were on the same lap, with Robert slowly reeling me in on a track that has limited passing options. Just as he was about to catch me, he crashed, and it gave me just enough breathing room to pull off the win by a few feet.
But a quick look at the results will show just how close this race was. 7 laps separated first place from 7th! Also look at the minimal difference in fastest laps from positions 1-5!
1. Ken Bryan 113 laps, 5.46 in green
2. Robert Clements 113, 5.52 in red
3. Tom Sunday 111, 5.56 in yellow
4. Leroy Sanders 110, 5.47 in blue
5. Paul Dwyer 108, 5.47 in green
6. John Wimett 106, 5.98 in blue
7. Tom Brown 106, 5.75 in green
8. Mike Earing 94, 6.22 in green
9. Shiggy Person 89, 6.27 in blue
10. Larry Flyn 80, 7.23 in green
11. Denis Tando 69, 6.86 in red
12. Frank Sperle 48 (DNF), 6.38 in green
