Alright now. I offered to publish the race report #8 for GRRR, and Grant took me up on it. So here goes.
I am going to write this race report as three different postings. First off is the Oval race for 4-1/2" stock cars, then its Evil-Flexi racing on the Hillclimb, then thirdly its F1 on the Hillclimb also.
Speaking on the behalf of all of the drivers in GRRR land, I would like to thank Bill Pinch for hosting GRRR race #8 at his facility in Melbourne, Florida. He's got two nice tracks, and a dragstrip. The place is well lit and is always well stock with Flexi and Retro parts. Bill puts in an excellent effort to get us Retro parts that we need.
4-1/2" Stock Car Race Report
The day started at 9 AM when Bill opened the doors. The drivers split the first hour and half on the Hillclimb and the 43 ft oval. Two pics of the oval are shown below.
We had six drivers for this event. The chassis side and the tech sheets are shown below. I loaned one of my chassis to Matt Boman; wanting to see it run at its best. I had never given this chassis a good chance to show what it could do. Well, I found out!
This oval is only 43 foot and is very fast. You got to do three blips with the trigger finger in 2.1 seconds. Not easy to get it right consistently. We started with qualifying, getting 30 seconds per driver to put down our best lap. TQ went to Matt at 2.1024 seconds. The entire Q order is below.
1) Matt Boman - 2.1024 sec
2) Terry Tawney - 2.1770
3) Doc Dougherty - 2.1965
4) Grant Goerner- 2.2000
5) TonyP - 2.2410
6) Troy Taylor - 2.6808
The Stock Cars at the start line and the drivers are shown below:
Left to right: Troy Taylor, Terry Tawney, Grant Goerner, Matt Boman, Doc Dougherty, TonyP.
Obviously, I decided to give Tony a head start!
We ran only 2 minute heats with 2 minute lane changes. The race was very close with (I think) three different leaders. Terry and Matt led early on, with me taking the lead after 4 or 5 heats. My lead quickly vanished as I ran white and red last. Matt Boman came home the winner in my chassis #35, with Terry Tawney second and me third. The finishing order was:
1) Matt Boman - 433 laps (Matt kicked butt to win by 11 laps)
2) Terry Tawney - 422
3) Doc Dougherty - 421
4) TonyP - 403
5) Grant Goerner - 386
6) Troy Taylor - 326
The podium drivers are shown here. Left to right: Doc Dougherty, Matt Boman, Terry Tawney.
Congradulations to Matt Boman; and thank you for paying my entry fee, I did not expect that. Hey, next time I loan out such a good car, I think we need some team orders. Hahaha.
The chassis pics are shown below. The first place car:
The second place car:
And the third place car:
OK, that takes care of the stock cars. I am sorry that I can't put together a better narrative about the race. I am concentrating so much on my driving that I can't pay enough attention to details of the race unless they directly affect me.
Evil-Flexi Championship
The next race was the Flexi car class using the Evil 9 motors. We moved to the 145 foot Hillclimb for this race.
We had seven entries for this event.
Car pics with tech sheets are shown below.
Looks like everyone ran a JK version for their flexi car. Qualifying went smothly, with Dennis Demole setting an early ET of 3.9563 seconds, until I came up last and set TQ at 3.93308 sec. The best lap and second best are shown below in the photo.
I managed to led by a lap or two the entire race, but lead by only half a lap starting the 8th heat. I led Dennis until the last minute when Dennis caught me when my motor suddenly slowed down. My motor then suddenly started running fast again and we ran side by side for the last four or five laps, trading the led couple times each lap. In the end, Dennis pulled ahead by about three feet!!! What a race, it had everybody's attention. See pic below.
The finishing order was:
1) Dennis Demole - 340 laps 12 feet, fastest lap of 4.0123 seconds
2) Doc Dougherty - 340 laps 9 feet, 3.9998
3) Terry Tawney - 327, 4.1680
4) Steve Bowman - 321, 4.2297
5) Matt Boman - 319, 4.0629
6) Troy Taylor - 279, 4.1166
7) Grant Goerner - 117, 4.3909
I loaned a car to Troy and he gave it a good run. I am figuring that he would have finished in third or fourth if not for a big crash that took out two teeth of the spur gear. Troy was running very good.
The podium drivers are below.
Left to right: Doc Dougherty, Dennis Demole, Terry Tawney (the three stooges did it again)
First place car:
Second place car:
Third place car:
, unfortunately, its 3 feet behind your car.
