Retro Coupes on the Aristocrat – 1/23/18
After a six-month hiatus the MVH Tuesday night retro series returned to run the FK Coupe class on the American Aristocrat. Eight of the usual suspects presented their cars for tech inspection. Racing was in the 4/4 format, leaving four marshals to cover the turns.
Coupes in Tech:
John Weaver showed everyone the fast way around the track and was running way ahead of the field for the entire evening. Bob “Woody” Hazelwood was shaking down a new “Dominator Jackal” chassis and spent much of the night sorting it out. He suffered from a lack of traction (problem was the tires and no spoiler on the body) in the early heats but came on strong later in the race. Dan Savage had early chassis problems requiring a pause in the action for some soldering of various broken bits (the first of three such pauses!) giving Woody an opportunity for a quick tire swap which solved some of his handling issues. A heat later, he added a spoiler and was on his way.
By the move to the inside lanes, Weaver had logged almost 142 laps and opened up an 8-lap lead over Dave Panich (also on a shake-down run with a “Dominator Jackal” chassis) who was less than a lap ahead of Peter Lentros. Five laps back Rich Girvin had put 127 laps on the counter and enjoyed a 2-lap lead over Richard Payne while Woody and Dan were just a lap behind and hoping for better things in the second half. Dick Griffin closed out the field.
With no donut the lane lengths on the Aristocrat aren’t equal which yields more and faster laps on the inside lanes, as was shown by each driver's finishing stats. After the move to the inside Woody and Richard P stepped up their game considerably, adding 17 and 13 laps respectively to their first half totals. For Woody it proved to be too little too late as he still finished 8 laps off the podium but by the end of the race he had his new chassis fully sorted and competitive, and was running with the leaders (except maybe Weaver…). Richard P’s second half effort got him past Rich G and into 5th place by the end of the race, though they were separated by less than a lap and it was clearly the closest race of the evening.
While the mid-pack racers were mixing things up, Weaver continued to dominate at the front of the pack, eventually taking the win by 20 laps. Going into the last heat, Peter and Dave both had identical lap totals and were within one track section of each other. With Peter on black and Dave on yellow it was anybody’s race for 2nd and 3rd, but Peter encountered some handling problems and fell off the pace giving Dave 2nd Place.
Weaver claimed fastest lap time of the evening with a 4.424, a full 3/10s faster than second fastest Woody at 4.780. Black and purple were, as usual, the fast lanes as only one other racer had their fastest lap on another lane.
Finishing order, laps completed, best-lap time and best-lap lane:
1) John Weaver 295/2 4.424 PU
2) Dave Panich 275/18 4.789 BK
3) Peter Lentros 273/21 4.835 YL
4) Woody Hazelwood 265/3 4.780 PU
5) Richard Payne 263/3 4.889 BK
6) Rich Girvin 262/16 5.007 BK
7) Dan Savage 258/19 4.842 PU
8) Dick Griffin 245/19 5.196 BK
Next Week’s MVH Tuesday Night Retro-Race
January 30 Can-Am on the Sovereign
January NERR Race at Modelville Hobby THIS SATURDAY:
January 27 Stock Cars on the Royal and Can-Am on the Sovereign
Podium (L to R): 2nd Place – Dave Panich, 1st Place – John Weaver, 3rd Place – Peter Lentros
John’s 1st Place Chassis:
Dave’s 2nd Place Chassis:
Peter’s 3rd Place Chassis:
