Formula 1 on the Sovereign – 11/13/18
The retro-F-1 class made its annual visit to the 220’ American Sovereign in the MVH Tuesday Night Retro Series this week and it proved to be an “interesting” evening. Seven racers made for a thin field with limited marshals. Racing was in the 4/4 format.
Regardless of the small size of the field there was still plenty of action. In fact, the action started before the race as Peter Lentros launched on the 70+ degree high banking, putting his car well into the pit area and rendering it unstable and ultimately unable to race without a trip to the chassis jig. A borrowed back-up car was presented at tech and he was able to run.
Richard Payne kept the action coming as he also had some trouble with the banking during his second heat. He recovered from the first launch but the second one disconnected the front axle from his chassis, leaving him with a DNF and only 35 laps on the counter.
It wasn’t just the track that was causing problems. Cars were losing their lane markers on a regular basis, marshals were putting cars in the wrong lanes, racers weren’t changing their car’s lanes between heats, controllers were hooked up incorrectly, and everyone was wondering if any of us had ever done this slot racing thing before!
Six racers did make it to the change to the inside lanes where, amazingly, three racers were tied for first. Peter, Ralph Griffin and Dave Panich all had logged 88 laps. Rich Girvin trailed them by 8 laps while leading Wayne Secore by 2. Dick Griffin closed out the field a few laps off their pace.
Ralph’s luck ran out after the move to the inside lanes when his handling deteriorated causing multiple de-slots and trips to the floor. He was able to diagnose the problem (loose guide flag) and was back in the race with no major damage to the car but had fallen out of contention leaving Peter and Dave in the race for the win.
Peter was one heat ahead of Dave in the lane rotation with Dave needing a long 21 laps to catch him going into his final heat. Things were going according to plan for most of Dave’s last heat until he crashed in the donut. This happened after a missed blip going into the second finger put him into the wall, launching him into the air and over the lead-on on the King where he finally crashed in the donut...on the wrong track! Other than the impact causing the lead wires to exit the guide flag his car seemed intact and thus his quest to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory failed as he managed to slip past Peter by one lap for the win. Ralph salvaged the bottom step on the podium while the order for the rest of the field remained unchanged from the first half.
Ralph had the fast lap of the evening with a 7.570. The three podium finishers were the only racers with sub-8 second lap times.
Final Standings, laps completed, fast-lap time, lane:
- Dave Panich 175/29 7.796 YL
- Peter Lentros 174/23 7.960 GN
- Ralph Griffin 165/11 7.570 BL
- Rich Girvin 160/1 8.124 GN
- Wayne Secore 156/30 8.016 OR
- Dick Griffin 146/10 8.788 BL
- Richard Payne DNF 8.242 OR
Upcoming Events:
MVH Tuesday Night Retro-Race Schedule for the rest of November:
11/20 Can-Am on the King
11/27 Stock Cars on the Aristocrat
November 17th – NERR at 1010 Raceway in Bristol, CT:
Stock Car on the King
Can-Am on the King
Podium (L to R): 2nd Place – Peter Lentros, 1st Place – Dave Panich, 3rd Place – Ralph Griffin
Dave’s 1st Place Chassis:
Peter’s 2nd Place Chassis:
Ralph’s 3rd Place Chassis:
