Ringing in the New Year at Fast Five Raceway

The New Year started off at Fast Five Raceway with a total of 17 racers in attendance for

this now annual event.  Paul Ryer, Flash and Hayes scored individual victories over the four classes throughout the day but with the top four overall spots receiving plaques for their efforts the question was who would have the needed consistency to take home the hardware?

First up was the familiar ECHORR SS class. Coming out on top of the battle on the twisty Harley track over 15 others was East Coast Outlaw regular and past MARC member Flash. His high lap total of 139 laps quite frankly put everyone else to

shame. Nice run Flash! Taking a 133 lap bite for 2nd was Paul “pancakes are for breakfast” Ryer; 3rd at 131 was Rick Hubbert finishing on the same section as Ryan in 4^th; wrenching his way to 5th was John Pileggi with 129; 6th was an always quick Steve; 7th Rob Hayes; Matt with a super smooth CRB Jet in 8^th; 9th went to Rudy; 10th John Reimels; with 11th taken by Long Haul award winner Dominic from far away in New Jersey!

Next up was the class that everyone was talking about Gravity on the six lane SnakeBite track.  We had 17 entries with a myriad of different cars entered. Since this is a new class

for us, many drivers resorted to loaners which were all very competitive cars. The race was very clean to the surprise of most! Lap times in the low to mid 6 second range were the norm.  After 17 segments Paul Ryer took down the win with a Reimels built sidewinder based on parts from Joel Pennington, he had high lap of the gravity event with 28 on the blue lane with a 162 lap total. Ryan drove a Morris built A/FX pickup shoe car to 2nd with a 156 run, just 5 sections back from Ryan was John Reimels in 3rd with his smooth running, home-built in-line (that is 5 feet after 6 lanes and 18 minutes of racing!); 4th at 153 laps went to the perennial front runner John Pileggi with another Reimels sidewinder, the sister car to Ryer’s ride.  Stez drove a flawless looking Joel Pennington sidewinder to 5^th; 6th was Flash with an Al Thurman LandShark inline loaner car; 7th was Vince with a Reimels built in-line based on the LandShark kit; 8th was Rob – I

was there when the world first raced gravity cars -Hayes with a Scott Terry Gen 3 car; 9th was Rudy doing a great job at his first gravity race with a loaner LandShark; 10th was Matt with another inline LandShark, crossing for 11th was Tom Bussmann using a Reimels built A/FX pan car with pickup shoes; 12th was Rick Hubbert with what could possibly been the best of the loaner cars, a LandShark assembled and tested by Al himself -unfortunately  a delaminating tire kept him down; 13th was “what the heck is gravity” Steve; 14th was Dave 2 with a nice run with a Scott Terry Gen 3 car, 15th was the long hauler Dominic whose car failed early on being allowed to substitute a Morris

A/FX wiper car; 16th was Larry Labounty with  an A/FX based loaner car;  finishing up the pack was Tom Smith with a home-built A/FX pan car suffering from a thrown wire on the armature. The gravity race was very exciting with some really close runs and plenty of door to door racing made it memorable. Hope to have more Gravity class racing soon!

After short lunch break was taken to devour the lazy Lasagna, baked by Ryan’s wife Luann we were ready for the IROC race. This was the third event the 6 Dash 14 ohm

skinny tire cars took the track. This time they wore RRR bodied Shelby Style 1966 mustangs lined up to race on the SnakeBite course once again. Lap times in the high 8 to low 9 second range made for some relaxing but close racing. Using Slottrak race to the line format made the IROC race go quickly as cars started and ended all segments back at the finish line.14 drivers took turns running the 6 cars on the designated lanes, plenty of rubbing and ribbing with John Pileggi getting the most of the later due to his slow red lane runner.  Rob Hayes proving he can win without any traction magnets brought home the win with a 3 second lead over Ryan in 2nd both with 117 laps. At 116 laps the Flash in 3^rd; 4th just one second back was Steve;  5th 115 laps Matt;  6th and 7th Reimels and Rudy with 113;  8th-11th all with 113 were Rick H, Paul, Dominic; 12th Tom Bussmann; 13th Larry; 14th John Pileggi.

Last up was MARC rules G-Jet on the Harley with 10 racers hanging in for the finale. The

top 4 overall spots were still undetermined going into this race.  Ryer could take the overall if Ryan and the rest had poor runs. Winner was Paul Ryer with a pretty dominate 197 running fastest lap times on all lanes; John Pileggi second with 193;  Ryan 192;  Hayes 191; Reimels 190; Rick Hubbert who doesn’t run this class often had a good run with 180 laps; Vince, Rudy,  Matt and Tom Bussmann rounding  out the field.

Would the two wins and a second for Paul Ryer be enough to take the overall victory?

Would Rob Hayes IROC victory put him at the top?  With the points added up for the remaining drivers, the overall  standings were – Tom B. 10^th;  Rudy 9^th; Vince 8^th; Matt 7^th; Rick 6^th; John Pileggi 5^th; and taking home the plaques were… John Reimels 4^th; Rob Hayes 3^rd; Paul Ryer 2^nd; Ryan 1^st!!

I want to Thank Everyone (and a special thanks to John Reimels for getting me fired up on the gravity race addition idea) who came out to race kicking off the New Year on a fun note!! Hope to make it a truly annual event. Any comment criticism whatever please let me know so we can do it again even better in 365 days!!

Ryan