GRoNEing on a nice sunny day

Ashland, Massachusetts   April 28, 2018   Fourteen drivers attended the

GRoNE event at Peter Lentros’ LenJet Raceway on a real warm, sunny Saturday this past April 28^th; 13 participated in the T-Jet race while 12 ran the Gravity race.  In addition to the usual cast of characters, we had Ernie L, Dick Griffin and Bob Withers make their first appearances at a GRoNE event, the more the merrier.  Unfortunately, neither Joel Pennington nor Rick DeRosa could attend the event, Life keeps getting in the way of racing slot cars.

 

HOPRA T-Jets

After a two hour open practice session for T-Jets on the Python and Gravity

Cars on the Boomerang, it was time to run the T-Jet race.  The top five had a real barnburner being separated by only 3 laps.  Paul Ryer took down the win by ½ of a lap over John Reimels followed by Peter Lentros two laps further behind.  Ryan Archambault beat out Donny Hall for fourth by just sections; a single off making all the difference.  Paul Ryer ran a real consistent race getting 25 laps across the board.

	Driver	Yellow	Blue	White	Red	Total
1	Paul Ryer	25	25	25	25	100.22
2	John Reimels	24	25	26	25	100.02
3	Peter Lentros	24	24	26	24	98
4	Ryan Archambault	24	25	23	25	97.12
5	Don Hall	24	25	25	23	97.04
6	Paul Crosby	21	25	23	22	91.40
7	Rob Hayes	21	24	23	23	91.10
8	Tom Smith	20	24	23	23	90
9	Bob Withers	22	20	21	20	83
10	Ernie L	20	20	21	21	82
11	Jim Macartney	20	20	22	18	80
12	Dick Griffin	17	20	20	20	77
13	Tom Gray	14	17	19	17	67

 

 

Gravity Cars

Ernie and Dick elected not to run Gravity cars but with Dave Muse joining the fray, we had a healthy 12 drivers for the Gravity race.  A real nice omen for the class is that 9 of the 12 drivers raced their own car; gone are the days where most folks ran borrowed cars.  We had 8 anglewinders, 3 sidewinders and one lonely in-line – all mini-motored cars.  Ryan tried his AFX based car but was off the top times being set by the mini-motor cars so he borrowed a car from my stable, technically this means 10 of the 12 racers had their own

cars!  Once again Paul Ryer and John Reimels had a good battle for the win, this time John beating Paul to the line by 2 laps.  Paul had a tough run in blue otherwise it would have been closer (but I still would have won! – JR).  Dave Muse finished an awesome third trying out his latest controller that had a different power profile more suited to the mini-motor cars.  Dave is really doing some nice work on the controller front, he deserves more recognition than he’s currently getting (but please wait until AFTER the Nats before asking him to make a controller for you, hahahaha – JR).  Following Dave home for fourth was Ryan Archambault, ½ a lap behind Dave.  Tom Gray finished sixth only a few laps off the pace set by Dave and Ryan.

	Driver	Yellow	Blue	White	Red	Total
1	John Reimels	22	22	22	22	88
2	Paul Ryer	22	20	22	22	86
3	Dave Muse	19	21	20	20	80.31
4	Ryan Archambault	19	21	20	20	80.07
5	Tom Gray	19	19	20	20	78
6	Peter Lentros	15	20	21	19	75.83
7	Don Hall	18	20	18	19	75.24
8	Rob Hayes	18	20	20	17	75.21
9	Paul Crosby	17	18	19	18	72
10	Tom Smith	18	17	17	17	69.47
11	Bob Withers	16	17	18	18	69.06
12	Jim Macartney	12	19	16	18	65

With the second race over, rather than have another race, the decision was made to open both tracks for more practice time and let those wanting to enjoy the first real sunny day of spring go home to do yard work (I stayed for the practice time! – JR).

 

I’m waiting to hear from Joel and Rick about coming out before the Nats.  If they can make it, we’ll schedule another GRoNE race accordingly.  If they can’t make it, I’ll try to set up another practice day before the Nats.  Stay Tuned…

 

Thanks to Peter for hosting and special thanks to all 14 drivers who attended – without you guys we’d have nothing.

 

John Reimels

GRoNE Master of Ceremonies

Brass Car Enthusiast