Fast Tracks and Fast Times in Ashland, MA
Ashland, Massachusetts, January 10, 2015 The cold weather settling in over New England had little affect on the attendance of the 5th race of the season at Peter Lentros’s LenJet raceway. By 8:30 race morning, we had 21 racers in attendance including Durf Hyson, absent for most of the season with health issues.
We also had Donny Hall,
- Durf Hyson surrounded by raffle winner Erik Eckhardt, body painter John Reimels and car builder John Pileggi
Mike Resnick and Jim Macartney make their first appearance of the season, Modelville Hobby tends to bring folks out of the woodwork.
Peter Lentros had a fresh batch of Beedle built Spec Stock cars for sale for those in need of a car for the first race of the day – Spec Stock on the Purple Mile. The second race was Super Stocks on the Viper – one of the fastest (and smoothest) tracks in the area. However, before we get into the race festivities, we had a drawing for two Super Stock cars built by John Pileggi w/ bodies by John Reimels -the proceeds going to the Durf Hyson Mobility Fund. We exceeded our target of $700 by
Spec Stocks on the Purple Mile
raising $920 to go toward a car with an automatic transmission so Durf can once again get around town.
Thanks to everyone who participated by donating parts, time or cash – some doing all three. Winning the first car was HOPRA’s current director, Dave Lehr and winning the second was MARC’s own Erik Eckhardt. Again, thanks to all for making this so successful – Durf was extremely grateful to everyone, I would say he was speechless but we all know that’s impossible!
Amateur Spec Stock
First up were amateurs on the Purple Mile. The decision was made to only utilize the center six lanes of this 8 lane monster. The thought being that eliminating the two outside
Spec Stock Amateur Podium - Tom Smith 4th, Mike Resnick 3rd, Peter Lentros 2nd and Ryan Archambeault 1st
lanes would help the turn marshals keep the race clean and allow the racers to avoid the difficulty of mastering the two gutter lanes (no easy task, getting a good rhythm in the gutters takes a lot of laps – JR). Ryan Archambeault took advantage of the available Beedle built cars and bought one from Peter’s stock.
He then proceeded to blow the doors off everyone else getting top lap honors in 4 of the six lanes as well as fastest lap of
- Man of the Event – Ryan Archambeault sprinkling his magic over his cars…
the race. Ryan claims he only had to tweak the shoes a bit and change the slip-on tires to a suitable size for the track – the rest was his driving skills and Gary’s building skills, quite the combination! Ryan beat Peter Lentros by a whopping 14 laps, a very impressive feat considering Peter has turned a ton of laps on this track. Mike Resnick ended up finishing third, an unusual finishing result for “the machine”, he rarely finishes any race lower than 1st! Rounding out the top four was Tom Smith, a fantastic result for Tom as he usually avoids the faster cars. Full race results are posted in the race results section of the website.
Pro Spec Stock
- Spec Stock Pro Podium – Rob Hayes 4th, John Pileggi 3rd, Ryan Archambeault 2nd, Jonathan Reimels 1st
As the winner of the amateur race, Ryan elected to move up and run with the Pros for the day. Would his car make it through another six lane event? Would he be able to sweep the Spec Stock class? The answer was – almost… If it wasn’t for an errant body that decided it had had enough and came off the chassis during a de-slot, he would have been the first amateur to win both the amateur and pro race in the same event. Ryan’s woes tightened up the race considerably with Jonathan Reimels, John Pileggi and Rob Hayes now clearly in the hunt going into the last heat. John was in the green lane, Ryan was in the blue lane, Jonathan was stuck in the purple gutter while Rob had to stand by and watch having finished his race a few heats earlier. When the dust settled, Jonathan continued his win streak by pulling off 71 laps in purple giving him a 4 lap victory over the trailing trio of Ryan, John and Rob all of whom finished on the same lap! Ryan recovered from his out of
Marshaling the Mile - much easier running just 6 lanes!
body experience beating John by 10 sections who in turn beat Rob by 21 sections – that’s close racing!
John Reimels finished in 5th beating Vince Tamburo and Paul Ryer by less than a lap – all three 9 laps behind Rob. Full race results are posted in the race results section of the website. In summary, the six lane experiment was deemed a success. Marshalling six lanes was certainly less hectic for the turn marshals and having the gutter lanes empty eliminated the pile ups that tend to occur in the tighter turns. All-in-all, it was a real pleasure racing on this fantastic track.
Amateur Super Stock
With the early departure of Jim Colligan, Donny Hall and Tom Smith (I can only assume they were heading to the local bar to watch the Pats game – JR), we had 7 amateurs
- Super Stock Amateur Podium – Mike Resnick 4th, Peter Medieros Jr 3rd, Peter Lentros 2nd, Ryan Archambeault 1st
competing for top honors on the super-fast and super-smooth Brystal Viper track. Apparently Ryan had his Wheaties for breakfast because he once again ran away with the race building up a 12 lap cushion over home town favorite, Peter Lentros (favorite only because he owns the place – JR). Ryan managed top lap total in 5 of the six lanes as well as fastest lap – this man’s on fire. Coming home third was Peter Medeiros Jr followed by Mike Resnick in fourth. Full race results are posted in the race results section of the website.
Pro Super Stock
- Super Stocks on the Viper – Fast and Smooth.
Since the day was running long (and the Patriots were about to kick off – JR), the Pros unanimously agreed to forgo the main event and base the entire results on the 5 minute round robin. Having won the amateur race, Ryan once again had the opportunity to sweep the day, this time in Super Stocks. Hoping to shatter Ryan’s dream were quite a few folks including Erik Eckhardt using his raffle winning, John Pileggi built car, Jonathan Reimels intent on keeping his winning streak alive and John Pileggi who wanted to get the monkey off his back and break his season long drought… Well, the race lived up to its billing, going into
Super Stock Pro Podium - John Reimels 4th, John Pileggi 3rd, Erik Eckhardt 2nd, Jonathan Reimels 1st
the last heat Jonathan had a one lap lead over John Pileggi with Erik Eckhardt one lap further behind. Apparently Ryan had finally run out of gas (it was his fourth race of the day) running respectably but not up with the lap leaders. Unfortunately the final heat was marred with a few track calls as the tension and exhaustion took its toll. In the end, Jonathan was able to increase his lead to three laps over Erik Eckhardt with John Pileggi having a tough heat in blue falling to third, 5 laps back from Erik. John Reimels managed a fourth once again beating Paul Ryer by sections (it was an interesting ride home – JR). Full race results are posted in the race results section of the website.
Thanks go to Peter Lentros for hosting the event, Stez and Tom Smith for getting the facility ready to race and Dave Muse who manned the computers and ran the races. For those who’ve never been to Modelville Hobby, you don’t know what you’re missing – put it on your bucket list.
The next race will be at Catfish International Speedway on February 14th (yes, we’re racing on Valentine’s Day – buy flowers for your wife, pack you pit box and join us for the race…)where we’ll be racing Spec Stocks w/ modern NASCAR bodies (Isn’t the Republic of Cambridge more suited for the cheese nibbling, wine sipping road racing classes? – JR) and CMPM on Rob’s fantastic Brystal track. Pink cars with hearts will be awarded extra points.