Pileggi and Hall Sweep the Day
Ashland, Massachusetts, January 9, 2016- The first MARC race of the new year brought us to LenJet Raceway located at Modelville Hobby in Ashland, Massachusetts.
The Purple Mile - a daunting track
Hopefully this race starts the resurgence of the amateur ranks; we had an awesome total of 9 amateur racers join 12 pros for a season high attendance of 21 folks. LenJet Raceway usually draws the biggest crowds and this race was no exception. Helping to swell the amateur ranks were three newbies, the father son duo of Rob and Eric Licho from Newton, MA and Mike Tiffany, all the way from the Danbury, CT area. Also attending their first MARC race of the year was another father son duo, Tom and Casey Bussmann – interestingly enough, also from Danbury, CT. Hopefully these guys can carpool to future events!
Spec Racer – Amateur
First up was MARC’s Spec Racer class on the Purple Mile. Once again we decided to run the center 6 lanes of the high banked 8 lane track, leaving the gutter lanes open makes for
Amateur Podium - Mike Tiffany 4th, Tom Smith 3rd, Jimmy Colligan 2nd, Donny Hall 1st
a much cleaner race. Amateurs were up first, with a healthy nine entrees, no need to combine the amateurs with the pros. Donny Hall and O’Jimmy Colligan battled for the victory, Jimmy handling the gutter lanes better but Donny blasting away in the center lanes for a four lap victory. Battling for third were Tom Smith and newbie Mike Tiffany, both finishing on the same lap sections; Tom beating Mike by 16 sections. Newbie Eric Licho, was also an impressive 5th. This new crop of racers is exactly what we need to ensure the growth of the club – WELCOME! (see race results for full run down for finishing positions)
Spec Racer – Pro
With the top three amateurs passing on the opportunity to race with the pros, we had newbie Mike Tiffany make the move up bringing the pro field up to 12 racers. Late arrival
Pro Podium - Pileggi 1st, Reimels Jr 2nd, Hayes 3rd, Reimels Sr 4th
Mike Resnick decided to join us and entered the race with no practice time bringing the field up to 13. This was Mike’s first appearance of the season but since he’s no stranger to MVH, jumping into the fray with no practice time was no problem. John Pileggi ran away with the race setting high lap totals in all lanes but white and yellow. Trying to keep him honest was the duo of Jonathan Reimels and Rob Hayes but all they could manage was second and third respectively six and eight laps off John Pileggi’s pace. These top three dominated the event leaving the rest to battle for fourth. John Reimels ended up best of the rest with a lap total 24 laps off of third place – ouch… John held off the two Viper cars in the field of Ryan Archambault and Paul Ryer – these cars have potential, Ryan set fast lap of the event with Paul settings the fourth best time but further tweaks are required to match the overall pace of the highly tuned BSRT cars. (see race results for full run down on finishing positions)
CMPM – Combined
With the newbies deciding that CMPM is just too fast to race at their first event, we were
The awesome Viper - fast, fast, fast...
down to four amateurs and 9 pros so a single combined round robin was run. With only 9 pros on a six lane track, we didn’t make the criteria for a main event so all the marbles were on the round robin race. John Pileggi showed that his performance in Spec Racer was no fluke by dominating the CMPM race as well setting high lap total in every lane but yellow beating second place finisher Jonathan Reimels by 13 laps. Jonathan’s only consolation was setting fastest lap while in blue, Dr Pileggi setting fast lap in all the other lanes. Make no mistake about it, John Pileggi is back to his old winning ways after his Carpal Tunnel surgery at the end of last season. Rob Hayes finished third with Amateur winner, Donny Hall finishing a strong 4th. The carnage was higher than normal with various maladies including errant pick up shoes, over heating motors
CMPM Podium - Pileggi 1st, Reimels Jr 2nd, Hayes 3rd, Hall 4th (1st in Amateur)
and other problems. (see race results for full run down of finishing positions)
Next up we’re back at LenJet on February 13th with F1 bodied G-Jets (ughhhh – I can’t help myself, JR) and Super Stocks. Tracks to be determined soon.
John Reimels
MARC Communication Director