4 Races – 4 Winners at LenJet Raceway
Ashland, MA, March 12, 2016, Thanks to Tri-State members Rick Carter, Jerome
Getting ready to race
Burwell and Pete Barclay’s appearance, we had 23 racers – 6 Amateurs and 17 Pros - making this the highest attended event of the season. Peter Lentros’ LenJet Raceway always draws well, this race was no exception. On the docket were Spec Racers on the Champion and CMPM on the Viper. The longer than usual driver’s meeting made for a very long day but the discussion concerning the upcoming Nats made it worthwhile especially with Tri-State co-hosting the event with us.
Spec Racer on the Champion
The final minutes of Spec Racer practice
It’s been almost a year since MARC ran on the Champion but everyone was quickly up to speed – Spec Racers are just fantastic on this track. Running low was the key to getting through the esses but not so low that the crown gear would trip up on the rail. With the large number of participants, the 90 minute practice session flew by, getting time on the gutter lanes was crucial for success , master the gutters and the middle lanes were a piece of cake. In general, White tended to be the high lap heat for most racers with Red the lowest.
First up were the amateurs, the battle between O’Jimmy Colligan and Donny Hall was
Amateurs battling it out for top honors
tight throughout the race until the last heat where O’Jimmy had a terrible heat whilst in White. I guess Jimmy didn’t get the memo that White was supposed to be the best lane, it was his worst lane by far dropping 6 laps off his pace from the other three lanes… Donny’s consistency across all four lanes paid off with a 4 lap victory over O’Jimmy; Donny’s lap totals never varied more than 3 laps across all lanes. Mike Tiffany took down third with another great performance for this MARC newbie; it was great to see Rob Hayes taking Mike under his wing during practice teaching him the ins and outs of tuning an HO magnet car. Tom Smith pushed Mike hard but ended up fourth after a miserable time in White – apparently O’Jimmy wasn’t the only one missing the memo about White being the best lane. Bob Withers finished 5th followed by Durf Hyson in 6th.
With Donny and O’Jimmy passing on the move-up, Mike Tiffany joined the Pro ranks for
Spec Racer Pro Podium - John Reimels 1st, Rob Hayes 2nd, Jonathan Reimels 3rd, John Stezelecki 4th
this event bringing the field up to a very healthy 18. John Pileggi immediately had problems in his first heat with a soft motor. A quick armature change rectified the problem but not before he lost over 30 laps in the pits. Jonathan Reimels seemed to have things in control through his first 3 heats until a broken wire in his controller cost him 15 laps. Since no one seemed interesting in winning this thing, John Reimels stepped up with a race high 91 laps in White (John DID get the memo…) handing him a one lap victory over 2nd place finisher Rob Hayes. Jonathan borrowed a controller from his old man coming home in third followed by John Stezelecki in four with a good consistent run across all four lanes. Paul Ryer had a lousy run in Red relegating him to fifth followed by Erik Eckhardt in sixth.
CMPM on the Viper
After a quick pizza break it was time to start 2 hours of practice for CMPM. These cars just
Rob helping Mike Tiffany with the intricacies of magnet car racing
keep getting faster and faster. With a new batch of Quicker Engineering’s CMPM tires arriving in the mail around noontime, you could hear the air wrenches in the background busily mounting up tires. These tires just work awesome on the Viper – the handling improvement was nothing short of amazing. With three amateurs and two Pros giving this race a pass, we combined the field into one large 5 minute, 18 heat round robin followed by a 3 minute main for the top six finishers. Rick Carter was the first to have an equipment failure dropping him out of contention followed by Ryan Archambault with loose motor magnets plaguing him all race long. When the smoke cleared the finishing order for the Amateurs had newbie Bob Withers on top (Sweet Win!!!! -JR) followed by Durf Hyson in second and Mike Tiffany in third – nice run for the amateurs. Making the main were Jonathan Reimels, John Pileggi, Rob Hayes, John Reimels, Pete Barclay and Paul Ryer finishing the round robin in that order.
The main event was a real barn burner between Jonathan Reimels and John Pileggi.
The CMPM Pro Podium - John Pileggi 1st, Jonathan Reimels 2nd, Pete Barclay 3rd, John Reimels 4th
Jonathan was hoping to end Dr P’s streak of five straight victories but it just wasn’t in the cards; John held off Jonathan in the last heat to finish a half a lap ahead of him. Rob Hayes had pickup shoe problems ending his race early leaving the battle for third to Pete, Paul and John. Pete made his drive up from NJ worthwhile by beating John to the finish line by 5 laps followed by Paul who really seemed to struggle in the gutter lanes.
With only three races remaining on the schedule here is where things stand:
Super Stock / CMPM Series
- John Pileggi is making a shambles of the series with six straight victories; all that’s left is the battle for second with only 15 points separating 2nd through 4th.
- Donny Hall and O’Jimmy Colligan are tied for first in the series with the nod going to O’Jimmy with three victories to Donny two. The next three races will be exciting
Spec Racer / G-Jet Series
- John Reimels finally broke the no multi-winner streak in the Pro series with his second victory of the season but the battle for the title is extremely close with a three way tie for first with 4th and 5th only 10 points behind.
- Donny is sitting on a 15 point cushion over O’Jimmy in the Amateur series with Tom another 20 points behind.
Upcoming Races:
- We’ll be at Ryan Archambault’s Fast Five Raceway on April 9th with Trans-Am bodied G-Jets and Super Stocks on his SnakeBite track. This will be the first time MARC is racing G-Jets on the SnakeBite, the racing should be great. As always, doors open at 8:00 with practice starting at 8:30
- We’ll also be back at LenJet Raceway on March 26th for some Gravity Racing. We’ll be running ECHORR SS on the MaxTrax, Gravity cars on the Champion to be followed by the first race on the newly finished Parma track using anglewinder BRASCAR’s IROC style. Doors open at 8:00 with practice starting immediately.