Gravity Racing at LenJet Raceway
Ashland, MA March 26, 2016– The day started out slow when there were only 3 racers at Peter Lentros’ LenJet Raceway when the doors opened at 8:00 AM. Peter, Paul
Ryer and I contemplated canceling the event but we decided to wait to see if anyone else would show up. Luckily we kept the doors open – by 10:00 AM we had 14 racers in attendance; my goal was to get 8 racers with the hopes of 12. Even more impressive, 9 of the 14 racers had their own Gravity car, five of which had actually built their own car – what a difference from our first race when Ryan Archambault and I supplied loaners to 2/3 of the field. Thanks to everybody involved, Gravity Racing in New England might just take hold!
ECHORR Super Stocks on the Python
First up were ECHORR Super Stocks on Peter Lentros’ Python MaxTrax, a track requiring
cars with both speed and handling. Heavily favored in this race were the racers from the local T-Jet club – The East Coast Outlaws; they race T-Jet Super Stocks on a regular basis. And, to no one’s surprise, the top four finishers were all seasoned T-Jet veterans. Had Greg Burstein not broken a guide pin, it would have been the top five. Setting high lap totals in both Yellow and White, Ryan Archambault won the event followed by a real close battle for second between Matt Patrick and Paul Ryer, Paul taking the honors by sections. Finishing the sweep by T-Jet experienced racers was none other than track owner Peter Lentros. The first non-T-Jetter was Mike Resnick borrowing a car from sixth place finisher John Reimels (Mike forgot the rule about not beating the team owner…- JR).
ECHORR T-Jet SS Results:
Racer |
Yellow |
Blue |
White |
Red |
Total |
|
1 |
Ryan Archambault |
25 |
26 |
26 |
24 |
101 |
2 |
Paul Ryer |
23 |
25 |
25 |
25 |
98.24 |
3 |
Matt Patrick |
23 |
26 |
24 |
25 |
98.13 |
4 |
Peter Lentros |
24 |
25 |
25 |
23 |
97 |
5 |
Mike Resnick |
23 |
24 |
24 |
23 |
94 |
6 |
John Reimels |
23 |
24 |
24 |
23 |
94 |
7 |
Erik Eckhardt |
23 |
23 |
25 |
22 |
93.27 |
8 |
Rob Hayes |
21 |
24 |
25 |
24 |
93.22 |
9 |
Bob Farnsworth |
23 |
23 |
24 |
23 |
93.05 |
10 |
Tom Smith |
20 |
23 |
23 |
21 |
87.09 |
11 |
Tom Bussmann |
20 |
21 |
22 |
24 |
87.07 |
12 |
Dominic Leone |
22 |
17 |
24 |
22 |
85 |
13 |
Durf Hyson |
16 |
17 |
20 |
18 |
71 |
14 |
Greg Burnstein |
24 |
0 |
25 |
12 |
61 |
Gravity Cars on the Champion
Next up was the feature event – Gravity Cars on the Champion. The last time we ran
Gravity Cars on this track (July 2015 – JR), it was a close battle between Ryan Archambault using a Doug Morris built AFX pan car and John Reimels, running a Joel Pennington sidewinder clone. Ryan won the event by two sections over John; the field was split amongst mini-motored cars, AFX pan cars and BRASCARs using the Mabuchi HT-50 motor. This year the field was heavily biased toward AFX pan cars with only 3 mini-motored cars and no BRASCARs (technically the BRASCARs used last year were illegal; they failed the pin test but were allowed to run anyway to help fill out the field – JR). Of the eleven pan cars entered this year, we had four Doug Morris built cars, four built by John Reimels and one each built by Dominic Leone, Tom Smith and
Matt Patrick. For the mini-motored cars, we had one Scott Terry car, one Al Thurman car and one re-engineered car from Durf Hyson. The heavy preponderance of AFX cars remains a bit of a mystery – the mini-motored cars struggled in the squiggles while the AFX cars were able to power through them. On the rest of the track, it was a toss-up which cars were better. When the race was over, once again it came down to sections between John Reimels and Ryan Archambault – this year John taking the laurels by a few feet over Ryan. Greg Burstein did not have guide pin failure in this race finishing a very respectable 3rdwith a borrowed car from Ryan followed by Erik
Eckhardt finishing a close 4th with a borrowed car from John Reimels (Greg and Erik did NOT forget the rule about team owners – JR). The first mini-motored car was that of Rob Hayes finishing in 5th with his Scott Terry built anglewinder. Rob was on the winning pace of last year showing the mini-motored cars are not totally out-classed on this track. Sixth was taken by Peter Lentros with yet another Doug Morris car.
Gravity Race Results:
Racer |
Red |
White |
Blue |
Yellow |
Total |
|
1 |
John Reimels |
30 |
30 |
30 |
29 |
119.19 |
2 |
Ryan Archambault |
30 |
31 |
30 |
28 |
119.11 |
3 |
Greg Burstein |
28 |
30 |
30 |
29 |
117 |
4 |
Erik Eckhardt |
29 |
29 |
29 |
28 |
115 |
5 |
Rob Hayes |
28 |
29 |
29 |
28 |
114 |
6 |
Peter Lentros |
27 |
29 |
29 |
27 |
112 |
7 |
Mike Resnick |
27 |
29 |
28 |
27 |
111 |
8 |
Paul Ryer |
26 |
28 |
28 |
27 |
109 |
9 |
Tom Bussmann |
26 |
28 |
23 |
26 |
103.23 |
10 |
Tom Smith |
26 |
25 |
26 |
26 |
103.14 |
11 |
Bob Farnsworth |
25 |
24 |
24 |
24 |
97 |
12 |
Dominic Leone |
23 |
24 |
23 |
25 |
95 |
13 |
Matt Patrick |
24 |
23 |
23 |
22 |
23 |
14 |
Durf Hyson |
14 |
20 |
11 |
18 |
63 |
IROC BRASCARs on the Parma
The last race of the day was an IROC race on the newly refurbished Parma track. Thanks
go out to all that helped rebuild this track and bring it back to life – it was an honor to participate in its rechristening! Unfortunately we decided to use my BRASCAR anglewinders for this event. While they ran fine the week prior to the event, as the track got more and more broken in, the worse they ran. This is NOT a reflection on the track but on the grippy nature of the anglewinders. In hindsight, we should have used my BRASCAR in-lines… However, everyone seemed to enjoy the event anyway. The race boiled down to a battle between Greg Burstein and Mike Resnick, both racking up high lap totals on the very difficult blue lane (difficult because of the car, not the lane). In
fact, Mike was able to turn the race high lap total on this lane which is simply amazing giving him a one lap victory over Greg. Ryan Archambault finished third giving him the best finishing total of the day with a 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Proud track owner, Peter Lentros finished 4th followed by John Reimels and Paul Ryer in 5th and 6th respectively.
Parma IROC Race Results:
Racer |
Red |
White |
Green |
Orange |
Blue |
Yellow |
Total |
|
1 |
Mike Resnick |
30 |
28 |
30 |
26 |
31 |
28 |
173 |
2 |
Greg Burstein |
28 |
30 |
28 |
29 |
28 |
29 |
172 |
3 |
Ryan Archambault |
31 |
26 |
28 |
28 |
25 |
29 |
167 |
4 |
Peter Lentros |
24 |
31 |
30 |
26 |
26 |
28 |
165 |
5 |
John Reimels |
26 |
29 |
29 |
28 |
22 |
28 |
164 |
6 |
Paul Ryer |
27 |
28 |
30 |
24 |
24 |
27 |
160.43 |
7 |
Erik Eckhardt |
29 |
30 |
23 |
28 |
22 |
28 |
160.21 |
8 |
Tom Smith |
27 |
28 |
26 |
22 |
25 |
27 |
155 |
9 |
Tom Bussmann |
28 |
23 |
28 |
28 |
18 |
27 |
152 |
10 |
Matt Patrick |
25 |
23 |
27 |
26 |
26 |
24 |
151 |
11 |
Dominic Leone |
24 |
26 |
25 |
23 |
25 |
25 |
148 |
12 |
Durf Hyson |
25 |
21 |
22 |
22 |
19 |
22 |
131 |
Thanks go out to Peter Lentros for hosting this event and to ALL of the attendees for their participation. This event exceeded my expectations, with your support we can continue to grow this style of racing here in New England. The next event will be sometime in July at Paul Ryer’s South Shore Speedway in Hingham. Hopefully we can debut brass panned T-Jets for the IROC race.
Brass Car Advocate,
John Reimels