Gravity Racing of New England – January 2, 2017

Ringing in the New Year with a GRoNE at Fast Five Raceway

Gravity Cars on Ryan's Snake Bite track - Awesome!

Southampton, MA   January 2, 2017 – With eleven racers in attendance for the first Gravity Racing of New England event of the year, it’s apparent that interest in these types of cars is continuing to grow in New England.  We had Bill Bonsma join us for his first brass car race and judging by his enthusiasm afterwards, I don’t think it’ll be his last.  We also had Greg Burstein, Dave Bryden and Bob Farnsworth back with us again, hopefully we’ll be seeing more T-Jetters as we continue to flourish. Given the enthusiasm for brass cars displayed at this race, we’ll be hosting races every other month rather than once a quarter.  A big thank you to all involved!

Gravity Race

Ryan had his Snake Bite track in awesome shape for us when we arrived, he said he spent

A little bit of everything

over 3 hours cleaning the track and judging by the results, I believe him.  No need for double back tape – the track had great grip all day long.  After a 2-hour practice session for the Gravity Cars where lots of car swapping occurred, the field was set to race.  We had an interesting array of cars – 2 Sidewinders (based on Joel Pennington’s awesome design), 2 Scott Terry Anglewinders, 2 John Reimels Anglewinders, 2 Doug Morris AFX cars (non-lowered), 1 John Reimels AFX car (non-lowered) and 1 John Reimels lowered AFX car.  While Snake Bite’s long straights and fast sweepers seemed to favor the mini-motored cars, there were enough tight bits for the

Gravity Podium - Greg B 4th, Ryan A 3rd, John R 2nd, Bill B 1st

AFX cars to be competitive.   At the end of the 10 heat round robin, Bill Bonsma’s sidewinder beat John Reimels’ anglewinder to the finish by less than a lap – this could help explain Bill’s enthusiasm for the class!  Ryan finished 3 laps back in third using his AFX car followed by Greg Burstein one lap further in arears using the other Doug Morris AFX car.  Enthusiast Mike Tiffany finished fifth in the other sidewinder followed by Paul Ryer using the ill-fated lowered AFX car that suffered from some teething issues (which is the polite way of saying the builder screwed up and didn’t tighten the nut for the guide pin sufficiently – JR); the car was fast based on the lap times but too many offs occurred before the lose guide pin was diagnosed – maybe next time it’ll show it’s true potential.

 

Driver

Red

Wht

Grn

Org

Blu

Yel

Total

1 Bill Bonsma

26

28

28

26

28

28

164.70

2 John Reimels

27

28

27

27

27

28

164.20

3 Ryan Archambault

25

26

27

28

28

27

161

4 Greg Burstein

26

26

26

28

26

28

160

5 Mike Tiffany

24

25

26

27

22

25

149

6 Paul Ryer

25

27

24

23

24

25

148

7 Tom Smith

23

22

23

23

22

23

136

8 Jim Macartney

21

22

22

23

23

22

133

9 Dave Bryden

21

22

23

22

21

21

130

10 Tom Bussmann

20

23

20

22

21

23

129

BRASCAR IROC

Next up was an IROC race using the original BRASCAR in-lines built over 6 years ago by yours truly.  Little has been done to these cars over the years, let’s just say they’ve seen a

Six years old and still running strong - the oft used IROC BRASCARs

lot of racing in their time – same motors, same bodies, with no major rebuilds required!  Greg Burstein dominated the race setting or equaling the high lap total on each lane.  Battling for second were Bill Bonsma and John Reimels, Bill beating John to the line once again by less than a lap.  Track owner Ryan finished 4th beating Paul Ryer to the finish by sections.  With the exception of Greg’s win, racing was tight throughout the field with four pairs of drivers getting the same lap total – only three drivers finished not tied with someone – amazingly close racing!

 

Driver

Red

Wht

Grn

Org

Blu

Yel

Total

1 Greg Burstein

25

25

26

28

24

26

154

2 Bill Bonsma

23

25

25

24

24

26

147.60

3 John Reimels

22

25

25

26

23

26

147.25

4 Ryan Archambault

23

24

25

26

22

25

145.40

5 Paul Ryer

24

25

24

26

24

22

145.15

6 Mike Tiffany

22

24

24

24

22

23

139

7 Tom Bussmann

22

23

25

22

19

22

133.52

8 Tom Smith

21

21

22

24

23

22

133.07

9 Dave Bryden

20

22

25

24

26

23

130

10 Bob Farnsworth

21

19

23

23

18

19

123.32

11 Jim Macartney

19

20

23

21

19

21

123.18

 

 

ECHORR Super Stocks

Last up were T-Jets (ECHORR Super Stocks) on Ryan’s Harley track.  Once again the track

T-Jet Podium - John R 4th, Paul R 3rd, Ryan A 2nd, Greg B 1st

was in amazing shape thanks to Ryan’s cleaning efforts the night before.  T-Jetter Greg Burstein showed the field he knows how to drive and build these cars dominating the race with a car he finished building days before the race.  Ryan finished second followed by Paul Ryer in third.  John Reimels finally beat Bill Bonsma, the two finishing 4th and 5th respectively.

 

Driver

Red

Wht

Blu

Yel

Total

1 Greg Burstein

34

35

34

34

137

2 Ryan Archambault

34

32

33

33

132

3 Paul Ryer

32

33

32

33

130

4 John Reimels

31

32

30

33

126

5 Bill Bonsma

29

31

31

32

123

6 Tom Bussmann

29

30

31

30

120

7 Bob Farnsworth

28

29

29

30

116

8 Mike Tiffany

29

28

27

29

113

9 Jim Macartney

28

29

28

27

112

10 Dave Bryden

26

26

27

27

106

Special tanks go to Ryan Archambault and his family for letting us invade their home on the last day of the holidays.  And a BIG thank you to all the attendees, without your dedicated support, we wouldn’t be able to host any races!

Next on the GRoNE schedule will be a race hosted by Peter Lentros at his LenJet facility on Saturday, February 25th where we’ll be racing Gravity Cars on the Boomerang.  I’ll announce the support races at a later date.  Please mark your calendars accordingly; let’s go for a new attendance record.

 

John Reimels

Brass Car Advocate

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