MARC is back at the Taj MaHO Raceway
Suffield, CT March 10, 2018 – For the 1st time in over 5 years on Saturday, March 10, 2018 the Miniature Auto Racing Club held HO scale slot car races at Dan DeCosmo‘s Taj MaHO Raceway. During many weeks of cleaning it was found
Practice underway on Dan's fast Scorpion layout
that the old faithful Compaq docking station laptop that housed the original Lanemaster race management program had finally seen its last race. A new laptop was installed and due to Scale Auto not being able to supply their new USB hardware for the new version of Lanemaster the track was outfitted with the latest version of Trackmate, which worked flawlessly with the exception of some lane rotation issues that were quickly rectified after race 1 of the day.
The first race of the day was spec racer and 18 racers took part in it Dan DeCosmo piloted Ryan Archambault’s “loaner car” to an impressive 21 lap victory over Greg Berstein who was also in a Archambault “rent a ride”. This would mark the 1st race this season that Nick Kanan would enter a Spec Racer event and not take home the blue ribbon as he has gone undefeated so far in the MAHOPRA series. Nick still ran an impressive run taking 3rd over master car builder Ryan Archambault in 4th who would have been a contender if not for the dreaded red lane. Tom Bussmann and John Reimels both garnered over 500 laps to round out the top six. Erik Eckhardt placed seventh followed by MARC
Sportsman Spec Racer Podium - Tom Bussmann 1st, Tom Jahl 2nd, Terry Ayer 3rd and Jimmy Colligan 4th
“Founding Fathers” Tom Gray in 8th & Jim Macartney in 9th. Benny Leyro made the trek from Yonkers and round out the top 10 by sections over Tom Jahl in 11th. Jerome Burwell was our long distance participant of the day just a few laps out of the top 10. Terry Ayer placed 13th just 1 lap ahead of oh Jimmy Callahan who was 1 lap of Tom Kanan in 15th who had equipment failure on the super fast orange lane which took him out of contention for a podium finish. 16th place went to Mike Tiffany followed by Hal Pierce in 17th and Paul Ryer had mechanical issues throughout the race bringing up the rear of the field.
Race 2 was Sportsman Class and 5 racers took to the Scorpion to do battle. Greg (soon to be bumped from Sportsman) Berstein was in another rent a racer from Ryan. Greg blasted out 553 laps (4 laps more than his polymer magnet Spec Racer) to take the win by over 100 laps. Terry Ayer & Jimmy Callahan had a good battle for 2nd where Terry bested Jimmy by 9 laps. Tom Jahl had all sorts of troubles (mostly on red) or he would have made it a 3 way
Pro CMPM Podium - Dan DeCosmo 1st, Tom Kanan 2nd, John Reimels 3rd and Ryan Archambault 4th
fight for 2nd. Hal Pierce placed 5th with solid middle lane runs.
The last race of the day was CMPM and once again a Archambault loaner would take the win making it a sweep for Ryan’s cars. Dan ran a solid race and held off a hard charging Tom Kanan who closed from 9 down to 1.5 at the end. John Reimels ran another solid clean race to take the bronze. Ryan Archambault had a gear issue on orange which killed his chances for contending for the win as he ran stellar on all the other lanes & finished 4th. Paul Ryer placed 5th with strong runs in middle 4 lanes. Tom Gray struggled a bit on the gutters and had a couple body offs on a center lane which made him settle for 6th. Once again Jim Macartney followed his fellow NHite and took 7th. Jim also had a couple strong lane totals. Benny Leyro placed 8th with a very fast car while Erik Eckhardt had to sort out his controller on the red lane where he dropped close to 50 laps to the rest of the field. Jerome Burwell was 10th followed by Tom Bussmann in 11th and Nick Kanan in 12th who broke in his 1st heat.
