A New Track is Born
Sheffield, Connecticut April 13, 2019 – Twelve racers joined Dan Decosmo at his awesome Taj MaHO Raceway for the inaugural race on his new MaxTrax Scorpion track.
Dan's new MaxTrax Scorpionish layout!
The track was in immaculate shape in large part due to the alignment pins that Dan and Peter Lentros developed, no more shimming track sections to get even transitions between sections. Man, did it work, the smoothest MaxTrax I’ve ever experienced. Also, the 4-lane configuration eliminated much of the mayhem created by the typical tight 6-lane Scorpion tracks that we race on. I give Dan’s track two thumbs up!
Spec Racer
Pro Spec Racer Podium - Dan Decosmo 1st, Ryan Archambault 2nd, Rob Hayes 3rd and Tommy Gray 4th
First up was MARC’s spec racer class running both the Pros and Sportsman in one round robin event. As practice got underway, two things became evident – first, the general feeling from the crowd was that these cars were faster than expected on this track and, second, the red gutter lane was a real handful. The blue, white and yellow lanes were fast with a great natural rhythm; the red lane required patience and a lot of finesse to master – get through red and then blast through the other lanes – more easily said than done. Dan and Ryan Archambault had a great battle in the Pro division matching lane totals in the red, blue and white lanes. It came down to a one lap difference in yellow giving Dan the victory over Ryan. Slightly off the pace of the dynamic duo was Rob Hayes in 3rd and Tom Gray in 4th.
Sportsman Spec Racer Podium - Terry Ayer 1st, Hal Pierce 2nd, O'Jimmy Colligan 3rd and Mike Tiffany 4th
In the Sportsman division, Terry Ayer ran away with the race taking down the victory by a whopping 22 laps over the battling twosome of Hal Pierce and O’Jimmy Callahan. Jim’s mastery on the red and blue lanes wasn’t enough to overcome Hal’s great run on white giving Hal a one lap advantage in the overall results.
Sportsman – Modifieds
Sportsman Modified Podium - Terry Ayer 1st, O'Jimmy Colligan 2nd, John Schoenfeld 3rd and Mike Tiffany 4th
Next up was the Sportsman division running Modifieds. Managing the heat buildup was crucial as a few racers soon learned – 5 minutes heats take a toll on the armatures if the car is set up too low to the rails. Once again, Terry Ayer led the way with another dominant performance taking the win over O’Jimmy Colligan by 19 laps and setting high lap total on all four lanes. John Schoenfeld ran a very consistent race taking down third followed by Mike Tiffany in 4th. Hal Pierce suffered a
Hal and Jimmy managing the heat...
melted pinion ending his race with a DNF in 5th.
Pros – CMPM
Pro CMPM Podium - Ryan Archambault 4th, Rob Hayes 3rd, John Reimels 2nd and Dan Decosmo 1st
The last race of the day had the Pros running CMPM – a breath-taking experience on this fast track! Watching these cars fly around the track was almost as much fun as racing them (nah, running them was MUCH more fun – JR). With the down-force generated by these cars, the red lane had the same rhythm as the other lanes with a well set-up car. And Dan’s car was certainly well set up! John Reimels tried to keep Dan honest but fell 5 laps short allowing Dan to take the victory with a 507 lap total, 95 laps more than he had in the Spec Racer event. Rob Hayes managed to take 3rd beating Ryan Archambault to the finish by 4 laps.
Thanks go to Dan for getting the venue all spruced up for the event. It’s great to be back at the Taj MaHO after a few years’ absence.
Next Event – The last race of the season will be at Peter Lentros’ LenJet Raceway on May 11th. We’ll all be running Spec Racers followed by the Sportsman running Modifieds and the Pros running Neo. Yes, you read that correctly, the Pros will be running Neos for the first time since I started racing with MARC ten years ago!
John Reimels