Star Wars Event – GRoNE Style

Ashland, Massachusetts  May 4, 2019   We had eleven drivers for our Star Wars Day Gravity Event at Peter Lentros’ LenJet Raceway.  No one came in Star Wars garb so no extra laps were awarded, however Paul Ryer threatened to come as Princess Leia in her slave attire but thankfully he couldn’t find a costume his size…

Gravity Cars on the Champion

The return of Gravity Racing on the Champion

First up were Gravity cars on Peter’s Champion track.  The last time this track was used for Gravity Car racing was at the 2016 Nats where Scott Terry won with a total of 125.06 laps using Joel Pennington’s AFX based car.  Three years of development later, the mini-motored cars now seem to have the upper hand with the top three finishers beating Scott’s lap total.  For this race, the field consisted of 10 M20 motored anglewinders and one M20 sidewinder.

Gravity Race Podium - Paul Ryer 1st, Rob Hayes 2nd, John Reimels 3rd and Peter Lentros 4th

While racers dug out their AFX cars for practice, the mini-motored cars seemed to be the best option however, to be totally honest, no one had an AFX car as good as the one built by Joel.   The battle for the top spot was close with the top four finishing within 3 laps of each other with Paul Ryer taking down the win by virtue of his performance in the gutter lanes.  Paul was using the sidewinder he built for last year’s Nats where he finished in second place.  Following Paul

Gravity Race Podium - Bottom Side - Paul Ryer 1st, Rob Hayes 2nd, John Reimels 3rd and Peter Lentros 4th

home in second was Rob Hayes with his modified Scott Terry anglewinder, one lap behind Paul.  In third was John Reimels using one of his center-hinged anglewinders followed by Peter Lentros using a pickup shoe anglewinder built by John Reimels.  The battle for fifth was equally tight with Donny Hall finishing one lap ahead of Mike Tiffany and three ahead of Tommy Gray.

T-Jets on the Bear

T-Jets on the Bear

After a quick lunch of pizza, it was time for HOPRA T-Jets on the Bear.  Paul Crosby had a conflict so the field was down to ten.  Once again, the battle for the top spot was very close, this time only three laps separated the top 5.  Rob Hayes got his revenge on Paul Ryer beating him to the line by half a lap.  Peter Lentros finished third, 2 laps down on Rob followed by John Reimels and Donny Hall another lap down; John

T-Jet Race Podium - Rob Hayes 1st, Paul Ryer 2nd, Peter Lentros 3rd and John Reimels 4th

beating Donny by half a lap.

IROC BRASCAR Anglewinders on the Parma

The last race was supposed to be an IROC race on the immaculately restored Parma track using some Mabuchi HT50 motored Landshark anglewinders.  While the track was immaculate, the computer running the race was less so.  At the conclusion of the race, the computer crashed making retrieving the results impossible.  While everyone claimed to have won the race, I believe the actual winner was Cody Pare but without proof, the race had to be abandoned.

Thanks go to Peter for hosting the event and special thanks go to all attending the event.  It was great to see a healthy eleven racers for the gravity race proving that even in the crowded New England HO race calendar, gravity racing is craving out its own niche.  As folks prepare for the Nats, we’ll lay off gravity racing for a few months but maybe we can squeeze in a race over the summer.

John Reimels

GRoNE Master of Ceremonies

Brass Car Enthusiast