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

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

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

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

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 4^th 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

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 4^th and 5^th 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 25^th 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