February 8, 2019 | john GRoNEing about the cold… Cambridge, Massachusetts February 2, 2019 – With the polar vortex in full swing, 6 brave and hearty racers made their way to Cambridge, Massachusetts to join Rob Hayes at Practice underway at Catfish International Speedway his awesome Catfish International Speedway for our GRoNE-Hogs Day event. Tom Smith was débuting his new build, a very clean looking center-hinge anglewinder. The car went well until the motor went poof in practice so Tom borrowed one of my M10 motored sidewinders – while it’s lacking a little in top speed, it really is a sweet handling car. It was also the maiden voyage for a new car from Paul Ryer’s stable – a more traditional rail chassis with the rails necked in at the front to increase chassis flex. After a quick discussion with the group, we decided to run two gravity races sandwiched around a T-Jet race. Gravity Race 1 Rob’s Catfish International Speedway layout is a sweet track for the gravity cars; no Gravity Race 1 Podium - John Reimels 1st, Rob Hayes 2nd, Paul Ryer 3rd and Dave Muse 4th squiggles, lots of fast sweepers and a long front straight to really wring out the speed. With only three marshals, one key to success was not falling off where there was no marshal – much easier said than done – patience was the order of the day. Rob won the last two GRoNE events held at his track setting lap totals of 80 laps back in April of 2017 followed by an 86 lap total in November of 2017 – a great target to shoot for. The racing was tight throughout the field but when it was all done, John Reimels was able to beat Rob to the finish line by 2 laps followed by Paul Ryer and Dave Muse . Yellow Blue White Red Total Fastest Lap John Reimels 20 21 20 22 83 7.784 Rob Hayes 21 20 20 20 81 8.032 Paul Ryer 19 21 19 19 78 8.042 Dave Muse 19 20 18 19 76 8.432 Tom Gray 18 16 19 17 70 8.852 Tom Smith 17 18 17 17 69 8.740 Jim Macartney 17 17 16 16 66 8.538 T-Jet Race With the track all warmed up after the Gravity race, it was time to break out the T-Jets. T-Jet Podium - Rob Hayes 1st, John Reimels 2nd, Paul Ryer 3rd and Dave Muse 4th Rob was trashing away on his car all the time mumbling that it wasn’t fast enough. I’m not sure what he was thinking, the car certainly seemed plenty fast to the rest of us based on the lap times be was running during practice. What makes the Catfish layout for great for Gravity cars, makes it slightly less so for T-Jets unless you have a rocket of a car – then it’s awesome! Yellow Blue White Red Total Fastest Lap Rob Hayes 19 18 18 20 75 8.716 John Reimels 18 20 18 17 73 8.964 Paul Ryer 18 19 18 17 72 9.003 Dave Muse 16 19 19 16 70 9.377 Tom Gray 17 15 16 16 64.42 9.734 Jim Macartney 15 17 16 16 64.20 9.353 Tom Smith 16 15 16 14 61 10.438 Gravity Race 2 After devouring a few pizzas for lunch, it was off to the races for the last event of the day, 2nd Gravity Race Podium - John Reimels 1st, Tommy Gray 2nd, Rob Hayes 3rd and Paul Ryer 4th another Gravity race. Work was done on Tommy Gray’s car over the lunch break, new tires were installed to help fix the extreme tail wagging it displayed in the first race. Jim Macartney also swapped the resister pack in his trusty DiFalco controller to get a better handle on the power band of these M20 motors. Both of these changes seemed to help judging by the lap times they were running in practice. I changed cars and broke out the car I ran at the 2017 Nats held at Lucky Bob’s. Tom Smith borrowed my other M10 motored sidewinder for a change of pace. The others stuck with what they ran in the first race. Maybe it was the track conditions or the fact that we all had full Same as above but this time showing the naughty bits stomachs, but the lap totals saw a significant jump up. Despite running a much older version of my car, I was able to take down the win beating my first race total by 3 laps. Tommy Gray had an awesome race taking down 2nd beating his first race lap total by 13 laps! I think he likes the new tires… Rob Hayes finished third followed by a real tight battle for fourth with Paul Ryer beating Jim Macartney by 8 sections. Jim also increased his first race lap total by 13 laps. Yellow Blue White Red Total Fastest Lap John Reimels 21 22 22 21 86 7.902 Tom Gray 21 21 21 20 83 7.869 Rob Hayes 21 21 20 20 82 7.939 Paul Ryer 19 20 20 20 79.39 7.842 Jim Macartney 21 20 19 19 79.31 7.900 Dave Muse 17 20 19 19 75 8.730 Tom Smith 17 17 17 18 69 9.563 All in all it was a very relaxing day doing what we love to do with a bunch of good friends – can’t ask for much more than that. Thanks to Rob for hosting and to all the participants for braving the cold weather. Next up will be racing at Paul Ryer’s on April 6th at his South Shore Speedway. The calendar in March is just filled to the brim with MARC and MAHOPRA events making a GRoNE event in March unreasonable. John Reimels GRoNE Master of Ceremonies Brass Car Advocate