Speed Crazed Morons Hit The Track!

 

Ashland, Massachusetts, February 8, 2014 – The first race of the second half of MARC season found us at the LenJet Raceway (MVH).  The track selection for this event was the Purple Mile for MARC Spec Stock and the Viper for Compression Molded Polymer Modified (CMPM) – the two fastest tracks for our fastest classes.  Nineteen drivers showed up for the event so it was a full day of racing.  Great to see Durf and Erik Eckhardt back after an absence.  John Borge was back to race as was Don Hall, Tom Smith, and Mike Resnick.  Pete Medeiros attended his first MARC race.  Always great to see new

faces and I think we’ll be seeing Pete a lot the rest of the season.  Lastly we had the triumphant return of Tom Gray who was sidelined for the last three races getting his eyes adjusted.  Always fun to have a big turnout.  Now down to the racing.

 First up was MARC Spec Stock on the Purple Mile.  After some discussion about how many lanes to run it was decided to use all eight.  They’re there and we were there to race so we used them all.  Practice showed you needed big motor down the main straight, handling to get though the fingers and the donut and good eyes to avoid the wrecks.   You needed to be in the low to mid 4 second range to reach the podium for this one.

 Nine amateurs stepped up to the track.  It was the first race on this track for many in the

field.  Carnage was predicted, but the amateurs showed they could keep the cars on the track and ran a very clean race.  Hot lap times were in the 4.2 – 4.3 range.  New guys John Borge and Pete Medeiros did fantastic for their first time out finishing 4^th and 5^th respectively and John set fasted lap with a 4.227 second lap.  Unfortunately Tom Smith lost the motor in his car and had to drop out with 2 heats left.  Local Track knowledge prevailed as Peter Lentros took the top spot with 479.11 laps.  Close behind was Mike Resnick with 468.08 laps.  Don Hall showed he can build them as well as drive them finishing third with 458.42 laps.  Close considering we ran all eight lanes; an excellent race by the amateur group.

 

Amateur Results:

Driver	Red	White	Green	Orange	Blue	Yellow	Purple	Gray	Best	Total
Peter Lentros	51	58	64	62	62	61	62	60	4.239	479.11
Mike Resnick	58	58	56	62	62	60	63	49	4.312	468.08
Don Hall	50	60	56	61	61	60	56	55	4.294	458.42
John Borge	48	54	55	62	62	62	55	45	4.227	440.09
Peter Medeiros	51	51	53	57	57	58	43	48	4.632	420.26
Jim Colligan	42	30	59	59	59	60	54	48	4.716	408.17
Durf Hyson	45	50	49	51	51	52	47	42	4.738	387.02
Eric Handel	40	38	45	47	48	46	50	42	4.702	356.29
Tom Smith	0	0	55	57	58	57	55	10	4.730	292.19

 

Next up was the Pro group which was bolstered with the return of Erik Eckhardt and Tom Gray.  Peter made the move up to bring the total number of racers to 11.  I don’t know what got into the Pros, but they did not run clean (understatement of the report – JR).  Things did settle down, but man, it was crazy out there for a while.  You needed to be under 4 seconds to get on the podium in this one. There was close racing throughout the

field.  You can really fly on the middle lanes.  Red is just an exercise in patience.  Stay on and stay out of trouble.  Reimels Jr has been hogging the podium this year and this race was no exception.  Jonathan finished first with 524.41 laps convincingly covering the rest of the field.  He also had fasted lap with a 3.874 second lap.  Club Director Paul Ryer pulled a rabbit out his hat and finished second with 514.38 laps and Peter Lentros showed his move up was no fluke finishing third with 508.01 laps, an improvement on his earlier race lap total.  Stez had a great race and would have finished second, but post tech inspection found the arm in his car had been balanced which is not allowed in this class.  Check those arms!  Racing all eight lanes was a challenge, but also a blast and the way this track needs to be run.

  

Driver	Red	White	Green	Orange	Blue	Yellow	Purple	Gray	Best	Total
Jonathan Reimels	55	60	72	72	70	64	65	66	3.874	524.41
Paul Ryer	58	57	68	68	68	61	64	64	3.950	508.01
Peter Lentros	58	65	65	63	66	63	62	59	4.029	501.03
John Reimels	57	63	66	66	65	62	59	56	4.087	494.42
John Pileggi	59	60	62	67	61	60	63	57	4.065	489.30
Dave Muse	56	63	61	63	64	47	58	61	4.199	473.30
Rob Hayes	54	60	55	65	57	59	58	57	4.090	465.09
Erik Eckhardt	48	52	50	62	60	68	59	60	4.086	459.31
Tom Gray	51	52	60	57	58	61	52	49	4.341	440.10
Vince Tamburo	42	49	52	57	55	60	58	51	4.230	424.09
John Stezelecki	63	61	66	69	66	65	63	61	3.984	DQ

 

The second race of the day was CMPM on the wicked fast Brystal Viper track.  A 3 second or better lap time is where you wanted to be.  And, you had to be able to get through the esses.  The ones leading onto the straight with the lap counter proved to be especially tricky.  What you need for this track is practice and lots of it.  Also, people seem to be learning how to set these cars up since there were no burnt motors.

 Once again the amateurs had a very clean race.  Very impressive considering this was the first MARC race on this track and we running our fastest class and for a couple of the guys this was their first CMPM race.  Mike

Resnick was a machine, consistently running 75 laps in each lane except for red and yellow.  As a result he finished first with 442.03 laps which was almost 50 laps ahead of second.  Speaking of second, Peter Lentros rolled into second with 395.37 laps.  Breathing down Peter’s neck was Durf Hyson who had a great run to third with 394.30 and fastest lap of 3.119.  One less off and Durf  would have had Peter for second.  Eric Handel found his happy place (my mind runs wild… – JR) with a smooth drive to fourth.  Pete Medeiros and John Borge had a good battle going on with Pete showing John what a bit more motor can do for you.  Great race by the amateurs, we need to get the pros driving this smooth.

 Amateur Results:

Driver	Red		White		Green		Orange		Blue		Yellow		Total Laps
	Laps	Best	Laps	Best	Laps	Best	Laps	Best	Laps	Best	Laps	Best
Mike Resnick	74	3.600	75	3.628	75	3.654	75	3.683	75	3.600	68	3.811	442.03
Peter Lentros	60	4.098	64	3.531	73	3.592	67	3.794	69	3.507	62	4.063	395.37
Durf Hyson	59	3.119	61	4.249	72	3.700	70	3.886	68	3.966	64	4.080	394.30
Eric Handel	59	3.885	67	3.486	71	3.534	67	3.564	63	3.595	61	3.706	388.37
Pete Medeiros	62	3.972	68	3.692	68	3.709	72	3.513	58	4.286	48	4.156	376.02
John Borge	59	4.017	65	3.977	68	3.166	60	3.599	55	3.349	46	4.434	353.19
Jim Colligan	52	4.472	65	3.982	66	4.017	67	3.881	43	4.051	50	4.246	343.18

 

Last race of the day was Pro CMPM.  Mike Resnick took the move up so there were nine drivers.  The Pro race was a bit wild.  Cars were flying but staying on the table for the most

part.  I think they gave Tom Gray some bionic eyes.  He, Dr. Pileggi (top lap total with 92 in orange), and Rob Hayes were in a tight battle the whole race.  Once the drivers settled down, there was some tight racing though out the pack.  John Reimels had fast lap with a 2.706 lap.  Mike Resnick bettered his earlier lap total by 20 laps.  When all was said and done, John Pileggi took the top spot with 514.05 laps.  Was it the eye surgery?  Was it the joy of being back on the track?  Who knows but Tom Gray took a well-earned second place with 496.31 laps.  Rob Hayes finished third with 488.24 laps.  Director Ryer finished fourth, but post-race tech found the axle setup he switched to in yellow was too wide.  So, what did I learn?  First, don’t second guess yourself.  The car drove better with the original setup and probably would have given me a better lap total in yellow.  Second, use the tech block in your pit box dummy.  About the only thing you can get DQ’ed for in this class is width and I did.  Overall the racing was a blast.  Fast and Furious.  Great race on the wicked fast Viper.

Pro Results:

Driver	Red		White		Green		Orange		Blue		Yellow		Total Laps
	Laps	Best	Laps	Best	Laps	Best	Laps	Best	Laps	Best	Laps	Best
John Pileggi	82	3.162	84	3.090	88	3.063	92	2.835	84	3.194	84	3.267	514.05
Tom Gray	81	3.422	84	3.264	88	3.113	79	3.215	89	3.062	75	3.342	496.31
Rob Hayes	76	3.426	84	3.205	85	3.051	85	3.071	80	3.211	78	3.451	488.24
Erik Eckhardt	74	3.524	76	3.328	87	3.152	82	3.169	79	3.225	69	3.360	467.34
Mike Resnick	76	3.312	77	3.518	78	3.366	80	3.441	79	3.437	73	3.577	463.31
Jon Reimels	71	3.646	79	3.363	77	3.341	81	3.228	75	3.314	70	3.452	453.33
John Reimels	73	3.641	79	2.706	75	3.220	80	2.843	76	3.402	65	3.562	448.31
Vince Tamburo	57	3.205	65	3.609	72	3.380	71	3.227	62	3.304	56	3.632	383.26
Paul Ryer	69	3.048	83	2.915	86	2.927	93	2.962	80	3.024	72	3.094	DQ

 

It was a great turn out and an outstanding day of racing.  Hopefully every enjoyed the track choices for this event.  It was very encouraging seeing the guys who had been under the weather back at the track.  Hopefully this trend continues.  Next up will be Tom Bussmann’s Schlitzerland Raceway on March 8^th.  We will run Super Stock and G-Jets.  The body choice for G-Jets will be Trans-Am and IMSA GTO/GTU bodies up to 1989.  Same requirements that we used at South Shore Speedway.  See you at the next thing!

 The race report as recorded this day

February 19^th, 2014

Douglas C. Neidermeyer

Sergeant at Arms