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Race report by Barry Baker
July 12-15, 2007
Seattle Indoor Raceway (S.I.R.)
Seattle, Washington, USA

I arrived on Tuesday evening after being delayed in Orange County Airport for a few hours so I missed a half day of practice. When I arrived Ralph and Paul along with Ray Darroch and Steve Weiss had been there for most of the day testing different setups for the track surface. The track was still set up from their previous track layout and the Nationals layout would be put up that night. When I first looked at the surface it was kind of like the surface I was used to so I felt pretty comfortable that I would be able to find a good setup fairly quickly.

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Wednesday morning arrived and we headed to the track. I set up my pit area and started to go through my car and change to a starting setup that I thought would be a good starting point. As I worked on my car I kept an eye on the track and also on the rest of the team. Ralph and Paul seemed to be okay along with Steve and Ray testing many things. Paul was making many changes after each run on the track… some were good changes and some were not so good, but that’s why we try them. When I hit the track on Wednesday afternoon I took a few slow laps to learn the flow of the track; the layout they put in was very demanding as it had many chicanes and slow corners with a diagonal straight. After a few slow laps I opened up my 6 cell 7T motor (at the U.S. Nats we had a choice of 6-cell at the weight of 1525g or 5-cell at 1450g). Well, the 6-cell way was not the way to go as I had way too much horsepower for the track to handle. So I went back to 5-cell and re-balanced my car. With 5-cell I was right on pace with my starting setup but I knew with a few changes my car would be very good so I made the changes which included adding swaybars, softer springs and damping...with this setup I was trying to control the roll with the bars but still have the turn-in by softening my shock setup. That worked very well. My car was very good with these changes.

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Thursday morning arrived and back to the track we went. They had rounds of controlled practice for the day by the heat you were in for qualifying. My car was fast during the day but it seemed as if we as a team still needed more steering getting into the corner. Ralph and Paul both tried my setup and seemed to like it but started making a few changes to it. My front shocks were set up as: 30wt with 2 hole open; my rear shocks were set up as: 30wt and 3 holes open. Ralph reversed the shocks hole settings to make it 3 open in front and 2 open in rear, and liked it better so I tried that also and my car was faster. At this point it seemed as if we were finding the right setup for the track and tires. I still felt like there was something missing. Though 3 rounds of practice I was fastest with a 28 lapper in 5:04 seconds. So for the 4th round of practice I changed to a lightweight Mazda 6 body (I was using a LW Speed 6) and found THAT’S what my car was missing! It had more turn-in for me and I turned the only 29 lapper for the day! Going into qualifying I was very happy with my car. Ralph was also fast, and Paul, Steve and Ray were in the top 10 too!

Friday was the start of qualifications. In the first round I made a few mistakes but still was fast enough to set TQ for the round as ROAR uses qualifying points (2 of 4). Ralph also ran well to finish 3rd for the round, with Paul and Steve also in the top 10. In the second round I made mistakes again and could not overcome them and so finished 3rd for the round, but still had the fastest time for the day. Paul was 4th for the round.

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After a reshuffle, Ralph, Paul, and I were all in the A qualifier on Saturday; Steve and Ray were in the B. In the first round on Saturday I set the fastest time for the weekend to get TQ for the round with Paul taking 2nd for the round and Ralph in the top 5 after a last lap accident. In the last round my car was perfect and I set the fastest run again taking 3 of 4 TQs. Paul ran very well and got 3rd for the round which put him 3rd on the grid and Ralph was 5th on the grid. Going into the mains we had 3 of the top 5 cars. Steve and Ray had a few mistakes in qualifying and just missed the A main but were still in the B.

Sunday...Mains Day!!!!!!
The first main went like clockwork for me as I lead from the tone and cruised to the win. Paul moved up to take 2nd, Ralph had some traffic issues and finished mid-pack. At the start of the 2nd main I made a mistake halfway through the first lap and fell back to 4th...Paul made a great pass to get the lead and was running very well, I made my way up into 3rd, then 2nd, now it was time to try and catch Paul. My car was very fast and handling great, and I caught Paul with about 2min. left in the race. It was hard to make a clean pass as the track was tight and I didn’t want to crash myself and Paul out of the race so I sat on his bumper for over a minute knowing that if Paul won and I got 2nd in the main we would be the only 2 that could win the title. I put some pressure on Paul without hitting him trying to see if he would make a mistake and with about 30sec to go he made a slight mistake through the sweeper which gave me the opening I was looking for. Once I got the lead I cruised to the win and the National Title! Paul finished 2nd in the first 2 mains while just before the start of the 2nd main Ralph had some electronics problems and could not make the start. In the 3rd main Paul took the lead early and cruised to the win putting him in the 2nd position overall and Ralph finished 3rd in the final main for vault him to a top 5 finish also.

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So all-in-all it was a great weekend for XRAY as I TQ'd Mod TC; Tom Esposito TQ'd Masters TC. Taking home the National Title and 2nd in Mod TC...finishing 2nd in Stock TC and finishing 1st and 3rd in Masters TC. XRAY once again proved that they are the car to beat!

Final results:

Touring Mod
1. Baker, Barry XRAY T2'007 (TQ)
2. LeMieux, Paul XRAY T2'007

3. Numan, Jos
4. Hohwart, Rick
5. Burch, Ralph XRAY T2'007
6. Cyrul, Josh
7. Dayger, Jeff
8. Cavalieri, Ryan
9. Torikka, Tommi
10. Tosolini, Chris

Touring 19T
1. Numan, Josh
2. Hebert, Keven
3. Caster, Randy
4. Dayger, Jeff
5. Cochran, Sean
6. Shank, Darren XRAY T2'007
7. Evans, EJ
8. Harbke, Korey XRAY T2'007
9. Skidmore, Kyle
10. Redelfs, CJ XRAY T2'007

Touring Stock
1. Cochran, Sean
2. Redelfs, CJ XRAY T2'007
3. Shank, Darren XRAY T2'007

4. Brown, Jeff
5. Canare, Rod
6. Michael, Rob
7. Evans, EJ
8. Fiallos, Edgar
9. Harbke, Korey XRAY T2'007
10. Lewis, Corey

Touring Masters
1. Sterling, Jon XRAY T1FK'05
2. Reynolds, Ritchie
3. Esposito, Tom XRAY T2'007 (TQ)
4. O'Brien, Gary XRAY T2'007

5. Arroyo, Javier
6. Maurer, Jeff
7. Perry, Christopher
8. Brumblay, Ken
9. Elliott, Shane
10. Forg, Fred

Barry Baker
2007 ROAR Mod TC Carpet National Champion
2007 ROAR Mod TC Asphalt National Champion


Barry Baker Winning Set-up sheet.

Paul LeMieux Set-up sheet.

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