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| Race report by Barry Baker |
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Great Lakes Challange
Toledo,Ohio
August 2-5,2007
Tuesday... We all arrived on this day. After some of the team had plane flights there and some of team drove to the race we met at the hotel to get organized and head out for some dinner. After dinner we sat around mainly talking about things and what our plans were for the week...
Wednesday... The morning came around and we all headed for the track. We set up our pits and waited for the track to open... I had just come from the Region 12 Championships for nitro sedans where I had a slightly different set up from the 301 race we attended earlier in the year. Paul had come from racing at the last Midwest series race also with a different setup on his car, Ralphs car was the same as the 301 race, Bobby's car was very close to that of Ralphs as this is Bobbys home track and he has tested here for the past few weeks and made subtle changes to his car. This is Ray's first race with a nitro car so he had a combo set up... it was mainly Ralphs from 301 with a few different things(front diff). Dosi, and Espo were also there with set ups from the last Midwest series also. |
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| We all went out and ran with our respective set ups and right off the bat we knew our cars were very good not just one or two of them but most all of them went around the track very good... Bobby and Ralph seemed to be the fastest right off the trailer, my car was ok but needed a little more rear traction, Paul's car was getting better each time on the track and Ray was getting the feel for Nitro... When practice ended on Wed. we headed back to the hotel to grab some dinner and get our cars ready for the next day. |
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| Thursday... Once again when the sun rose we were off to the track. It was another day of practice. Paul had seemed to work his car out as he was going fast today along with Ralph and Bobby. Ray was sure getting the hang of driving Gas cars, myself on the other hand was having all kinds of gremlins this day, the rest of the team seemed to be happy with their cars also, Jacob Delano (a support driver) was over in our pits asking lots of questions to sort his car out and by the end of practice he was happy also! Dosi and Espo were getting around the track also! At the end of the day I would have to say that we had the car to beat! |
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Friday... Qualifing started! ...It all started out great for Ralph as he won concourse for sedans! In race one we had myself, Ralph, Paul and Espo in this heat... Ralph had a slight bobble in the run and Paul won the heat with myself 2nd, in the next heat was Bobby and he beat Pauls time by less then 1 second, Dosi was in this heat also and his car looked great but ran out of gas...
In round 2 Ralph set the pace and a new TQ... Bobby was flying in his heat but made a mistake and fell off the TQ pace... Ray was going ok but still needed some more track time.
So at the end of the day it was Ralph, Bobby, Paul and myself top 4! |
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After Qualifing ended there was practice for a couple hours and Ralph wanted to try a few things... His mechanic Drew Ellis (yes Baby Drew) changed his chassis to the 4mm chassis to try and get more corner speed as this track was very high bite! He seemed to like it so he stuck with it the rest of the event!
On a side note Ralph's normal mechanic, Mark Blackketter, had to stay home to take care of some family issues, so they called in the reserves! Drew did a great job helping out not only Raplh but also anyone who came up and asked a question. To our supprise nothing ever fell off Ralphs car...LOL...Great job Drew! |
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| Saturday... Final 3 rounds of Qualifing... The first day of qualifing the track was very hot and today the clouds were out and the track cooled down alot, this was the day to go fast! In the first round of the day Ralph and paul battled it out on the clock and it was Ralph taking TQ honors with a new track record! Paul very close behind! I had an issuse with another car that made me retire from the heat. In the next heat Bobby flamed out before the race started and they couldnt get his car refired before the heat started so he just drove his car around to feel it out but did have the fastest lap for the round(18.45) and fastest top speed down the straight (61 MPH)... Ray got his car better and also got the feel for gas racing with alittle coaching from Ralph and put his car 5th. Now we had top 5! |
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In round 4 the track was still cool so the times were still good. Ralph, Paul and Bobby were still the fastest, but none improved their times.
In the last round Paul was on a blistering pace to set TQ and made a mistake which meant that he would have to settle for 2nd on the grid. Bobby also had a few mishaps... In this round Ralph put in a different motor and his clutch wasnt right but he did set fastest lap for the event in Sedan(18.44). Ray put in an impressive run in his heat to jump to 4th on the grid (guess he was getting the hang of gas cars..lol). At the end of qualifing they took 11 cars straight to the main and with the NT1 we had 6 of the top 11 including the top 5! It was looking very good for the team going into the finals with 6 cars already in and possibility of 2 more to bump in... |
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Sunday... Main day... We woke up and looked outside and what did we see... RAIN!!!!!!!! and lots of it! We got a call at the Hotel that they had called the race and were giving out the trophys so we got showered and dressed and headed to the track for the prise ceremony...
Final results:
1) Ralph Burch XRAY NT1
2) Paul LeMeiux XRAY NT1
3) Bobby Flack XRAY NT1
4) Ray Darroch XRAY NT1
5) Barry Baker XRAY NT1
6) Mike Blackstock
7) Jari Taskila
8) Ron Atomic
9) Andy Power
10) Art Carbonell
11) Jacob Delano XRAY NT1 |
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So all in all it was a great weekend for the whole team. The NT1 once again proved that it is the car to beat... if fact I overheard one of the drivers from another team say: "Its a good thing that its not a Worlds year for sedan because noone has anything for the XRAY car" ...that was nice to hear!
Crongrats to Ralph and Drew...Great Job!!!!!! Also congrats to Paul, Bobby, Ray, and Jacob for putting it into the show and Dosi and Espo for all the hard work they put in at not only this race but all the race... Also a big thanks goes out to all of our teammates and consumers out there that make this team so great!
Once again the NT1 proves that it IS the car to beat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Barry Baker |
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