|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
| News flash: |
|
| Team XRAY debuted the all-new XRAY T2'008 at the indoor season opening race - the famous and one of the most competitive indoor races - the International Indoor Championship. The entire factory team raced with the brand new T2'008, having only received the final production kit at the race event. With just a few practice rounds, Team XRAY showcased some of the strongest performances and was the team to beat during the whole week. In the rubber modified category it was Paul Lemieux who set TQ with his XRAY T2'008 with other XRAY team drivers Barry Baker, Teemu Leino and the young Alexander Hagberg qualifying into the main final too. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
| In the foam modified category it was Teemu Leino who qualified 2nd very closely behind Chris Tosolini, with Paul Lemieux, Jilles Groskamp and Barry Baker from Team XRAY qualifying with their T2'008 into the main final as well. For the very first indoor race already the qualification results were a definitive fabulous achievement confirming the next-level performance of the new T2'008. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
With a very strong presence in the main finals, Team XRAY drivers were expected to do well. In the rubber modified category Paul was easily in the lead when he was crashed by a car behind him, giving Marc Rheinard the opportunity to pass and win the race. Despite the crash Paul cruised and returned back to the 2nd position where he also finished.
Modified Rubber Sedan - A Main
1. Rheinard, Marc
2. LeMieux, Paul XRAY T2'008 (TQ)
3. Hara, Atsushi
4. Levanen, Juho
5. Hagberg, Alexander XRAY T2'008
6. Baker, Barry XRAY T2'008
7. Leino, Temmu XRAY T2'008
8. Blackstock, Mike
9. Easton, Billy
10.Moore, Andy |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
In the foam modified category, Teemu Leino worked his way from his starting 2nd position to take the lead and win the highly-competitive foam modified category.
Modified Foam Sedan - A Main
1. Leino, Temmu XRAY T2'008
2. Tosolini, Chris
3. LeMieux, Paul XRAY T2'008
4. Groskamp, Jilles XRAY T2'008
5. Dumas, Mike
6. Baker, Barry XRAY T2'008
7. Wilck, Victor
8. Rheinard, Marc
9. Cyrul, Josh
10.Hara, Atsushi
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
On another high note, Paul Lemieux was awarded the title of "King of the Hill" . The "King of the Hill" award is calculated by the combined results of mod sedan rubber and mod sedan foam classes. With Paul and Teemu getting 1st and 2nd places in both modified categories respectively, it shows that the XRAY T2'008 platform is the premier platform for both foam and rubber racing and will be the car to beat once again also in the 2008!
Race report, set-up sheets and more photos will be posted soon.
Photos copyright by rc50.com |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
| International Indoor Championship Race Report |
|
| The first big international race at the beginning of the carpet season was held at the South Point Casino in Las Vegas. The worldâ™s best drivers participated at this popular event, which was organized by Scotty Ernst. The event had 8 classes, the most prestigious of which were the Modified Foam and Modified Rubber classes. Publicly, the most popular classes were 19-turn and Stock which also used foam and rubber tires. Moreover, there were also two classes in 1:12 scale, Modified and Stock. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
| Team XRAY USA was represented by drivers such as Ralph Burch, Barry Baker, Paul Lemieux, Ray Darroch, Travis Schreven, Andrew Ellis, and many other top drivers. Team XRAY Europe was represented by Teemu Leino, Jilles Groskamp, Alexander Hagberg, and Juraj and Martin Hudy. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
| The race started on Wednesday with two rounds of free practice and the same schedule was also held on Thursday. The new carpeting caused that first round of practice to be only about learning the track layout, as traction was very low. The second round was a little better, but traction was still not high. Team XRAY was fast right from the beginning, with some drivers using the brand new T2â™008 without much experience on carpet. However, the car worked very well from the beginning and the XRAY drivers were at the head of both Modified categories. Barry was super fast; his cars were both really good. Martin was also fast with his rubber-tired car on low traction. Thursdayâ™s last round of practice was completely different because traction increased rapidly and some drivers were starting to traction roll. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
| Qualifiers started on Friday morning and continued on Saturday. Being one best out of four rounds signaled that many drivers would push very hard in order to get the best possible result. This resulted in many heats where only 3~4 drivers out of 10 finished⦠especially in the Modified classes. Barryâ™s super car and driving performance from practice was also proved out in qualifiers when he won the first round of rubber and he was also super fast in foams. However Paul Lemieux was fastest in the last round and set TQ ahead of Atshushi Hara and Marc Rheinhard, and repeated his success from last year when he TQ`d as well. Barry had some bad luck in late qualifiers and he dropped from 1st to 4th place. Teemu also made some solid rounds and although his set-up was not perfect he was still able to qualify 8th. The biggest surprise in the A main came from Alexander Hagberg, our young teammate from Sweden, who finished 9th and proved that his A main results from the DHI Cup and LRP Masters were not only luck. The entry list was full of top drivers and therefore it was not easy to make the Amain. Small mistakes would cause top drivers to miss the A main; Team XRAY had some of these luckless drivers as Jilles Groskamp and Martin Hudy ended up in the B main. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
| Foam class was tough as well, however the XRAY drivers did an extremely good job when Teemu Leino with his brand new T2â™008 (who practiced only 2 days with foams) qualified in 2nd place. Our US team was super fast as well and Paul qualified 6th and Barry qualified 9th. Both drivers could finish much better but small mistake caused them better results. Jilles Groskamp dominated in the foam class and 8th although he too did not have a lot of testing time with foams. In this class we had more unlucky drivers like Alexander (who finished in the unpopular 11th place) and Ralph Burch who qualified 14th. He could easily be in the A main but his batteries dumped 30 seconds before the end⦠but it was still enough for 14th place. Ray Darroch was unlucky as well with small mistakes and traffic problems and qualified 18th. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
XRAY had also A main representatives in the 19-turn class when Paul Ciccerelo qualified 7th and Andrew Ellis qualified 8th. Andrew made A main also in Stock class when he qualified 10th.
Finals started on Sunday and there was only one round of finals on the schedule. The first final in the Modified classes was rubber with Paul Lemieux at the top. Paul had a very good start and he took an easy lead. Atshushi and Marc battled for 2nd place, followed by Andy Moore in 4th place. Atsushi was pushing very hard, getting ahead of Marc by a small gap from Marc and started to follow Paul. Paul with his perfect driving line did not give any passing chances to Atsushi, and this unfortunately lead to a crash when Atsushi hit Paul. Being a fair sportsman, Atsushi waited for Paul, giving Marc the opportunity to take the lead. At the end it was Marc who crossed the finish line in 1st place ahead of Paul and Atsushi. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
| The foam final was very exciting right from the start when Atsushi crashed in the first corner, which lead to traffic behind him. Teemu did not have a very good start as he was pushed out of the ideal line in the first corner, but he did not lose his position due to traffic. His car did not look very good, however the problem was in wrong additive timing and after a few laps his car started to work superbly. Chris Tosolini had almost a 2sec lead when Teemu started to push very hard and the gap between those two drivers was getting smaller lap-after-lap. By the middle of the race, Teemu was right behind Chris. Chris was not able to keep Teemu behind him and made a mistake, so Teemu immediately took this chance and took the lead. Teemu did not make any mistakes and he crossed the finish line in 1st ahead of Chris and Paul who moved up to 3rd place from his 6th place start. Jilles finished 4th although he made a mistake in the first lap which took many long seconds for the marshals to pull him out of the driversâ™ stand. Barry was unlucky and was not able to finish his race, however he finished 6th because only five drivers finished the final. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
In the 19-turn class Paul Ciccerelo had a great result when he finished 2nd from his 7th place start. He finished only few seconds behind top foam driver Mike Dumas.
Drew Ellis had a great result in Stock class when he moved into 2nd place from his 10th place start.
Although Paul did not win the rubber class because of an unlucky crash, he felt happy because he won the prestigious title of â King of the Hillâ™ from the combined results in the both Modified classes.
Team XRAY was a little saddened with Paulâ™s bad luck in the rubber class, but we felt happy because we won the Modified Foam category and also â King of the Hill.â™ Although the brand new T2â™008 was delivered to the US drivers only a few days before the race, the whole team did a great job and showed the potential of the new car. |
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
|
Final results:
Modified Sedan Rubber
1. Marc Rheinard
2. Paul LeMieux XRAY T2'008 (TQ)
3. Atsushi Hara
4. Juho Levanen
5. Alexander Hagberg XRAY T2'008
6. Barry Baker XRAY T2'008
7. Temmu Leino XRAY T2'008
8. Mike Blackstock
9. Billy Easton
10.Andy Moore
Modified Foam
1. Temmu Leino XRAY T2'008
2. Chris Tosolini
3. Paul LeMieux XRAY T2'008
4. Jilles Groskamp XRAY T2'008
5. Mike Dumas
6. Barry Baker XRAY T2'008
7. Victor Wilck
8. Marc Rheinard
9. Josh Cyrul
10.Atsushi Hara
19-turn Foam Sedan
1. Mike Dumas
2. Paul Ciccerelo XRAY
3. Stephen Boice
4. Josh Hohnstein
5. Larry Fairtrace
6. Andrew Ellis XRAY T2'008
7. Jeff Cuffs
8. Jason Schreffler
9. Brad Johnson
10.Jeff Dayger
Stock Foam
1. Brad Johnson
2. Andrew Ellis XRAY T2'008
3. Jim Herrmann XRAY T2'008
4. Chris Goetz
5. Larry Fairtrace
6. Jarrod Langlois
7. Stephen Boice
8. TJ Bradley
9. Jason Schreffler
10.Brian Lutz
Stock Sedan Rubber
1. Jimmy Maddison
2. Alan Hewitt
3. Rob Michael
4. Brandon Melton
5. Dave Bowser XRAY
6. Brian Stanton
7. Keith Yu
8. Tony Fiorella
9. Ryan Pratl XRAY
10.James Arluck |
|
Paul Lemieux - King of the Hill with XRAY T2'008
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
(click to enlarge) |
|
|
