The 2008 running of the Snowbirds Nationals marked the 5th time that XRAY has won the event⦠making XRAY the most successful and dominating company, team, and car.
Report from Paul Lemieux, winner of the 2008 Snowbirds National:
For me the race started early. I rented a car in my hometown of Milwaukee, drove to IL and picked up Jim Dieter on the way to New Jersey where we spent a day at Trinity. From there we picked up the Trinity van and headed south towards Orlando. We arrived in Orlando on Saturday night so we had a couple of days to do some final preparation for the busy upcoming week. The rest of the team â” Barry Baker, Ralph Burch, Teemu Leino, Bobby Flack, Travis Schreven, Drew Ellis, and Jim Herman â” arrived on Monday.
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Practice
This year everyone searched for their own setup. I had a couple of different cars that I tried a lot of different stuff with right away, but did not have a lot of instant success. After a couple of practice runs I thought that Travis and Bobby's cars looked the best, so everyone was taking notice to their setups. By the end of practice it seemed that everyone was happy with their car.
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Qualifying
Right away, Travis Schreven was on pace and putting in great early qualifiers in both 19T and stock TC. Travis ended up being TQ in the stock class and second qualifier in 19T. In Mod, Bobby Flack, Ralph Burch and Teemu had some trouble in qualifying⦠just bad luck and mistakes at the wrong times. This kept them out of the A final, but in the B final it was Bobby taking the win and the 10th place transfer spot into the A Final. In the Mod final it was me, Barry, and Bobby. I was able to grab the TQ spot in the final round of Mod.
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Finals
Stock: Travis sat on the TQ spot and had a great start, getting ahead in the first ? lap over second qualifier Jason Schrefler. But while trying to stretch out his lead he nicked a board; Jason got by and ran a great race to take home the win.
Touring 27T Foam A Main results:
1. Jason Schreffler
2. Jeff Cuffs 3. Travis Schreven XRAY T2'008
4. Mo Denton
5. Chris Goetz 6. Jim Herrman XRAY T2'008
7. Brad Johnson
8. Mark Strasnick 9. Steve McNichols XRAY T2'008
10. TJ Bradley
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19T: At the start it was TQ Jason Schrefler getting a good start with Travis Schreven following closely and myself in third. Those two pulled away from me a bit in the first minute, At the 2min mark Travis got out of rhythm behind Jason and got stuck on a board, I then inherited the #2 spot but was never able to advance for the win.
Touring 19 Foam A Main results:
1. Jason Schreffler 30 5:03.23 2. Paul Lemiuex XRAY T2'008
3. Travis Schreven XRAY T2'008
4. Jeff Cuffs
5. Keven Hebert
6. Juho Levanen
7. BUMP 3
8. Mike Blackstock
9. Billy Easton
10. Chris Goetz
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Mod: I had a great start from the pole with Simo and Mike Blackstock in tow. Barry and Bobby started too far back in the field to make a big move and both of them just got caught up. Blackstock got out of rhythm behind Simo and made a mistake. From there I slowly pulled away and ended up winning by a second or two. Simo also ran a good race finishing second and Kevin Hebert put on a great show to finish third.
Touring Modified Class results: 1. Paul Lemiuex XRAY T2'008 (TQ)
2. Simo Ahoniemi
3. Keven Hebert
4. Mike Blackstock 5. Bobby Flack XRAY T2'008
6. Andy Moore
7. Juho Levanen
8. Billy Easton
9. Mike Dumas 10. Barry Baker XRAY T2'008
11. Teemu Leino XRAY T2'008
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All in all the race was a big success. The new venue for the race was very nice and the whole event was obviously run smoothly by the Snowbirds crew. I feel like the team learned a lot and the setups for the T2â™008 got even better.
Touring 27T Rubber A Main results:
1. Mike Haynes
2. Larry Fairtrace
3. Tony Fiorella
4. Mike Herald Jr.
5. E.J. Evans
6. Dave Bowser
7. Jason Ertrachter
8. BUMP 5
9. Bryan Ford
10. Jamie Hanson
Touring Outlaw A Main results:
1. Bart Wubben
2. Mike Haynes
3. E.J. Evans
4. JR Mitch
5. Tony Fiorella
6. Jason Ertrachter
7. Steve Weiss
8. Brent Thielke
9. BUMP 7
10. Kyle Bergstrom
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Watch the outstanding performance of Paul Lemieux in the A main final at 2008 Snowbirds:
