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| Race report by Paul Lemieux |
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| The team flew to Fort Myers on Saturday and we all got together on Saturday night to talk things over before practice started the following day. The team for this race consisted of Barry Baker (California), Bobby Flack (Michigan), Ralph Burch (Texas), Chris Mithinie (Texas), and Paul Lemieux (Wisconsin). |
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| Practice: |
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Sunday mourning we arrived at the track, the weather was good and the grip was low for the first day of practice.
About half way through the day the team started to get up to speed, with Ralph and Barry showing early that they would be A-main contenders while the rest of the team and I were still searching. By the end of practice on Monday the whole team was getting things together and were all happy with our cars. Unfortunately, Chris Mithinie had to go home due to a serious spider bite; he had got bitten a couple of weeks before in TX but the serious side effects hit him during the event. He got an early flight home to get proper care from his doctor. |
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Barry Baker's NT1
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| Qualifying: |
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Tuesday
There were two rounds on Tuesday, and after the first round it was I who ending up on top with Paolo Morganti in second.
The rest of the guys had hard luck. In round two I was not able to improve on my time whereas Paolo did and he grabbed the top spot. In round two Ralph was very fast but did not put in a perfect run and this kept him from a chance at the top spot.
Wednesday
On Wednesday there were two more rounds scheduled but due to very hard rain and storms we did not get to qualify. |
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NT1 of Paul Lemieux
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Thursday:
Due to the rain there were three scheduled rounds of qualifying and we got them all in. But unfortunately the track was not fast at all due to the storms, so it looked like the TQ numbers in all classes would be pretty safe. This meant that if you did not get in a good run on Wednesday before the rain, it would be hard to make the final. Such was the case for Bobby Flack. Barry, Ralph and I got in top 10 runs on the first day and they held up. Going into the last round Ralph was 10th on the grid and amazingly bumped up to 4th. This was a big accomplishment considering that the track was not nearly as fast as it was when everyone put in their good runs. With qualifying over we had 3 guys secured in the final. I would start second, Ralph would start 4th and Barry 8th.
Friday:
We all went to the track to prepare our NT1â™s for the finals on Saturday. Friday is the day when they race all of the lower
finals, while some of the racers get the day off. Barry, Bobby, Ralph, and I spent the entire day rebuilding cars, charging batteries, and going through everything for the finals on Saturday. At the end of the day there was a small amount of practice time. Ralph and I hit the track in practice after the rebuilds and we were both happy with our cars. Ralph was really fast. |
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Ralph Burch's NT1
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| B-Final |
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Saturday
The B-final was first up, and XRAY had a good chance to get another car into the A-final with Bobby Flack being in that race, and he did not let us down. Michael Salven won the B-final with Bobby taking the other transfer spot in second, so we now have 4 cars in the finals. |
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Ralph Burch's NT1
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| A-Final |
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Saturday
Since I raced the final it is hard to give a report on it but I will do my best.
From pole position Paolo Morganti got out front and stretched out his lead to a couple of seconds by the first pitstop. Second position at that point was DJ Apolaro. DJ started 3rd and got by me right away at the start, I dropped back to 4th at the first pit and Ralph moved up to 3rd. As I was entering the first pitstop DJ was exiting the pit stall and just as he got put down I tapped the rear of his car and this caused him to get his body tucked in the pit lane, and to make it worse his car stalled, his pit crew got him re-started but he lost almost 1 lap. This was my fault. DJ was very fast and this definitely cost him some positions. Now the order was Paolo followed by Ralph and myself, and I had my hands full with Mike Swager. Mike and I swapped positions a couple of times over the next few minutes. At around the 10min mark there was a 3-way battle for the lead between Paolo, Ralph and Mike, and I was 4th a few seconds back. Over the next few minutes the battle got sorted out with Ralph taking over the lead, Paolo in second and Mike dropping out of the race while running third. Paolo was having trouble in the pits and this allowed me to take over second position from him. I was about 6sec back from Ralph at that time. Things were now spread out a bit with Ralph and I running 1&2 but Paolo was not content with 3rd and made a hard charge and was reeling me in. Now with the race winding down the order was still Ralph followed by myself and Paolo running third. Paolo caught me with around 15min to go, he got into the back of me but waited for me to get back by him (very nice), but over the next few laps he made a nice pass on me to take back 2nd place. From there Ralph was on cruise control with a half lap lead over Paolo with 5min to go. Paolo pulled away from me by a few seconds. |
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In the end it was Ralph Burch taking home the win by about a half a lap over Paolo, who had about a half lap over me in third. Ralph drove a great race and his pitman Drew Ellis also did a great job in the pitstops. I would like to thank my pitman Jason Engle for doing an awesome job and to Barry Baker for the tune job. Thanks to the whole Fort Myers crew for putting on another great event.
Final order:
1. Ralph Burch (XRAY NT1)
2. Paolo Morganti
3. Paul Lemieux (XRAY NT1)
4. Jilles Groskamp
5. Art Carbonell
6. Josh Cyrul
7. Bobby Flack (XRAY NT1)
8. DJ Apolaro
9. Barry Baker (XRAY NT1)
10. Michael Salven
11. Mike Swager
12. Chris Tosolini |
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Ralph Burch's winning NT1
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Ralph Burch's winning NT1
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Ralph Burch's winning NT1
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Ralph Burch's winning NT1
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Ralph's pitman Drew Ellis
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