xrayxrayHome XRAY homeXRAY X-shopXRAY X-forumRCAmerica
supportsearchcontactguestbooksite map
newsproductsaboutusworldwide headlines

 
click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

At the recent 2008 US ROAR Carpet Nationals held on the weekend of March 15-16, the XRAY USA Racing Team confirmed once again the high performance of the XRAY T2'008 as well as the highest racing skills of the drivers. The XRAY USA Racing Team (sponsored by RCAmerica) showcased in the extremely tough and highly-competitive electric touring car racing in several categories.

The US Carpet Nationals is an annual event where all factory teams send the best of the best to fight for the prestigious US titles in different categories. There were a lot of expectations and pressure on Team XRAY as it have been taking several US titles for the last few years. Team XRAY was the leading team from the very first practice heats, and the XRAY T2'008 was the car to beat.

In the Modified category (arguably the most competitive category), Paul Lemieux set TQ. Travis Schreven set TQ in the Stock category. The team was very successful overall with 4 cars qualifying into the main finals.

At the end, Team XRAY took the win in BOTH the Stock and Modified categories!

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

Race report by Paul Lemieux
The Team assembled in Omaha on Tuesday, March 11th, for practice started the following morning. The RC AMERICA/XRAY team was small but very effective for this race, consisting of Barry Baker (California), Travis Schreven (Washington State), Andrew Ellis (Missouri), Ralph Birch (Texas), Jim Herman(Ohio), Chris Doseck (Ohio), Paul Lemieux (myself from Wisconsin) and of course Trinity's Jim Dieter was there to support us all with exceptional motors and batteries.

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

The venue for this race was great. The HobbyTown is HUGE! They stock an amazing amount of RC stuff among all kinds of other hobby-related product. The track is in back of the hobby shop in the same building, but is separated nicely. At the very back of the hobby shop there was a glass wall which allowed customers to get a birds’ eye view if the track and pit area which sat about 15ft below the hobby shop. The building was built on a hill, making the overall layout of the facility very cool. The race track itself was the perfect size for hosting both 10th TC and 12th scale cars. The drivers stand sat 4ft above track level and gave good visibility of the very high speed/technical layout.

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

Practice
Practice started Wednesday morning and the ‶almost new※ carpet took a while to get groomed in. For the first day it was hard for us to dial in our cars in because of this. But I was not too worried because for some reason the entire team was fast. Even though no-one’s car in the whole building (including ours) was good because of the carpet, we were all still very fast on the clock. So I knew good things were coming. By the last couple of practice runs on Thursday the track was coming around and things were looking good for the team, Barry and I were looking good in Mod and Travis was super fast in Stock.

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

Qualifying
Friday
As anticipated, the team jumped into the fast lane, but unfortunately problems lay ahead with getting clean runs in. Travis and Drew both broke in their early qualifiers due to traffic; it was a hard layout to pass on and it was also a hard
layout to let someone pass. So this was nobody's fault at all. In Mod I jumped out right away and in the first two rounds put in nearly identical TQ times. After two Chris Tosolini was second followed by Barry Baker in third.

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

Saturday
In the third round of Mod it was all Barry. He put in a great run to bump up to 2nd place on the grid, though he was a little upset for he could have had TQ if not for some problems. In the final round of Mod I got a clean run and re-set TQ with the only 32lap run in qualifying. Barry held on to 2nd with Chris Tosolini in 3rd and Ralph in 4th, so that would be the grid for the Mod Final. In Stock, Travis turned on the heat for Day 2 and put in an almost untouchable run, ending the day as TQ in Stock. After looking at the order for the finals I noticed that every
one of us qualified for the top 10 in our respective classes: Jimmy, Drew, Travis, Chris, Barry, Ralph and me. That is something that the team as a whole should be proud of.

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

Finals
A1 Stock
At the start, it looked like Travis was shot out of a cannon. He led the race from tone-to-tone, winning by a comfortable margin.

A1 Mod
I got the holeshot from the pole and tried to pull away from Barry, but Barry had a different plan and wasn’t about to be left behind. We raced for 4 minutes nose-to-tail pulling away from the field, but I just never made a big enough bobble for Barry to even try to make a pass. In the end I ended up winning by a good bit only because Barry got out of rhythm at the end.

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

Stock A2
Travis had the same plan for that race but after a great start he made a mistake which allowed Eli Ezro to take the lead. After Travis's mistake his car was not the same. Eli put it on cruse control to take home A2 with a great drive.

Mod A2
I got a better jump at the start and was able to put a small gap back to Barry, and from there I had a very clean first 2 minutes and was able to get away by a couple of seconds over the rest of the field. From there I made a couple of bobbles but was too far ahead to be challenged at that point. I won A2, and with that the National Title!

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

Stock A3
Travis again got the holeshot, but this time Eli was right their and wanted this title also. After 1min Travis had a small lead but Eli was driving smoothly and not letting him get too far out front. At the 3min mark Travis had built up a bigger
lead over Eli. With the race winding down, Eli went on a charge. Travis made a small mistake that allowed Eli to close to a 1sec gap with 30 seconds to go. Then Eli got caught up in traffic and Travis put it in the center of the track to take home
the title. Congratulations Travis!

Stock Class Results:
1. Travis Schreven XRAY T2'008
2. Eli Ezrow
3. Brad Johnson
4. Andrew Ellis XRAY T2'008
5. Stephen Boice
6. Jim Herrmann XRAY T2'008
7. Bill Sydor
8. Craig Xavier
9. TJ Bradley
10. Brian Jucha

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

Mod A3
I decided to sit this one out. At the tone Barry grabbed a hand full of trigger but so did Chris Tosolini. Barry pushed wide and Chris went for it. Let’s just say that there were 2 broken cars in the first corner, and from there it was Ralph Birch and Mike Dumas. Ralph had some problems which gave Mike a huge lead and he took it home. The A3 win gave Dumas the 3rd spot overall with Barry in 2nd and myself taking the overall win.

Modified Class Results:
1. Paul LeMieux XRAY T2'008
2. Barry Baker XRAY T2'008

3. Mike Dumas
4. Keven Hebert
5. Ralph Burch XRAY T2'008
6. Billy Easton
7. Chris Tosolini
8. Chris Mockerman
9. Chris Doseck XRAY T2'008
10. Rick Hohwart

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

In the end it was a great week of racing. There were so many other things that happened and so much other great racing over the weekend. The people from Hobbytown did a great job and they were all very friendly.

Thanks for reading, Paul Lemieux

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)

Super Stock Class Results:

1. Josh Cyrul
2. Ray Darroch
3. Andrew Ellis XRAY T2'008
4. Keven Hebert
5. Rick Hohwart
6. Jeff Dayger
7. Travis Schreven XRAY T2'008
8. TJ Bradley
9. Darren Shank XRAY T2'008
10. Steve Rossi XRAY T2'008

click to enlarge
(click to enlarge)


Paul LeMieux Winning Set-up sheet.

Barry Baker Set-up sheet.

Ralph Burch Set-up sheet.

US 2008 Carpet Nationals, Modified Category, Final 1

US 2008 Carpet Nationals, Modified Category, Final 2

US 2008 Carpet Nationals, Modified Category, Final 3

Paul Lemieux Interview: