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Race report by Paul Lemieux
This years Reedy Race of Champions was held at Norcal Hobbies & Raceway. Norcal is in Union City, CA. This permanent facility has a 140/85 ft on road asphalt track along with 2 off road tracks and a very stocked hobby shop.

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All of the teams arrived on Wed the 26th of may. The invitational class this year consisted of great drivers some of them were Mark Rheinard, Juho Levanen, Rick Howart, Paul Lemieux, Victor Wilk, Kevin Hebert, Josh Curyl, Mike Blackstock, Tyler Vick and many more. Team XRAY was in attendence with Paul Lemieux, the American Steven Weiss, Dave Earlick, Jason Ertracter, Dave Bowser, Tim Copp and others.

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The 17.5, 13.5 and Open Mod class were run conventionally with 4 rounds of points qualifying, and triple A finals but the Invitational class is run totally different. As usual the invite class runs 8 rounds of heads up racing, after 8 rounds the driver with the 6 best finishes wins the overall title, it is set up to where a driver will have a different starting spot every race and will be racing mostly different people as well.

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Thursday marked the first day of practice, practice was run in heats so it gave the drivers less overall practice but it was much more organized so it was nice, practice started on schedule but the rain soon came, at 2:30 the track was dried back out so round 1of practice resumed. At the end of the day it was difficult to see who was fast do to everyone getting settling in and the low grip from the rain.

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On Friday the track was prepped and the grip was good, all the drivers were really starting to tune on their cars. Dave Bowser was up to speed and looking good in 17.5 and 13.5, Fred Hubbard was looking great in open mod, and Paul Lemieux with his thunderpowered T3 was looking fast in the Invitational class along with several others such as Kevin Jelich, and Victor Wilk.

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Saturady: there would be 4 rounds of invite on Saturday and the battle was soon to be on. There were 3 rounds timed qualifying for the 17.5, 13.5 and open mod drivers. In the open mod class It was Fred Hubbard that really looked dominant from the get go, in the 17.5 class and the 13.5 class it was some of the tightest racing I have ever seen.

Invitational Day 1

Round 1 winners
Victor Wilk
Marc Rheinhard
Juho Levanen

Round 2 winners
Victor Wilk
Rick Howart
Paul Lemieux XRAY T3

Round 3 winners
Marc Rheinhard
Victor Wilk
Paul Lemieux XRAY T3

Round 4 winners
Juho Levanen
Marc Rheinhard
Paul Lemueux XRAY T3

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Sunday:

After day 1 looking at the remaining Invitational heats for Sunday it was clear that it was going to be a difficult day for all of the contenders in the invite class, in the final 4 rounds of racing Marc Rheinard and Paul Lemieux were to race in each of the 4 remaining rounds with Victor Wilk competing in 2 of those rounds and all three drivers plus Juho Levanen in the final round 8.
(13.5, 17.5, open mod) After the final qualifier on Sunday morning in 17.5, 13.5 and open mod final line up looked like this:

Congratulations to all finalists!

17.5
1. Eric Albano
2. Dave Bowser XRAY T3
3. Lee Passehl XRAY T3

4. Kieth Yu
5. George Lin
6. Kyle Eden XRAY T3
7. Ritchie Reynolds
8. Steve Ashby
9. Dean Coombes XRAY T3
10. Ken Brumblay

13.5:
1. Dave Bowser XRAY T3

2. James Arluck
3. Jason Ertrachter XRAY T3
4. Jeff Hastings XRAY T3

5. Ling Tong
6. George Lin
7. Kyle Bergstrom
8. Duy Khuong
9. KiethYu
10. Tim Copp XRAY T3

Open Modified:
1. Fred Hubbard XRAY T3

2. Leo Zhao
3. Jesse Stark
4. Kenji Hosoda
5. Aaron Biner
6. Juan Aveytia
7. Ethan Erchinger
8. Hiroyuki Kasuya
9. Brandon Clements
10. Sean Cochran

Invitational Day 2:

Round 5 winners:

Tyler Vick
Juho Levanen
Paul Lemieux XRAY T3

Round 6 winners
Tyler Vick
Juho Levanen
Paul Lemieux XRAY T3

Round 7 winners
Marc Rheinhard
Josh Cyrul
Juho Levanen

Round 8 winners
Tyler Vick
Paul Lemieux XRAY T3
Mike Blackstock

Invitational Race 8: The final race started off as everyone was hoping it would, Paul came out of the first corner in the lead with Marc and Juho in second and third in close contact, and it was on between the three drivers who were contending for the championship. In typical Marc fassion he took the lead spot after a small mistake from Paul and began to make his push towards a pace that would allow him to take the overall victory after the tie breaker would be applied. Now it was Paul in second and Juho in close persuit. Marc made a mistake coming on to the straight, this allowed Paul and Juho in to the lead, Juho then perused Paul and made a nice pass for the lead to try and secure his title, Paul then made more aggressive pass in the next corner to try do the same, from there Marc was charging hard back in the three spot. Paul then opened up a small lead from Juho and took home the final heat and subsequently the overall title.

The Final Top three for the 17.5, 13.5 and open mod looked like this in the end:



17.5:
1. Eric Albano
2. Dave Bowser XRAY T3
3. Kyle Eden XRAY T3



13.5:
1. Dave Bowser XRAY T2'008

2. James Arluck
3. Jason Ertrachter XRAY T3



Open Mod:
1. Fred Hubbard XRAY T3

2. Leo Zao
3. Jesse Stark



Invitational:
1. Paul Lemieux XRAY T3

2. Juho Levanen
3. Marc Rheinhard

Congratulations to our new Reedy Race champions!

All in all the race was a huge success, we would like to thank the legend Mike Reedy for the hard work to put this race together along with Kevin and the whole crew from NorCal Hobbies for they did a great job putting on this event.

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Set-up sheets
Paul Lemieux
Dave Bowser
Jason Ertrachter
Jeff Hastings