The 2010 Great Lake Challenge was held at its home track, the One-eigth Racers of Toledo. The race was held from Aug. 25th through the 29th.
TeamXRAY USA was just coming off their big win at the worlds. In attedance for TeamXRAY was Ralph"WGWC" Burch, Bobby Flack, Andy Power, Diatte Collymore,Craig Xavier, Chris Doseck, Espo, Dorien Tisdale, Fabio Evangelista and Drew Ellis was there for support.
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Practice went really well for all the team. Ralph was setting pace by the first time on the track. Bobby Flack and Andy Power were getting around the track good. The team worked well at the race to get everyone's car good, the goal was to get as many XRAY's in the A-main. There was a lot of teating going on. Drivers were trying Ralph Burch's WC setup for the first time. And as for every race Ralph and I were trying to make it better.
The first day of qualifying went well for the team. They would run only two on Friday and three on Saturday with the mains being on Sunday.
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Some drivers were still getting it sorted out. Raplh set the TQ the first two qualifiers with the only two 16 lap runs of the day. Bobby Flack was in the top five with even running out of fuel so he was looking fast just needed everything to go well. This was Bobby's first race back and we are happy that he's back with the team.
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The second day went a little different. The 3rd round was ran early in the morning when the track was really fast and Josh Cryul had a great run to grab TQ from Ralph. Ralph was on a super fast TQ pace and had to be marshelled three times and stiil was able to get back and get second for the round with Josh only beating Ralph by less then 2 seconds. Other team drivers had their best running in that round so as far as a team it went well. The next two runs Ralph was on TQ runs, but in the 4th round Ralph got his body tucked by another racer. The 5th and final round we ran out of fuel due to tighting the two speed.
So the mains would start like this:
1. Josh Cryul 2. Ralph Burch XRAY NT1
3. Chris Tosolini
4. DJ Apolaro 5. Bobby Flack XRAY NT1
6. Vincent Jackson 7. Andy Power XRAY NT1
8. Craig Xavier XRAY NT1
9. Diatta Collymore XRAY NT1
10. Eric Jones XRAY NT1
11. Fabio Evangelista XRAY NT1
12. Shawn Davis
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So we had 7 out of 12 in the main and there will be two drivers to bump up from the B-main The bump ups were Monti Panzica and Melvin Austin (XRAY NT1) That is a total of 8 XRAY NT1's out of 14 drivers. Great job goes out to the whole team for getting that result.
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The main went as planned. Josh, Ralph and Toso pulled away. Then Josh and Ralph pulled away from Toso. Josh's car flamed out coming across the start finish line and had to be refired. Ralph was able to settle into his pace which no one on the track could match. Bobby Flack was up to second now and ran out of fuel and had to be restarted. He rejoin the race in 7th.
The race was pretty uneventful with the best racing being in the middle of thepack. A lot of drivers had problems and choose to retire. Ralph was out there on a Sunday cruise. Ralph would hold on to it till the end becoming 2010 GLC Champion. Congrats goes out to Andy for putting in a goodmain and finshing third.
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So this finshing order was:
1. Ralph Burch XRAY NT1
2. Josh Cyrul 3. Andy Power XRAY NT1
4. Vincent Jackson 5. Fabio Evangelista XRAY NT1
6. Eric Jones XRAY NT1
7. Melin Austin XRAY NT1
8. Monti Panzica 9. Diatta Collymore XRAY NT1
10. Chris Tosolini 11. Bobby Flack XRAY NT1
12. Shawn Davis 13. Craig Xavier XRAY NT1
14. DJ Apolaro
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Thanks goes to the Hudy's for the help and Max power engines for great power. Thanks to the club and all the guys that had anything to do with therace,it was great. Can't wait for next year. Thanks to the whole team for their hard work. It sure payed off with 8 out of 14 cars in the main.
See you at the next one.
