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Race report by Paul Lemieux
This year’s Nationals was Held at Jackson RC in New Jersey. The Jackson track is a permanent facility with a very smooth surface and very nice curbing, everyone was excited to race on a nice track such as this.

Thursday saw the teams roll in.

Rick Howart and Kevin Hebert, Canadian TY Tessmann, EJ Evans and Larry Fairtrace. With XRAY it was Paul Lemieux, Fred Hubbard, Martin Crisp and many others. Everyone was getting their cars trimmed for Fridays qualifying.



Qualifying.
17.5 TC: Fridays qualifying went great for team XRAY. Scooby Horton started it out with a TQ in both rounds 1 and 2 of 17.5 TC. In the third round it was Jeff Cuffs who showed that he was on pace and took the round. In round 4 it was again Scooby who took it and secured the overall TQ. Jeff Cuffs would line up second on the grid and Andy Castellini would round out the top three in qualifying.

12thscale 13.5: It was Andrew Knapp who was dominant all threw qualifying. Mike Haynes was the closest to him and was able to steal the round 4 TQ and qualify second overall, Larry fairtrace would round out the top three in final qualifying order.

13.5 TC: Rick Howart was on point in this class, Rick was able to slowly get away from the field threw qualifying and secure his Tq on the class. Ty Tessmann ran well to be second on the grid with Larry Fairtrace qualifying third on the grid.

Mod TC: Lemieux TQ'd round one and looked good to TQ in round two also when a HUGE thunderstorm rolled in and stopped the round and racing for the day. Everything resumed on Saturday with a little delay for track prep in the AM but we were to get all racing in with no problem. In the Re Run of mod round two Lemieux drove his Thunderpowered XRAY T3'11 to TQ again. Later that day Lemieux sealed the TQ honor with a TQ in both rounds 3 and 4. Rick Howart was close in many rounds and would fall in second on the grid with team mate Kevin Hebert qualifying third overall.

Finals
I must apologize for the lack of coverage in both the WGT division and Vintage Trans Am. In WGT it was EJ Evans Tqed the event with the Title going to Rui Goncalves. In the Trans Am class it was Alex Kubilus who Tqed and the Title going to Michael Larcher, I do know that the Trans Am final was a good one with the winner coming from 5th on the grid to take it home. Congratulations to all of those guys!

17.5TC: A1 saw lots of Drama and lots of racing up front, Scooby Horton, Jeff Cuffs and Michael Hanulec battled for the better part of 6 min, each driver led at one point. When all the racing settled it was Scooby Horton who got back in front and took A1 with Cuffs in second and Hanulec in third.

A2 saw Cuffs come out of the gate in the early laps and take the lead, Andy Castellini had better luck this time and was running second. Scooby had bad luck in this final and dropped back in the pack, In the end it was Cuffs who took A2 with Andy in second and DJ Cranmer coming all the way from 9th on the grid to claim 3rd.

A3 was a similar scenario from A2. Cuffs jumped out front early, Scooby found himself way back in the pack And DJ Cranmer again coming from the back of the pack to pace the higher qualifiers. It looked as though Jeff Cuffs had it on Lock. Scooby Horton from almost dead last at the beginning made his way all the way back to the top three in the closing minute of the race. Cuffs did eventually Take the win in A3 with a smart drive and took the Title, Scooby ran back up to finish second in A3 with a last lap pass on DJ Cranmer and secured second overall in the class. DJ Cranmer with the best move in the finals came from 9th to get himself a podium at the nationals. Congratulations .

13.5 TC: A1 saw Rick Howart prove why he was Tq in this class. As in qualifying Rick got out front and would not let it go, Tessmann looked to have the speed for Rick and hung around for a while in second. The battle between Tessmann and Hebert was only getting underway for the finals, the two Canadians were almost inseparable in all of today’s finals. Rick won A1 with a 3 second cushion over Ty tessmann who had only a few tenths over Hebert in third across the line.

In A2 Tessmann had very good speed again but Rick stayed the course and gapped himself from the pack, in the closing stages of the race Rick made a mistake but pulled out of it in time to keep the lead. In the end it was Rick across the line in front of tessmann by a few tenths and Hebert a couple seconds behind tessmann after a mistake of his own.

In A3 Rick did not run for already having wrapped it up with A1 and A2 victories. The Canadians Hebert and Tessmann battled again. In the end Tessmann came out 2 seconds ahead of Hebert with Randy Bernard having a great drive with his Xray to finish third in A3. So the final order would be Rick Howart getting the title with Ty Tessmann in second and Kevin Hebert rounding out the podium.

12th scale 13.5: A1 saw Andrew Knapp jump out front with Mike Haynes trying to pace him, the two pulled away from the field and Knapp was inching away. Haynes was hanging in second a couple seconds behind for a while but Andrew did not give up any ground, in the end it was Haynes who had trouble in traffic. Knapp would win A1 with a large lead over Haynes and Joel Johnson rounding out the top three.

In A2 it was a more dominating performance from Knapp who pulled away fast and wanted to get it over with. Haynes was still a solid second place. The race pretty much ended up as the first did, Knapp with a convincing win over Haynes and Joel Johnson again rounding out the top three.

In A3 with Knapp out of the way as champion, Mike Haynes pulled out and grabbed the win to secure his second place overall. At the end of A3 Joel Johnson got closer to Haynes but not enough to put on a charge. The final order in 13.5 12th scale would be Andrew Knapp as champion with Mike Haynes second and Joel Johnson finishing third.

Mod TC: A1, Lemieux got the hole shot with Howart in close pursuit. The top 4 drivers had pulled away in the opening minute. The order was Lemieux and Howart 1&2 with the Canadian pair Hebert and Tessmann battling it out for third. 3min in Lemieux and Howart had worked a lead on 3rd and 4th but Howart was going nowhere. The two continued nose to tail for the entire 6min. On the last lap Rick tried to make his move but got a little too much on the curb and Lemieux was able to hold him off at with a .4sec win over Howart. In the end Tessmann would finish third.

A2 was almost an instant replay for the first 4 min of A1, Tension amongst spectators was high, Lemieux and Howart got out front and Howart was putting the pressure on. This time Howart was able to stay even closer than in A1, Around the 4 min mark Lemieux made a mistake in the sweeper which allowed Howart to get by. Lemieux fell in behind Howart and tried to keep the pressure on. In the remaining 45 seconds Howart looked like he had the race under control but made a mistake of his own, In his words he lost concentration and Grazed the outside of the main straight which would send his car upside down. This gave A2 right back to Lemieux who would cruise home to a national title with his XRAY/Thunderpower ride. Howart still finished second and Tessmann again getting the three spot.

In A3 Lemieux had to sit out and we saw Howart get out to a large lead over Hebert and Tessmann still grinding it out. With about 2 min to things went nuts with Howart making a mistake then Tessmann, Hebert and Howart all getting tangled up. EJ Evans who put in a nice drive Capitalized on everything and snuck in to Claim the A3 win over Howart in second and Tessmann third again. The final order for the championship was Lemieux claiming the title with Howart second and EJ Ej Evans Claiming third overall.

All in all the race went really well, the ROAR Reps did a very nice job in tech and running the racing, the Jackson RC Crew really pitched in and made sure that the Facility was top notch for a national event and the racing in every class was very exciting.

Congratulations to all the finalists, Thanks to all who came out.. XRAY.



Mod TC
1. Paul Lemieux(TQ) XRAY T3’11
2. Rick Hohwart
3. EJ Evans
4. Ty Tessman
5. Keven Hebert
6. Mike Haynes
7. Randy Bernard XRAY T3’11
8. Fred Hubbard XRAY T3’11

9. Larry Fairtrace
10. Joel Johnson

13.5 TC
1. Rick Hohwart
2. Ty Tessman
3. Keven Hebert
4. Randy Bernard XRAY T3’11
5. EJ Evans
6. Martin Crisp XRAY T3’11
7. Mike Haynes
8. Larry Fairtrace
9. Sam Isaacs XRAY T3’11
10. Jeff Cuffs

17.5 Sedan
1. Jeff Cuffs
2. Scooby Horton XRAY T3’11
3. DJ Cranmer
4. Michael Hanulec
5. Stephen Sohl XRAY T3’11
6. Andy Castellini
7. Mark Dawson
8. Eric Kim
9. Danny Jenkins XRAY T3’11
10. Warren Weaver

13.5 1/12th scale
1. Andrew Knapp
2. Mike Haynes
3. Joel Johnson
4. Billy Spence XRAY XII
5. Scooby Horton
6. Joel Vatour
7. Eric Anderson XRAY XII
8. Robert Dirla
9. Ralph Morella
10. Larry Fairtrace

21.5 Vintage Trans AM
1. Michael Larcher
2. Barry Lofton XRAY T3'11
3. Alex Kubilus
4. Thomas Lane
5. Gene White
6. George Castellini
7. Mark Dawson

Set-up sheet
Paul Lemieux