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This past weekend the 2013 U.S. Indoor Championships were held at the Holiday Inn at Strongsville, Ohio. This race has taken place in and around the Cleveland Ohio area for over 30 years on Thanksgiving weekend, and is a prestigious event that every die-hard carpet racer holds in high regard. The event recently became a part of the Midwest Grand Slam series and is round 2 of the 2013 season.
While not many of the familiar names on Team Xray were present this year, the group that attend were able to maintain the level of teamwork and performance that youâ™d see from Team Xray at any major event, and came away with some great results.
As usual, 17.5 Touring was the biggest TC class of the event. The Xray team managed to place 7 cars in the A-Main with Sam Isaacs leading the charge by putting in an excellent 4th round effort to place himself 2nd overall for qualifying. Mike Herald Jr. was on pace to TQ in round 4 when he found himself caught up in unavoidable traffic, which ended his hopes of starting as TQ. He would start P4. Danny Jenkins, Craig Xavier, Junior Norton, Todd Bigelow and Cody Woods also put in great qualifying efforts all weekend to place themselves 5th, 6th 8th, 9th and 10th respectively.
The start was fairly clean resulting in a breakaway of about the first 5 or 6 cars, but the following minute or two was a little rough resulting in some tough breaks for Sam and Mike Herald Jr. They both kept pushing hard and around halfway through the feature found themselves 1 & 2 with Herald Jr. leading, and they never looked back. Sam was able to reel in Mike to make it close at the end, but Mike drove flawless and held on to win with Danny Jenkins finishing 5th, Cody Woods 6th, Craig Xavier 7th, Junior Norton 8th and Todd Bigelow 9th. Proof of the outstanding level of teamwork and dedication found within the Xray team can be seen here in the fact that Herald Jr., Sam Isaacs, Danny Jenkins and Craig Xavier all race together locally at Middle River Hobbies, just north of Baltimore Maryland. These guys have been constantly pushing each other to improve every week and the results are really showing this year! Other Xray drivers from the Baltimore area who put in solid B-Main runs at this event were Manny Flores (1st), Arvin Nano (5th) and Ray Klebanow (10th). Mike Wise and Eric Schneeweis also piloted a Xray T4 â™14s to finish 4th and 7th in the B-Main.
In 13.5 Touring Xray landed 5 spots, with Cody Woods being the highest qualifier of our group, starting 2nd. Manny Flores would start 4th, Justin Lyons 5th, Brock Witmer 7th and Ray Sundland 9th. At the tone, Manny Flores got a great start and ran 2nd for a few laps, but Cody was very fast and grabbed 2nd place back, and held on till the end. Manny was able to hold on to finish 3rd, Justin placed 7th, Brock unfortunately fell out early to end 9th and Ray 10th.
Mod Touring was the smallest of the TC classes, but still saw some of the usual contenders such as Keven Hebert, Andrew Hardman and Paul Ciccarello. Hot lap on the weekend in this class was 7.564 set by Xray driver Robbie Dodge in round 3, though it wouldnâ™t be until round 4 that Robbie put in a full 6-minute run fast enough to qualify 2ndbehind Keven Hebert, with Andrew Hardman 3rd Paul Ciccarello 4th and Xray driver RJ Whiteside starting 6th. In the main, the top 4 or 5 got off to a clean start and freight trained for about two laps until a mistake dropped Dodge to 5th. By lap 6, Dodge was able to move back up to 3rd, which is where heâ™d finish behind Hebert and Hardman. RJ was able to hang on to 6th for the majority of the race and picked up a spot with about a minute left to finish 5th.
It was a great weekend for Team Xray picking up another win in the hotly contested 17.5 TC class, and placing multiple cars in every Touring A-Main. The turnout this year was higher than it has been in the past few years, and it is great to see success for the new group of guys running the event. Thank you Ken Miller, John Peoples, Sean Bushnell, and everyone else who helped bring this event back to the level of glory it once held.
Thank's to everyone at the event and especially The XRAY team for the hard work and great results!
17.5 TC:
1) Mike Herald Jr. - XRAY T4
2) Sam Isaacs - XRAY T4
3) Dave Johnson
4) Brian Wynn
5) Danny Jenkins - XRAY T4
6) Cody Woods - XRAY T4
7) Craig Xavier - XRAY T4
8) Junior Norton - XRAY T4
9) Todd Bigelow - XRAY T4
10) Bill Sydor
13.5 TC:
1) Ray Darroch
2) Cody Woods - XRAY T4
3) Manny Flores - XRAY T4
4) Paul Ciccarello
5) Alex Kubilus
6) Chris Vogan
7) Justin Lyons - XRAY T4
8) Will Jossens
9) Brock Witmer - XRAY T4
10) Ray Sundland - XRAY T4
Mod TC:
1) Keven Hebert
2) Andrew Hardman
3) Robbie Dodge - XRAY T4
4) Paul Ciccarello
5) RJ Whiteside - XRAY T4
6) Johny Lee
7) Alston Kelso
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