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Race Report by Paul Lemieux |
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This year Snowbirds were once again held in Orlando FL at the Radisson hotel near Disney world. The Snowbirds is a unique event because it combines Carpet road course racing with carpet Oval racing, the draw overall race entrys are huge because of this and it gets many racers together that would never otherwise interact with each other. |
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The format of the race is 12hrs of road course then 12hrs of oval, this makes for racing nearly round the clock for 5 days straight. The track was around 100ft by 50wide driven counter clockwise the flowing layout was fun, technical and made for good racing. |
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XRAY had a smaller team in attendance this year than normal but there were still several factory drivers there to help all racers. |
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Practice and Qualifying:
I thought that this years track had good grip but especially in the front, it seemed that all of my cars had very much steering compared to how those set ups normally steer at other tracks, threw out the weekend I did things like run less camber in the front of my cars, added rear toe, and less front traction additive to combat cars that (at the beginning) were a bit too aggressive.
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The usual suspects going fast, In Mod and 10.5 12th scale it was Mike Blackstock, Markus Mobers and Paul Ciccarello who looked to be at the front of the pack.
In Mod TC it was Lemieux who was once again setting the pace as he did last year. In 10.5 Rubber TC it was also Lemieux looking fast with Mike Haynes looking good also. In 13.5 TC , Jason Schreffler was really fast along with Kevin Hebert. |
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17.5 rubber TC: Jeff Cuffs took the Tq with Mike Haynes following closely behind.
17.5 Foam TC: Again Jeff Cuffs and Haynes battled it out all threw qualifying with Cuffs taking Tq again.
17.5 12th scale: Donny Lia put on a show and posted Tq in that class with Frank calandra and Jason Schreffler putting it third.
12th scale Mod: it was Blackstock TQ with Mobers in second and Paul Ciccarello in third
World GT: it was a battle every qualifier with so many cars capable of tq honors but in the end it was Blackstock again with the first spot.
Vintage Trans Am: this class uses any TC chassis with a Vintage body, such as original mustang, baracota, and charger bodys. It seem
ed like a good fun class, Mike Haynes was the guy to beat in that class and sat on the pole.
10.5 Rubber TC: in the first qualifier Paul Lemieux put down a time that was not to be beaten all weekend with his T2’ 009 and in the end secured the 1 spot with Austin Harrison second and Mike Haynes in third.
13.5 foam TC: Jason schreffler was really fast and was able to hold of the Canadian Kevin Hebert in qualifying to claim the tq.
10.5 12th scale: this class was very competitive all weekend with the order changing in every round, Mike Blackstock continued his good weekend with the tq in this class also, and Paul Ciccarello ended up in second with Jeff dayger in third.
Mod TC: Paul Lemieux seemed to be be the guy to beat with his T2’ 009 all threw practice and qualifying, he ended up in the TQ spot with Kevin Hebert qualifying second and Jeff Dayger in third. |
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The finals saw some great racing, all but two finals were won by their TQs.
Here are the final results, congratulations to all of the winners! |
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Touring 10.5 Rubber - A Main Results
1 Paul Lemiuex XRAY T2'009
2 Austin Harrison XRAY T2'009
3 TJ Bradley
4 Brian Koch
5 Dave Bowser XRAY T2'009
6 Dave Ehrlich
7 Kyle Bergstrom
8 Charlie Albrecht
9 Steve Weiss XRAY T2'009 |
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Touring Pro Mod - A Main Results
1 Paul Lemiuex XRAY T2'009
2 Kevin Hebert
3 Jeff Dayger
4 Josh Cyrul
5 Mike Blackstock
6 Dave Ehrlich
7 Fernando Gordnho
8 Darren Shank XRAY T2'009
9 Chris Doseck XRAY T2'009
10 Paul Ciccarello
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Touring 17.5 Rubber - A Main Results
1 Jeff Cuffs
2 Mike Haynes
3 Dave Bowser XRAY T2’ 009
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XRAY is really proud to announce that the Win this year with Paul Lemieux in the Mod TC class extends their Winning of this class at this event to 6 years straight, the streak started with Ralph Birch winning it in 2004, former XRAY driver Jilles Groskamp won it in ’ 05, Paul Lemieux in ’ 06, Jilles again in ’ 07 and Lemieux again in ’ 08 and ’ 09. |
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