The ROAR Gas Nationals were the week of August 25-30 in Toledo, Ohio at the One Eighth Racers. In attendance for XRAY/RCAmerica were Ralph Burch, Paul Lemieux, Bobby Flack, Chris Doseck, Roniel Regalado, Scott Rister, and Drew Ellis. There was also many support drivers in attendance. We felt that this race was going to be good. Most of the team came up a month beforehand for the GLC race that was at this track. So was plenty of testing was done then and everyone felt good about there car. There will be 6 rounds of qualifiers and a 1-hour long A main.
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Practice
The first day of practice kicked off at 7AM and the whole team was there. Paul, Ralph and Bobby all looked really good on the track. The first day they traded off fast laps every time they hit the track. The last day of practice was good and the whole team was up to speed and looking good. Paul, Ralph and Bobby were the three fastest on the track; their cars were working really well.
Qualifying
Qualifying started and it was Ralph who got the first round and the second. Paul was right there and so was Bobby. Qualifying would use qualifying points, it would reward points after ever round and the driver with the lowest amount would determine his qualifying position. The A main would take 10 drivers with 4 bumping up from the semis.
The second day of qualifying was off to a good start. Ralph broke the track record with a 16/5:04 time. That was the fastest time that had been ever run on this track.
The last day of qualifying was all Paul. He got the last 2 qualifiers to take TQ away from his teammate Ralph. Paul also broke the old track record with a 16/5:04.
So at the end of qualifying it looked like this:
1 Paul Lemieux (TQ) XRAY NT1
2 Ralph Burch XRAY NT1
3 Bobby Flack XRAY NT1
4 Josh Cyrul
5 DJ Apolaro
6 Paolo Morganti
7 Andrew Power 8 Scotty Grey XRAY NT1
9 Vincent Jackson 10 Chris Doseck XRAY NT1
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The next day was main day with the lower finals running first. The first semi saw Roniel Regalado and Diatta Collymore bump in to the main. Great drive guys! The second semi saw Uriah Murnan and Tommy Desantis bump. Also a great drive guys!
So the main would start like this⦠with 9 out of 14 drivers running XRAY:
1 Paul Lemieux (TQ) XRAY NT1
2 Ralph Burch XRAY NT1
3 Bobby Flack XRAY NT1
4 Josh Cyrul
5 DJ Apolaro
6 Paolo Morganti
7 Andrew Power 8 Scotty Grey XRAY NT1
9 Vincent Jackson 10 Chris Doseck XRAY NT1
11 Uriah Murnan XRAY NT1
12 Roniel Regalado XRAY NT1
13 Tommy Desantis XRAY NT1
14 Diatta Collymore XRAY NT1
Main
The tone went off, and Lemieux took off with Burch in tow. A couple of laps later Paul traction rolled due to the soft big tires he chose to run. This dropped Paul to 2nd and put Ralph into the lead. Ralph took the lead and held a 3sec lead over Paul for about 15 minutes. Third qualifier (Bobby Flack) was involved in an incident and ended up flaming out. At this time it was Ralph in the lead with Paul in 2nd, Cyrul 3rd, and Paolo 4th. Paolo was keeping pace with Josh, and Ralph and Paul pretty much had checked out. About 25 minutes in, Ralph traction rolled and flamed out which gave the lead back to Paul. Josh was in 2nd and Paolo was in 3rd. Ralph was in 4th now with a hurt car; he had chunked a tire when he traction rolled. Paolo had some problems with running out of fuel and so did Josh. This moved Ralph back up to 2nd with Josh in tow. Paul was about 3 laps up on the field. Josh got by Ralph and that is how the race ended with Paul Lemieux being crowned National Champion.
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Finishing order:
1 Paul Lemieux TQ XRAY NT1
2 Josh Cyrul 3 Ralph Burch XRAY NT1
4 Bobby Flack XRAY NT1
5 Scotty Grey XRAY NT1
6 Chris Doseck XRAY NT1
7 Vincent Jackson 8 Tommy Desantis XRAY NT1
9 Paolo Morganti 10 Uriah Murnan XRAY NT1 11 Roniel Regalado XRAY NT1
12 DJ Apolaro 13 Diatta Collymore XRAY NT1
14 Andrew Power
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Thanks to all the team for their hard work for making this another great race and national title for XRAY. What a great race to follow up the great job done by the team at the Euros a few weeks before this. And 9 out of 14 racers were using an XRAY NT1 in the A main!
I would like to thank our sponsors for their support: XRAY, HUDY, RCAmerica, Max power and Jaco. Thanks to ROAR and also the one eighth racers of Toledo for a great race. Great job!! See you at the next one.
