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| Race report by Paul Lemieux |
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| The Snowbirds is held at the Radisson World Gate hotel in Orlando, FL just a couple miles from Disney world. The race started with practice on Tuesday the 26th, and ran through Sunday the 31st. The track is a temporary carpet track that is set up in the grand ballroom of the hotel. This race is always special because it combines oval and road course racing, oval has half of the hours in the day and road course is set up the other half, so there is racing going on almost all hours of the day. |
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| Practice started on Tuesday and kicked off early at 5am, we had the track untill 3pm then the oval went up. This race is always gruelling because when you are there you don't feel like sleeping, there is always so much going on that sometimes you get caught up in it. |
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| The team for this race was Drew Ellis, Eric Anderson, Dave Erlick, Steve McNichols and I from the US and from Europe Francesco Martini, Andrea Nerone, Lorenzo Voghera made the trip which was really nice to have them here, there were also many other support drivers attending the race for Team XRAY so it was nice to have such a large team. |
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| Practice: |
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| Tuesday and Wednesday everyone was just feeling the track out, the layout was not super tight but it was unforgiving when mistakes were made. In mod TC Jilles Groskamp was fast along with Kevin Hebert, Barry Baker and I was fast also. In 12th scale Jilles Groskamp, Kevin hebert, Josh Cyrul were fast early on. I was so busy with my cars and helping many people that I didn't get a chance to pay attention to the other classes. |
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| Qualifing: |
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| In Mod TC Jilles was TQ after two rounds, in the third round I grabbed TQ by just a little, in the final round of qualifying the track was really fast, Jilles got TQ back with Barry Baker qualifying second. I Broke in the final round of qualifying but felt that my car was really good. Josh Cyrul and Kevin Hebert rounded out the top 5 in Mod. |
| 13.5 TC |
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| I was not able to watch this class much but I remember that Jason Schreffler was a front runner all through qualifing and also ended up with the TQ slot over Kevin Hebert qualifing second. |
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| 10.5 12th scale |
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| All through qualifing it was the usual's like Mike Blackstock and Hupo Honigl who were running really good. In the final qualifier Donny Lia basically came from out of nowhere to TQ this one. Donny had horrible luck early on in qualifing and finally got in a good resort for the final round and put down a TQ run. |
| Mod 12th scale |
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| In Mod 12th scale Josh Cyrul was the guy to beat all weekend, Jilles held TQ early on in qualifying with some good runs, but in the final rounds it was Cyrul who TQed by 2 seconds over Jilles in second and 1 sec back from there was Blackstock in third. I qualified 7th in this class, I had the production XRAY link car for this race and by the end I was pretty fast. I am really looking forward to the next 12th scale race now for I learned a ton. |
| 17.5 Foam TC |
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In 13.5 Foam TC Italian Francesco Martini dominated qualifying. I think he TQ'd every qualifier. Steve McNichols qualified second and Wess Lion qualified third. Top three were all XRAY Cars!.
Congrats to all of the TQ's and finalists. |
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| Mod TC: |
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| Jilles took off at the start with Baker and I behind, we ran comfortable like that for a minute untill Jilles made a mistake which would drop him to third behind myself and Baker, shortly after that Baker made a costly mistake in the sweeper which would end his chances for this race. I then led with Jilles in hot persuit for a minute or so. Then going through the infield Jilles hit me in the rear end which spun me in to the board, by the time I could be marshaled I had dropped to 4th so Jilles could not wait for me. Jilles took home the win with Kevin Hebert in second and Josh Cyrul in third. |
| Mod 12th scale |
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| It was Cyrul who led from wire to wire controlling the race, Jilles, Blackstock and I ran 2nd through 4th pretty close for most of the race just a couple of seconds back of Cyrul. About 5min in I crashed and had to pull my car because of my body getting caught on a rear tire. Josh crused for a comfortible win with Jilles getting second on the last lap with blackstock taking third. This would give Jilles the overall Mod Title which combines the Mod TC Class and Mod 12th. |
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| 17.5 foam TC |
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In 17.5 foam XRAY went 1,2,3.
1. Steve McNichols XRAY T3
2. Francesco Martini XRAY T3
3. Robert Dirla XRAY T3
4. Wes Lion XRAY T3
5. Brad Krans XRAY T3 |
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| Final Results |
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17.5 rubber A-main
1. Brad Johnson
2. Jeff Cuffs
3. JB Catricala
4. Austin Harrison XRAY T3
5. Mark Burt XRAY T3
6. Chris Adams XRAY T3
7. Mike Hanulec XRAY T3
8. Ron Goetter XRAY T3
9. TJ Bradley
10. Kyle Eden
17.5 1/12 A-main
1. Steve McNichols
2. Joe Trandall
3. Mark Smyka
4. Brian Wynn
5. Eric Anderson XRAY
6. Frank Ulbrik
7. Randy Grosse
8. Frank Calandra
9. Kenny Lambert
10. Jeff Cuffs
13.5 Foam Touring car
1. Steve McNichols XRAY T3
2. Francesco Martini XRAY T3
3. Robert Dirla XRAY T3
4. Wes Lion XRAY T3
5. Brad Krans XRAY T3
6. Chad Sharp
7. Mark Day
8. Byron Weston
9. Tim Moore
10. David Cousins
1/12 mod A-main
1. Josh Cyrul
2. Jilles Groskamp
3. Mike Blackstock
4. Donny Lia
5. Markus Mobers
6. Keven Hebert
7. Hupo Honigl
8. Walter Henderson
9. Paul Ciccarello
10. Paul Lemieux XRAY XII Link
13.5 Rubber tire A-main
1. Jason Schreffler
2. Keven Hebert
3. Martin Crisp
4. Francesco Martini XRAY T3
5. Austin Harrison XRAY T3
6. Drew Ellis XRAY T3
7. Brad Johnson
8. Barry Baker
9. Larry Fairtrace
10. Jeff Cuffs
1/12 10.5 A-main
1. Hupo Honigl
2. Jason Schreffler
3. Jilles Groskamp
4. Mike Blackstock
5. Markus Mobers
6. Donny Lia
7. Mike Haynes
8. Paul Ciccarello
9. Drew Ellis XRAY XII Link
10. Walt Henderson
Touring Mod Rubber A-main
1. Jilles Groskamp
2. Keven Hebert
3. Josh Cyrul
4. Paul Lemieux XRAY T3
5. Barry Baker
6. Jason Schreffler
7. Martin Crisp
8. Mike Haynes
9. Francesco Martini XRAY T3
10. Chris Tosolini |
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