The 2013 Airtronics GP was held at the Greater LA club in Southern California. This track will be home to the US Nationals held later this year in September. This race had more then 130 entries packed into three days of racing.
We arrived at the track on Friday for practice and one round of qualifying later in the afternoon. I focused on helping out Jason Conley as this was his first time to the track and I was just here in January. Jason just needed a couple of runs and he was up to speed. I then started testing but concentrated mostly on engine testing as I knew 5 minutes was going to be hard to complete in both class's.
Friday's qualifying was also going to be important as the runs would be late in the day and the track would be very quick. Round one did not go well for me and the rest of the XRAY team as we all had some kind of problem so we would have to wait until Saturday.
Saturday's qualifying went well for us even though the track was a bit slower then Friday. I was able to T.Q both the sedan and 1/8th class's and Trevor Geter T.Qed the 1/8th sportsman class. We had three cars in the Sedan final, three cars in the Sportsman final and one car in the 1/8th final.
First up was the sedan final. It started at well and I was able to pull out a small lead on D.J and then I made a few mistakes with D.J taking over the lead. I was able to catch up to only get taken out by another car. I had to work may way back up and I was able to get within a few seconds of D.J with only a few minutes left I was able to make it to the end of the race but I knew DJ would have to pit one more time and at the end it worked out for me! I was able to edge out DJ by just .5 at the finish!
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1/10 Top 10
1. Mike Swauger - XRAY NT1
2. DJ Apolaro
3. Brian Thomas 4. Johnny Bravo - XRAY NT1
5. Walter Diaz 6. Scott Barnes - XRAY NT1
7. Paolo Morganti
8. Eric Dennet
9. Jason Smith
10. Steve Perez
Next up was the Sportsman class. Unfortunately I was getting ready for my 1/8th final so I was not able to watch this race. I can tell you though Robert Morris was the winner in only his second nitro race ever! Congratulations Robert!
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1/8 Sportsman Top 10
1. Robert Morris - XRAY RX8
2. Don Miyamoto
3. Tom Wong
4. Bill Jianas
5. Billy T 6. Trevor Geter - XRAY RX8
7. Otto Rossa
8. Dan Almario
9. Al Lopez
10. Sal Bissada
Then it was time for the final race, 1/8th open. The race got under way and it could have not have gone any better. My car was good all weekend and the final was no exception. I was able to pull a three lap lead and roll around the track to take the victory!
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1/8 Open Top 10
1. Mike Swauger - XRAY RX8
2. Paolo Morganti
3. Chris Verano
4. Christian Lopez
5. Tony Clark
6. Jon Prather
7. Michael Palazolla
8. Brian Thomas
9. DJ Apolaro
10. Walter Diaz
I would like to thank Airtronics for putting on this race with a well deserved congratulations to Brian Thomas and the rest of the Greater LA club for making this race the fun, exciting race that it was! Next up will be the KO Propo GP in May at this same track.
