| Race report by Gene 'the machine' Hickerson |
(click to enlarge) |
Round #1 of the Florida State Nitro Series race was held in Bartow at 555 raceway. The small track had a large turnout of 130 entries, with all of Florida's best drivers ready to battle for the championships series.
In round 1 of qualifying, Gene Hickerson's Andy Brown powered XB8 set the TQ time to beat in heat #8, with a 11 lap 5:01 time, just missing 12 laps. |
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photo taken by Jack Miles
(click to enlarge) |
| The track continued to get more bumpy as the round went on. Hickerson's time proved to be too fast to beat, as 2nd was 12 seconds slower, and the 3rd qualifiers time more then 1 lap slower. In round # 2, the heat order was reversed due to the deteriorating track condition. After a quick break for track maintenance, round #2 was started. Travis Scrambling set the fast time with a 11 lap 5:13 time in the beginning of the round, but was 13 seconds slower then TQ. |
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photo taken by Jack Miles
(click to enlarge) |
David Diehl's XB8 also put in an A-main run, qualifying him 6th. Hickerson was in final heat #14, and already had TQ locked up.
Hickerson tried to go 12 laps on the extremely bumpy track, but stuffed it into the pipe a few times and came up short with the 2nd fastest run of the day of an 11 lap 5:10, TQ'ing the 2nd round and the over all TQ as well. |
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The main was cut short at the last minute to 15 minutes due to the large number of entries. At the start, the TQ curse struck again, as Hickerson was evolved in a pile up and ended up in last place. After the half way mark, Hickerson caught leader Dave Bingston, and the battle for 1st was on.
Bingston was able to go with only 1 stop, while Hickerson needed a splash at the end. But during his last pit stop, his engine flamed out, and ended his chance of winning. After getting restarted, Hickerson was able work his way back into 2nd place, followed by Luis Perez. That was the order in which they finished as time ran out.
1. Dave Bingston
2. Gene Hickerson XRAY XB8 (TQ)
3. Luis Perez
4. Bobby Moore
5. Ryan Eckert
6. Maxy Velasco
7. Travis Scrambling
8. David Diehl XRAY XB8
9. Jay Johnson
10. Jason Rona |
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