The 21st Annual Halloween classic was hosted at its home track âśThe Gateâť in Cleveland Ohio on October 2nd-4th. This race has gone back many years as the warm up to the Cleveland Indoor Champs and has grown its own prestige over time.
(click to enlarge)
The Event format was official practice on Friday with three qualifiers on Saturday and one qualifier on Sunday followed by the Finals. This yearâ™s race sold out at 220 entries in 90 minutes when the online sign ups opened. This year it was considered the first race of carpet season for the US so it is fair to say that there was some big anticipation for everyone to get back to carpet racing.
(click to enlarge)
The Team XRAY/ RCAmerica drivers that made the race were Paul Lemieux, Eric Anderson, Drew Ellis, Mike Jones, Sam Isaac, and Dan Hamann. The team worked well together on setup and all the XRAY cars were looking good by the end of practice, we felt on pace and ready for qualifying to start.
(click to enlarge)
Saturday was a long day with the three rounds of qualifying. The gate crew did a great job running the 99 heats. At the end of the day Team XRAY was sitting TQ in stock TC [Sam Isaac], TQ in F1 [Drew Ellis], and TQ in Mod TC [Paul Lemieux]. The fourth round of qualifying on Sunday would see no change as all three drivers were able to hold on to the TQ positions.
(click to enlarge)
The finals were intense in many classes. Sam Issacs and Kyle Klingforth had especially good battles in the 17.5 TC and 13.5 TC classes, Mitch Whitiman and Mike Hanulec would as well have a amazing battle in the 12th 17.5 division as well. Other finals saw Lemieux take a tone to tone victory in Mod TC and Drew Ellis put his stamp on the F1 class.
(click to enlarge)
Mod TC
1: Paul Lemieux - XRAY T4
2: Kevin Hebert
3: Andrew Hardman
4: Cody Woods
5: Mike Haynes
6: Josh Hohnstein
7: Josh Cyrul
8: Paul Ciccarello 9: Drew Ellis - XRAY T4
10 Kyle Klingforth
