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This past weekend was the 2017 ROAR on-road Paved Nationals at NControl in Dale, Texas. The race was rescheduled due to Hurricane Harvey which resulted in a slightly lower turnout than normal. Competition was still very high as many of the usual big names made it out to compete.

In practice our team worked really well together on setup. In 13.5 1/12, Johnee Fenimore would seed 2nd. In USGT, Andrew Doherty, Billy Land and Clayton Young would seed 2, 4 and 5. Andrew would seed #1 and Clayton 6th in 25.5 TC. In 17.5 TC I could seed 1st, Johnee 3rd, Craig Xavier 7th, Brian Bonadona 9th, Steve Breuer 10th and Clayton 11th. Mod TC would have Chris Adams seeded 3rd and Lex Tyler 7th.

Track conditions were tricky all week as the track would start off cool and low grip every morning under cloud cover. As the day progressed, it would get faster but if the sun came out, grip would increase substantially. Most of the event was under cloud cover but at times we got some sun light and could put in a faster run with laptimes improving by a couple tenths.

Again, all through quals the team worked really well on chassis setup and tire prep. We learned a lot together and everyone benefitted from this. The track layout was flowing and fun with a bit of technicality that rewarded you if you could drive aggressive but not over drive it. It was a lot of fun and the NControl team did a great job with the facility.

In the Modified division, Chris and Lex represented X-RAY well.. Chris was able to set the pace in the early rounds with two Tq runs. He missed making it three in a row in Q3 by .3 seconds. Starting from the second spot on the grid, he showed the early pace in the mains but was unlucky with contact in the front. He fought back and moved up to secure 4th overall. Lex Tyler was able to improve his qualifying by one position in the mains finishing in 7th right behind the current Carpet National Champion.

17.5 Touring car was a stacked field with X-ray putting 5 cars in the A. Johnee Fenimore, the top seeded X-ray was able to convert his 4th place qualifying spot into a 3rd overall. Robbie Dodge and Craig Xavier were able to move up one spot as well and finish 4th and 5th respectively.

13.5 12th scale had Johnee Fenimore looking like a contender early on in qualifying. Unable to pull off the Tq spot, he made some adjustments and was able to take the first two mains nearly tone to tone securing his second national title in as many years with nearly flawless driving.

In the usgt class, Andrew, Clayton, and Billy Land competed for the top spot but unfortunately fell short in qualifying. Andrew was able to set the second fastest run of the mains to ultimately take 2nd with the tie-break over Billy and Clayton.

Through Qual points, best 2 of 4 rounds the Xray team would end up as follows:

Mains were pretty exciting to watch. Most classes had triple A mains while some had double. The double A mains were a bit confusing but our team did well working together through all of them. The move of the weekend had to go to Chris Adams working high and low to put an amazing pass on Rick Hohwart in A1 for 3rd late in the race.

The pass took 3 corners to pull it off and ended in a door-to-door drag race down the short chute on the right side of the track with Adams having the preferred line. Johnee Fenimore would have 2 great mains in 13.5 1/12 grabbing the lead from TQ Billy Spence and holding on to win both and the overall title, congrats to Johnee! Main results went like this:

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13.5 1/12 class results:
1. Johnee Fenimore - XRAY X12
2. Billy Spence
3. Ivan Bryson

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USGT results:
1. Chris Kemper
2. Andrew Doherty - XRAY GTX8
3. Clayton Young - XRAY GTX8