Will the race go on is the Question? Storms in the sky. If on let the game begin. ha ha ha
Bandit
If there's lightning, cant put fans in the stands.
But it looks like the heavy stuff arrived early so all should be good by race time.
http://www.accuweather.com/us/radar/sir/mi_/radar.asp?play=true
Back gates are open and not raining right now.
Man what a great great day for a race it turned out to be. Awesome battle on the track for the first enduro of the season, and a splendid display of Chaos from the Ultimate Sandblasting Chaos Cars.
Here's a couple Chaos photos, all courtesy of Doug and Don Perkins.
When they go from this standing start...
...to this, a half a straight later...
...you know you've got some serious chaos on your hands. (Seriously, they started at a standing start, and Bush Bomb went over Snotty and flipped it before they'd even got up to speed.)
And members of the CRO faithful don't get any more faithful than the Undertaker AKA Notingtolose. Observe the upper windshield graphic. 🙂
Shadow Report - Transmission Direct Enduro, May 1 2010.
Well the day started off dreary and overcast for the season opening Transmission Direct Enduro at Delaware, but the day turned out A-OK, and in fact we managed to get quite a bit of sunshine showing through by race time. And after a long winter and a couple of really cold practice days, it was awesome to once again hear the thunder of the engines, and sounds of the speedway.
We started off with John on the mic, as well as our newest member of the announce team, Jamie Maudsley. Maybe opening day jitters, but we had our first goofy moment of the day when they handed the mic over to the national anthem singer without telling everyone it was time. She was 2 lines into the Star Spangled Banner before this awkward moment when the crowd realized they were supposed to stand up and take their hats off. But the crowd figured it out. Funny stuff.
Enduro Heat 1
Then it was time to roll out the first race and the sounds of AC/DC over the pa while they announced the first race. Notably, 182-Demelo started front row alongside a really awesome looking "Lightning McQueen" lookalike camaro. A couple of our own, Dougy 109 started 5th row and the number 50 of Snotrod Racing's Mark Thyssen started in the 10th row.
The race was a 30 lap affair that saw 182-Demelo and 114-Hilton jump out in front and open up an early lead on everyone else. But after the first 10 laps a challenger was bearing in, the 45 of Barry Watson. Demelo and Hilton put on a good show, eventually getting side by side, splitting up either side of lap traffic. Eventually Hilton takes the lead, but Demelo stays right with him. Then they hit a big gaggle of lap cars and suddenly the 45 of Watson squirts out into the lead with Hilton hot on his bumper, followed by Demelo, 07-Klumper and 23-Ferguson. However at the last lap something goes amiss and everyone goes past Watson again.
Final - 1st to Hilton, 2nd to Demelo, 3rd to Klumper, 4th to Ferguson.
Heat 2
7-Fothergill, newly dubbed "the Black Knight" by the announce team, put on a clinic for heat 2. He started on the 2nd row, but was in front by the time they passed the backstretch scoreboard on lap 1...which took him 1/4 of a lap longer than I'd predicted. The only challenger in this race was 64-Book who started buried back in the field, but it didn't take him long to get to the front to challenge Fothergill. 39-McCullough and 37-Arrand waged a pretty good battle for 3rd in the closing laps. Book got up to Fothergill but either didn't have anything for him, or he decided to take it easy because it was a heat race. Considering what happened in the feature, its a pretty good bet he didn't have anything for Fothergill.
1st to Fothergill, 2nd to Book, 3rd to McCullough, 4th to 37-Arrand, (5th was listed on the board as the 15 which would have been Newman if I'm correct.)
Chaos Cars
Now its time to open up the track to the Chaos Cars. 9 were in attendance, being "Blue Thunder" Triska, "Undertaker" Yorke, "Born Again" Leeson, "Snotty" Graham, "Red Baron" Kilgore, "Bush Bomb" Rabideau, "Lucifer" (Cathy Curr I think they said her name was) "Great Canadian Hero" Yeo (new car...Suzuki Sprint I think it was) and Erin (Aaron?) Tate in "White Lightning"
Some excitement right off the bat when they started the race from pit road with a standing start. They all got to the turn 4 end of the pit wall safely except for Snotty and Bush Bomb who somehow got together and ended with Bush Bomb flipping over onto his roof. When inteviewed after, Spencer replied with a smile, "whoa...it was awesome".
Now, before this happened, Undertaker had jumped into the lead. Once the race started again, he kept it till he went into the 360 barrel and stalled it, stacking everyone up behind him. Once everyone's clear of the mess, Blue Thunder is in front followed by Great Canadian Hero and the Red Baron. Baron spins GCHero to take 2nd, and then catches Blue Thunder in the barrel turn to take 1st.
Now White Lightning's up into the fray, and its a 3 way battle for 2nd between him, GCHero and Blue Thunder. Blue Thunder and GCHero are laying the boots to each other pretty good, and allowing White Lightning to challenge the Baron for the lead. White Lightning takes it.
In the end, its white Lighning with GCHero right behind, and out of the final stop box, Hero spins White Lightning to take the win. Hey...everything's fair in love and Chaos racing.
Our winner, Great Canadian Hero is actually Tyler Yeo, 14 years old, who is some relation (I think someone said son of) Raymond Yeo, who we know as the driver of the blue number 55 SuperStock. (The old-style Camaro)
Transmission Direct Enduro Feature.
Ok so now there's 50-some cars on the track. Both Fothergill and Book (not to mention the SnotRod guys) have disasters early. Book's black flagged for putting down fluid before we even start, but he's in and out before the green flies. Fothergill has a tire go down on lap 4 which puts him somewhere between 2 and 4 laps down by the time he makes it out again. Snotrod doesn't even take the green...out with axle trouble. In the very early laps its apparent that Book is still laying down a lot of water and by lap 30 he's out with overheating issues, never to return.
Up front its the 45 of Watson, 182-Demelo, 07-Klumper, 114-Hilton and 9-Jeffrey.
Couple of crazier moments of note: Everyone got a bit of a laugh when 51-Moesker goes looping around in turn 2 and sits stalled for a couple of laps pointing the wrong way on the racetrack. Eventually, 32-Fucile comes to his rescue, bringing the 32 car nose to nose with the 51 and pushing him backwards down the backchute to the pit entrance.
Another one...this one not so funny. Race leader 45-Watson and 1-Cook get together coming out of 4. Watson loops around, but Cook goes extremely hard into the wall...so hard the car actually leaves the ground. He goes flying down the frontchute, all bent up, right front folded underneath, and throwing up a lot of smoke. He limps it around to the turn 2 entrance where it finally stalls out. Watson heads in by going backward down the frontchute and pulling it in around the end of pit wall. Cook is trying to pull it in, but can only move it in 2-3 foot increments. Eventually they finally throw the red and get him out of there.
By the halfway marker, Demelo's well in front with 9-Jeffrey and 39-McCullough not too far behind. Fothergill is cutting thru traffic, actually the fastest guy on the track most of the time, but he's having a hard time making up the ground he needs to to get all his laps back.
By Lap 85, McCullough is in striking distance of Demelo, eventuallly splitting lap trafffic to take the lead, but Demelo doesn't give up. Fothergill gets by Demelo and sets up to pass McCullough. This sets up one of the the highlights of the race in which Fothergill and McCullough engage in a high speed chess game amongst all the lapped cars. It see-saws back and forth, and we were questioning if McCullough actually knew that Fothergill wasn't on the same lap. Fothergill gets by and goes, setting up the next highlight of the race. Now Demelo is back up to McCullough's bumper, and its a great 50-or-so lap battle between McCullough and Demelo in which the lead is swapped a number of times. Again its a chess game as both are weaving and bobbing thru lap traffic looking for the advantage. 9-Jeffrey is solid in 3rd place and there's a battle for 4th between 23-Ferguson and 777-Blaauboer.
By lap 141, Demelo's got a bit of a lead but McCullough makes it back up to him to try one more time but doesn't seal the deal.
Final 1st to Demelo, 2nd to McCullough, 3rd to Jeffrey, 4th to Blaauboer, and 5th to Ferguson.
Oh, and a congrats to Doug "the Welsher" Capp, ;D who took checkered and finished the race (I beleive) in 23rd.
The sun was out, racing was in the air, Richmond Row was right where we left it on Labor Day. And all was right in the world.
(except CrazyLady was nowhere to be found 🙁 )
That's the report for this week. Now I find Im shaking a little of the winter rust off too, so I apologize for the choppy report, but we'll see you all next Friday night.
;D ;D ;D Racing seaon 2010 is OFFICIALLY on! ;D ;D ;D
well good day of racing
Top 5
1st #182 Emanuel Demelo
2nd #39 David McCullogh
3rd #9 Ed Jeffrey
4th #777 Piet Blaauboer II
5th #23 Jeff Ferguson
Heat 1 winner #114 Al Hilton
Heat 2 winner #7 Paul Fothergill
other notes:
#64 of Steve Book had problems pretty much from lap 1 of the feature and had to pit for overheating it looked like from my view.
#15 was not there and but Barry Newman drove with a 15 on the car he was in to give the 15 the points.
Chaos Cars there were 9 total and the win went to a new car first race out and only 14 years old Tyler in the Firefly
Also on Lap 1 of the Chaos race the bush bomb flipped over onto it roof and would not continue.
all in all good day at the track as the weather held off now its on to the opening night Friday May 7th