| Race: Points Race #07 Date: 7-10-2005 Location: Richmond, Va. Track: 360 West Shopping Center Temperature: 96°F & Humid |
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Hot, hot, hot and humid was the conditions of the day. Club members used the usual layout (see below) to aide in reducing setup time & effort. Angel opened regisratation following seteup and soon two rounds of controlled practice were run. Once practice was concluded David Basl held a short drivers meeting and qualifiers were setup and posted.
![]() Qualifying: In Qualifying it seemed to be a day when many drivers would have the second best qualifying efforts of the year. John Laster (1/8th Scale), Time Aberg (Nitro Trucks), Eric Jones (Nitro Touring Sport) all earned their 2nd poles of the year. John Laster also won his 8th Electric Touring pole while Aaron Bartlett won his 7th pole in Nitro Monster Truck. The only 1st time pole winner of the day was Dave Beasley winning the top spot in the Nitro Touring Sport class.
1/8th B-Main: From the waving of the green flag Joe Hose, Joe Hauge, and Terrance Brown started to check out on the remainder of the field. Stan Medlin, Travis Johnson, David Basl, and Aaron Bartlett comprised the chase group. Stan ran into trouble and had to park his ride half way through the first fuel run. He soon would have company in the form of Terrance and Aaron who both ran into problems early in the race. That left Travis & David to try and chase down the lead pair of Joes. About half way through the race, Joe Hose's machine would have a mechanical failure while leading causing him to retire as well. From there Joe Hauge put it on cruise control and drove his way into the A-Main. Davis & Travis rounded out the field a few laps back both having fairly good runs. 1/8th A-Main: The A-Main took the green flag missing a few cars. Ralph Phillips and Chuck Lienbach both failed to make the start leaving John Laster, Sean Tabor, Kevin Randolph, Joe Hauge, Troy Woodson, Mike Bowman, & Mark Poore to battle it out for victory. Sean jumped out to the early lead with a close Mark, Jon, and Mike in tow. After brief contact behind them on lap two Kevin led the second group including Troy and Joe. Back up front Seans car had some mixture problems and was forced to retire as Mark, Jon, and Mike drove by. Mark started putting some distance between himself and Jon while Mike started testing Jons setup by poking a nose in front of him every so often. Things settled down for awhile until just before the second fuel stop Marks car coughed once and promptly ran out of gas. This allowed Jon who had finally disposed of Mike to take the lead that he would never relinquish for the remainder of the race. Further back, Kevin who had closed up on Mike, Mark, & Troy, had just started to pressure these three guys when a mechanical problem sent him to the garage. As the final second tick off the clock Jon would get his second win of the year followed by Mike, Mark, Troy, Joe, Kevin, Sean, Ralph, & Chuck. 1/10th Electric: In Electric Touring the story remained the same ole, same ole. John Laster! What can you say! He knows his electric cars. He never trailed in this race putting on a show of consistency. Fllowing Jon at the buzzer was Kevin Randolph & Angie Ingram in that order. Tommy Ingram and Edsel Pinpin did not start! Nitro Truck: In the Nitro Class there were no suprises. TQ, Tim Aberg shows his dominace by leading the race flag to flag. Earl Ingram and Victor Boger both failed to finish the event earning the second and third spots respectively. 1/10th Nitro Touring Sport: Nitro Touring Sport saw an experiment in why not to try and run 13 drivers in 1 race. This race scheduled for 13 drivers soon went sour as they attempted to take the drivers stand. It wasn't big enough. After sorting out the conflict the race started with 9 drivers banging doors for position. Pole sitter Dave Beasley took the lead early with Lamont Dunson, Aaron Bartlett, and Paul Knab in close pursuit. Shadowing these guys was Scott Harrell, Josh Wallace, and James Giles. A little further back in a third pack were the cars of Craig Jones and Ron Beaman. Chris Garrett would join the hunt a little after the start. Josh ran into trouble as early as lap two and never materialized as a factor. Dave and Chris also would have troubles that would require extensive stays in the pits. Aaron & Paul quickly moved to the front from this points and the remainder of the field would duke it out for the whole twenty minutes. When all the dust settled Aaron took first, Paul in second, and Scott finished off the podium spots in third. The rest of the field looked like this. Craig 4th, Lamont 5th, Dave 6th, Chris 7th, James 8th, Josh 9th, and Ron in 10th. Those who did not start were Larry Williams, Travis Johnson, and Johnny Whitman. 1/10th Nitro Touring Pro: Nitro Touring Pro had some heavy hitters and hinted at being a good race. Among the entries was Eric Jones, Sean Tabor, Mike Bowman, Mike McDaniels, John Laster, and Jack Honeycut. Not to mention local drivers Terrance Brown, Tim Aberg, and Stan Medlin. When the horn blew these seasoned veterans did battle and swapped positions almost in every turn at the early stages of the race. Sean would fall out early. Melvin Aulston also had difficulties early and retired from the race. Terrance ran into trouble as well but fought hard to get back in the race and did so. Up front Eric put on a driving clinic and all but shook off the cars of the two Mikes and Jon. When the dust had settled and all the broke parts laid on the track Eric would take home the checkers with Bowman, McDaniels, Honeycutt, Medlin, Aberg, Brown, Laster, Aulston, and Tabor finishing in that order. Nitro Monster Truck: In Nitro Monster Truck Aaron Bartlett continued his reign as king of the big truck and earned another win for this season. Scott Harrell finished a respectable second while Victor Boger & AJ Honeycutt ran only a few minutes before retiring from the event in that order.
Hope to see you there. Until then, ---Mark Poore |