The 5th race of this Midwest season would not have happened without all the hard work and determination of the NITRO (Northern Indiana Team Racing Organization) members. When Original plans for Chicago fell through, they took up the challenge and put on a great race for everyone who attended. Saturday morning racers were greeted with a great technical layout that was challenging and fun.
Saturday was a warm day close to 90 degrees. After a morning of practice, the four rounds of qualifiers kicked off around 1:00pm. The qualifiers consisted of three heats of 200mm, one heat of GT, and two heats of 1/8th scale. Early on in sedan it looked like Andy Power, Larry Stone, and Fabio Evangelista were going to be quick and trade TQ spot back and forth between them. They were the only three to go 19 laps on Saturday with Andy only missing 20 laps by .243 of a second in the 4th round. Larry was close behind with 19 laps in 5m2.196 and Fabio with 19 laps in 5m6.549.
The GT class was to be dominated by Mike Cooper who had over 3 laps on James Palansky with Ken Echols right behind James when the day was over. Mike is pretty much running a box stock Kyosho GT with the Corvette body and it really looks great going around the track. He seemed to have a little more horsepower this weekend then he usually does. In the 1/8 th scale class it was Eli Ezrow making and early statement with Mark Unger, David Lee and Steve Lazarus trying to keep him honest. At the end of the day Eli pulled off a run of 21 laps in 5m10.167. All day long the 1/8th scale guys felt like something was coming, yet they just didn't know quit yet what it was……
Qualifying ended around 6:30 giving everyone plenty of time to get in some extra practice or head back to the hotel and recover from the heat!
After four rounds of qualifying the top 5 in each class were:
200mm
GT
1/8th
Sunday kicked off with Practice from 8:00 to 9:00 and the fifth and final round of qualifying starting at 9:15. The weather was still pretty hot but the breeze picked up throughout the day. With a slight threat of bad weather coming later in the day things needed to run smoothly and they did.
In the final round of Sedan it looked like the track was a little faster and the lap times seemed to prove it. Andy was out on a TQ pace early when he got into some lapped traffic and spent some time in the boards. Larry took advantage and laid down the fastest sedan run of the weekend with 20 laps in 5m15.618. Chris Bozik also used the faster track to improve his time from Saturday by an entire lap! This moved him up into the 4 th qualifying position.
The final round of GT still had Mike Cooper out front but unable to improve his time while James Palansky was able to turn in his best run of the weekend.
The 1/8 th scale class finally found out what they were missing. It was Ted hammer and he showed up on Sunday to show how quickly he can adapt to any track. With only an hour of practice Ted was able to lay down the second fastest run of the weekend. Only a couple other drivers were able to slightly improve on their times during the final round.
There would only be an hour long break before the mains would be started and during that time the awards were handed out for TQ honors in each class.
The first thirty minute main would be the 200mm B-main. After a clean start it was Phillip Neiswinger out front followed closely by Kevin Roberson with Mike Parker in third. Phillip and Kevin swapped the top two spots back and forth for nearly twenty minutes until Phillip ran into a little trouble. Kevin would go on to take the win with 97 laps followed by Phillip who also had 97 laps just 10 seconds back. Mike Parker had the lockdown on third place and only let Ken Echols get a wiff of third for the first two laps and two other after the second pit stop. Mike finished with 93 laps. Other then the 4 laps in third, Ken Echols battled back and forth with Gerald Argalas for 4 and 5 th positions. Ken Finally grabbed 4th for good near the end of the race and finished with 89 laps. Gerald kept him honest and finished 5 th only one lap back with 88. James Palansky suffered some mechanical trouble early on that he just couldn't recover from and finished out the B-Main with 55 laps.
After the awards were handed out it was time for the 200mm A-main. The start of the race had some confusion with the timing of the flagman and the computer tone. The confusion let Andy Power get a jump on the TQ Larry stone and beat him to the first corner. Andy held the lead for the first 35 laps until his car flamed out going through the sweeper. His Pit man got it fired back up and on the track just in time to keep him in second with Fabio Evangelista in third trying to capitalize on Andy's flameout. Larry would go on to keep the lead and claim victory with 110 laps. Andy managed to keep second while having a couple more flameouts and just beat out Fabio for 2 nd with 107 laps. Other then the first lap Fabio held onto third place for the entire race and claimed the last spot on the podium with 106 laps. Allen Denzine battled back from a terrible start to climb his way back up to 4 th place and finished with 102 laps. 5 th place finisher Chris Bozik finished just 1 lap back from Allen with 101. Terry DeSouza had some traffic and mechanical issues that left him battling it out with a true gentleman of sedan, Mr. Mario Liberman . Terry finished 6 th with 96 laps and Mario cruised into 7 th place with 95 laps. Rounding out the A-main in 8 th place was Pat Morris who didn't have a chance of recovering from his first lap of over 10 minutes and ended his race with 61 laps.
The third race of the day would be the GT class or “Heavy Metal” as Ron would say. This race was all Mike Cooper following up his TQ with a crushing win. Mike finished the race with 91 laps. James Palansky came away in second place with 64 laps due to some mechanical issues and a tire coming unglued. Karl Ennulat had second place in his grasp early on but decided to see just how hot a motor could get. While trying to restart his motor I believe his pit man smiled when he read off a temp in the 400's!!!! Apparently it was just low on coolant because after half a bottle of cold water it started back up and Karl was able to finish the race with 51 laps. Ken Echols was not able to make the start of the race.
Next up was the 1/8 th B-main. John Schweitzer jumped out to the early lead and held it until just after the first pit stop when he had some trouble and was off the track. Allen Denzine moved up from his second place spot into first and would never give it back. Allen finished with 105 laps. Mike Chiappetti also took advantage of John's trouble and took over 2 nd place trying to catch Allen. Mike would not be able to catch Allen in the end and finished in 2 nd with 102 laps. Mr. Schweitzer would recover from his problems in time to turn in 98 laps that was good enough for the final podium spot and 3 rd place. Alan Broeker was as high as third place during the main but was not able to hold of John and finished in 4 th with 94 laps. Wayne Broeker would have troubles that had him on and off the track through out the race and he turned in 57 laps for 5 th place. Dennis young also had troubles early in the race that would keep him off the track for extended amounts of time. He came back later to tie John for the Fastest lap of 15.510 but was only able to 6 th with 51 laps. Terry Desouza was not able to make the start and hit the track nearly 5 minutes later to to go only one lap before calling it a day.
The final race of the day was of course the 1/8 th A-main. Eli Ezrow would take the early lead and never look back with a finish of 118 laps. Mark Unger, Ted Hammer, and David Lee were hot on his heels at the start. Ted would fight Mark for second early on until he ran into trouble on lap 29 and dropped back to 5 th . David Lee started moving his way up and after the second fuel stop he would grab 2 nd spot and never let it go to finish with 115 laps. Steve Lazarus spent the later stages of the race behind Mark and finally got around him after mark had a little trouble. Steve went on to finish in third with 113 laps. Mark Tried hard to get back in front of Steve but a case of whiskey throttle and letting Eli through held him back just enough and he would also finish with 113 laps just over two seconds back from Steve. Towards the end of the race Ted Hammer started to lose his left rear tire and tried more then once to take down the wall in front of timing and scoring. Ted's trouble allowed Mike Becker to take the 5 th spot with 109 laps and Ted had to end his race short with only 84 laps in 6 th place. Mark Sweeney qualified into the A-main but called it an early weekend with motor issues and was not able to start the main.
Thanks again to the NITRO members for a great weekend!!!! Hope everyone had a fun weekend and made it home safe.
See you all at the next race in Joliet!