R/C Madness of Enfield, Connecticut
Qualifying
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Qualifying started right after the Concours event at around noon on Saturday, July 8. Check out the racing action!
The first races of the day involved the Rally Challenge participants and the Nitro MT owners who showed up with their cars. There were 11 Rally racers and 6 Nitro MT racers who ran on the long off-road track that R/C Madness maintains.
The Rally Challenge was possibly the most interesting set of races for the entire weekend. Chris, the owner of R/C Madness, and Frank McKinney put their heads together to devise a points system for the 11 racers who would be running their cars. There would be a total of six rounds of racing, with the Rally racers racing first on Saturday, then after the first and second qualifying rounds. Each of these races would count towards the points total, and all the races on Saturday were on the off-road track. The points would then be totaled to show the racers where they stood, then they would run again (this time on the on-road track) before and after the third qualifying round on Sunday, and for the last time after all the main events were done.
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| The tall stand gave the drivers a great view! | The off-road track was made for Rally! | The Rally Challenge grid - for dirt! | 11 cars kicked up a lot of dust! |
For the Nitro MT owners who showed up with their trucks, they were able to participate in three races on Saturday, right after each Rally Challenge race. These races were more for bragging rights, since we didn't have trophies or plaques available. A last-minute organization effort on our R/C Forum brought out a bunch of racers who were willing to try racing their Nitro MTs!
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| The Nitro MT racers were ready to go! | Getting ready to rumble | Even without plaques or an official trophy, they had a lot of fun! |
The first on-road class to run was the Electric RS4 class, with mostly RS4 Pro 2 cars and a few RS4 conversions. As we've seen in the past there were several first-time racers in the Electric RS4 class, however the more experienced racers were able to get around traffic with a minimum of trouble. After the first day of racing (which was the first and second round of qualifying), the heats were sorted so the faster drivers were all together. This let them use the third round of racing on Sunday morning as their "rocket round" to get a better qualifying time. After the re-sort, Jayson Livingstone was in the pole position, with Gary Acey, Ashton Brinson and Mark Smyka close behind. The qualifying went all the way to a D Main, so nearly 40 Electric RS4 racers showed up to compete! A very good turnout.
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The Box Stock Nitro RS4 class had almost as many racers as the electric class, with nearly 30 racers competing for the big trophy and kit! Actually, the B Main winner also gets a free HPI kit also, so the competition was laid-back but still quite fierce at the upper levels. Local racers Rick Birk, Joe Gallant, Joe's son Joe Jr. and others were all very fast, however Harry White grabbed the TQ spot to start on the front row for Sunday's A Main.
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Our Super Nitro RS4 Open class had almost twenty racers, which is the most we've seen at one time so far this year! We hope other Super Nitro racers show up to our remaining races in similar numbers! Although the Toyota GT-One was a very popular body because of its performance, we're glad that other bodies like the Alfa Romeo 156, Porsche 911 and others were on the track, it really helped to break up the GT-One performance monopoly. After three rounds of qualifying, Ken Tuttle was in the lead with the top spot. Probably because of the smaller turnout (when compared to the other classes), Ken had quite a lead and wasn't seriously challenged for most of the weekend.
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Nitro RS4 Open class racers made up the largest class, barely beating out the Electric RS4 class for the largest turnout. There were almost 40 racers total, and lots of racing action! Even with the large turnout, the fastest racer was easy to spot, that was Mike McMahon of New York! His friend Bruce Carbone looked to be a serious contender, though, so we were anxious to see how the A Main would turn out, since both "made the show". Mike was in TQ spot and Bruce wasn't too far behind.
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