Round Three: South New Jersey

Main Events

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The main events started Sunday afternoon after the qualifying rounds were finished. We had hoped to wrap up everything early but it looked like some of the racers would be sticking around far into the night!

Rally

In the fourth and final round of racing, Timm Wooley was hoping to take another win so he could secure a top spot in the final points count. Eric Schnieder had other ideas, however, and won this round for the maximum of 25 points. Points leader John Brown managed to come in third. Jeff Jones continued his streak of high finishes with another second place result. Timm had trouble with his body, ending his hopes of another win. He still managed to finish in eighth place and get some points, but only at the trophy presentation would everyone find out where they finished!

HPI Truck

Unfortunately for TQ Carlos Maldonado, he was out early with only 2 laps completed, letting Jason Swift and John Larouche battle it out for the top spot. Eventually Jason was able to pull away and cruise home to victory with a lap lead on the entire field! What a way to spend a birthday!

Savage

Timm Wooley sat in TQ position at the start of the race and didn't bother to look back as he built up a lead on the rest of the field and start lapping the other racers. Timm led from flag to flag, taking home the win and a brand new Micro RS4!

Micro Stock

As expected Jim Mayhew took his TQ position and led the entire race to win the 6-minute race by a lap on the entire field. Jim took home another Micro RS4 to add to his collection, as well as a first place plaque!

Micro Pro

Mike Collins used his TQ to good effect to pull away from the pack and build up a lead. With the wide lanes and courteous driving, the racing was pretty uneventful as we watched Mike lap most of the field and cruise home to take the win! Mike won himself another Micro RS4 as well as a first place plaque.

Electric Sport

A1 Main
The first couple of turns were a little rough on the front-runners, however Roland Shao was able to get away cleanly and start building up a lead on Alan and Timm. Timm wasn't as lucky and couldn't get away from the pack until the third lap; by that time Roland was already lapping the slower cars and continuing to pull away from Alan, who was solidly in second. The first A Main ended with Roland taking a solid win, putting the pressure on the rest of the field to step up and win.

A2 Main
With all the drivers starting in the same spots as they did in the first A Main, everyone knew to watch out in the first few corners so there would be as few wrecks as possible. Roland and Alan got away clean but Timm still got caught up in a couple of the cars and eventually had to sit out the race with some car trouble. The race was mostly uneventful for Roland as he cruised home to take the win, earning him two wins out of three races and the overall win! Roland could forget about charging that third battery - he would be a spectator for the third race!

A3 Main
With the winner Roland out of the race, it was up to the remaining racers to battle it out for second place overall. After the initial confusion of the first few laps, Mark Gollihur pulled away and started to build up a lead. Eventually he would finish a lap up on everyone while Tim Roberts, Mike Bahnatka and Alan Mok would be trading places during the race, eventually finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th, respectively, less than one second apart!

Electric Pro

With Mike Collins on pole and Scooby leading the rest of the charge, the crowd settled back to watch the single 5-minute race that would decide the winner in Electric Pro. Mike started off without the typical TQ bad luck - Mike pulled away from the field and started picking off the slower cars. Scooby Horton had a little bit of interference trouble which prevented him from making more of a charge against Mike, and a few minutes later, Mike came across the finish line in first place.

Nitro Stock

Nigel Chong started in the pole position, Joe Toppi, one of our radio techs, was in the lead until his pit stop, when a missed call on a quick engine tune let the other racers catch up to him. A couple of mistakes in the notorious esses let Timm Wooley and a couple of other racers pass him, and from then on it was the Timm Wooley show. Although Wayne Bouie put up a good fight in second, Timm started running away with the lead. He even pulled a Michael Schumacher tactic from the pages of Formula 1 history and ran very late into the race before pitting in and taking on a splash of fuel to finish the race! Timm finished a lap ahead of second place. Although Wayne had second place wrapped up, he clipped a corner dot a little too hard on the final corner, letting Joe Toppi pass him for second!

Nitro Modified

At the tone, Mike and Roland took off and never looked back. While the rest of the field battled for third place on up, nearly all the spectators watched as Roland got past Mike and Mike cranked up the pressure. A couple of backmarker incidents prevented Mike from completely catching up to Roland, and at the end of the ten-minute main Roland was able to breathe again as he crossed the finish line just a second and a half ahead of Mike!

Super Nitro Modified

Once again Nigel would be struck with bad luck - after only 7 laps into the 10-minute race, he had to pull off the track and let the rest of the racers battle it out for the lead. Florida racer Timm Wooley quickly demonstrated he was able to strap it up and head on out with the lead, building up a half-lap advantage over second place. Todd Marshall, last year's Super Nitro winner at our East Coast HPI Challenge race, was struggling a lap behind Timm but an easy two laps ahead of fourth place. Reuben Williams, our Concours Challenge winner from Maryland, was the only racers still on the same lap with Timm but wasn't able to catch up. Timm eventually finished 9 seconds ahead of Reuben to take home his second trophy cup and third kit of the day!

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