1. Halloween Classic 2. Holiday Challenge 3.Carpet Mayhem 4.Capitol Carpet Challenge

2008 Holiday Challenge - Race 2

Oakville, Ontario:  The site of the second leg of the Northeast Grand Slam Series, and home to the amazing indoor R/C racing facility of FastCats.  This track, owned and run by Pam and John Catricala, is one of the most high tech, well organized and cleanest indoor tracks an R/C racer will ever see.  If that alone isn’t reason enough, their location just 20 minutes outside of Toronto made FastCats a perfect venue for this race.

As stated in the first report, the NGS was the brainchild of the owners of The Gate, in Cleveland, and the program as a whole focuses on a more feasible approach to racing, without losing any of the competitive nature of the ‘Mega Races’.   It’s a simple, 4 race series, with each race limited to 3 days, sharing the same rules, classes and format.

After a very successful First Leg of the series had been run (The 2008 Halloween Classic), the momentum was established.  Six weeks later, racers were again collected under one roof to rehash the battles that had begun in Cleveland.  While some racers had come to settle their debts, many others were new to the Northeast Grand Slam (NGS). 

Practice

As is built into the NGS rules, the track shows racers a fresh layout, so that ‘home field advantage’ is minimized.  Friday the racers are allowed a full day of practice, with the final hours reserved for late arrivals; racers that have not been on the track all day.  With a total entry count coming in at around 120 entries, the practice did not follow a controlled schedule.  Aside from the Raceway Choice class, which in this case consisted of Formula-1 cars, all other classes shared an open track. 

Traction came up quickly, and the early pacesetters were local to FastCats.  Associated’s Keven Hebert was setting the early times in Pro Sedan, while Jeff Dayger, Paul Ciccarello were matching laps in Pro-12th.   In Superstock Sedan (rubber tire) local boy Cory Whiteman appeared to be hosting a clinic scheduled for the same day as practice.  Nobody could match him, but the track was still changing. 

On Saturday morning, the racers would see practice for the last time before qualifying.  A 3 hour window of open track was allotted to those registered, and provided an opportunity for last minute adjustments before getting on the full race clock.  Many took advantage of this, yet a few found themselves worse off as a result.  However, at a race of this caliber, help is usually only a few pit tables away.  Tuner extraordinaire, Josh Cyrul, of TOP Racing and CEFX Racing, was on hand to deliver expert advice.   And  Dale Epp, of Protoform Bodies, was on hand as well to answer any questions about his products, as well as enjoy some of the racing the day would bring our way.

The first of four total rounds of qualifying began immediately after practice came to a close.  Qualifying was done in a typical ‘Lighting Round’ fashion, with resorts after both, rounds 2 and 3. 

After the first two rounds, it was no surprise to see the leaders in practice atop the official results.  In Pro Sedan, AE’s Keven Hebert has been on a terror, and did not appear interested in bring that to an end.   His TC5 had TQ’ed both early rounds, and left a comfortable margin between himself, and second place qualifier, Josh Cyrul.  In Pro-12th, Hebert made and early claim for TQ, but it would be challenged, and eventually be taken over by Josh, and his CEFX Phoenix 12 chassis.  Josh also took the new ‘World GT’ class TQ spot as well, over CRC’s Brian Wynn.

The Stock Sedan class saw a battle for TQ between Mark Frechette and Johnny Carey, with Mark showing the edge.  Stock-12th was all Myles Hale, piloting a CRC Gen-X chassis to the TQ spot.

Superstock Sedan was the largest class, and had shown some great battles between local Tamiya drivers, Martin Crisp and Cory Whiteman, and Team Losi’s Mike Haynes.  Cory was the only driver to run sub-12 second lap times, and despite some troubles with back markers, was able to use the last round effectively in order to put himself as the frontrunner for the Main.

The ‘Raceway Choice’ class was a Formula 1 class.  While not popular in the U.S., F-1 races came out in droves to race their cars at FastCats.  Early on Nick Imineo showed some laps that couldn’t be duplicated, but a late charge by New York’s Randy Bernard pushed Nick aside, and secured him the TQ spot for the F-1 class.

Racing

As with the first leg of the Series, the racing at the Holiday Challenge was clean and courteous.  From the starts through the finish we saw some great racing, with the skilled players coming out on top every time.  Of the six series classes, five of the A-mains were won from the TQ spot.  That’s a great fact to boast, as we all know that races aren’t won in the first turn (but can most assuredly be lost in that same turn). 

The main that had some ‘action’ up front was that of the Pro Sedan class.  Keven Hebert and his AE TC5 was the package to beat all weekend, holding the TQ spot from the first round all the way to the main.  The A-main, itself, got out to a clean start up front, and second qualifier Josh Cyrul was putting the heat on Keven from the tone.  Both drivers were inches from the boards, and had begun to separate themselves from the field.  After about 3 minutes, Keven made a slight bobble that allowed Josh to get by.  Josh appeared to have the faster car, as Josh drove cleanly and consistently and began to gather a foot or two each lap and had built a small cushion between himself and Keven.  That made Keven push even harder, and another small mistake near the end of the race secured Keven’s second place spot, and thus, Josh Cyrul had earned his third win of the day!

Results

Summary

The incredible FastCats facility was filled with smiles all weekend long.  The hobby shop was well stocked and the race program was run impeccably, by John and Pam Catricala.  FastCats has given us another example of why they are indeed…

Canada’s Premier Indoor Carpet Track!

'08 Holiday Challenge Report.doc