Results from the November 10, 2002 Race

This is the first event of the year at Octorara Hills, and the third event over all.  It was quite the typical VHORS day:  Good fun, Good Racing.  The field was a little smaller than normal, but that did not adversely affect the quality of racing.  Every heat from randomly drawn qualifying groups to the main event groups had closely contested results.

The qualifying required the use of VHORS-legal chassis, but any body could be used.  That brought out some stuff: hacked bodies, hot rods, Willys, and Indy car (Joe Hoopes ran a tan one!!).  The format was 10-lap race for points 1st - 4th got 4 points - 1 point respectively.  In 2 of the 4 heats that Ken Taylor and Paul Graziano were in, the battle for 1st place came down to the sprint off the final turn.  Each of them won one.  No racer posted all first place finishes, but 4 tied with a total of 15 points (3 first place, 1 second place), including Joe Hoopes in the tan Indy car.  My own run for the pole at the perfect 16 points ended with a flick of Scott Keck's wrist that marshalled my car 5 feet into the air, and back to the track (and not in the slot).  It was funny though.  If I were JB, I'd owe him a bag of brushes.  Aside from the 4-way tie for the pole, there were another 8 racers tied in 4 positions.  That meant that two thirds of the field were involved in ties after qualifying.  Two Crash and burns were conducted for main round groupings.  Larry Hoopes went at it with Billy Hunnel--and lost!  JJ, JB, and Bill Greis were in the other C&B.  JJ & Bill took each other out, while JB stayed out of trouble to win (that was the theme of JB's day).

When it came to the main event, it was like deja vu all over again.  Larry Hoopes set the mark early.  Later JB moved ahead, with Ken chasing (trying to overcome a nearly comical number of crashes with Sam Lee's GT40).  In the final round it was Joe Hoopes making his move for the win.  But as you look at everyone's results, each set of racers were very close--separated by 1 or 2 laps, or just sections.  I think we all got a good taste of high adrenaline, door-handle-to-door-handle, 2-, 3-, and even 4-wide racing!