Results from the April 22, 2001 Race

The Vintage HO Racing Series returned to Octorara Hills for the April race.  The weather was quite different from the last race on January 14th!  Be sure to check out the Sights of the Day section for the Ken Taylor sunbathing pictures (don't worry, the contrast was adjusted so you won't get blinded by the sun's reflection!). Instead of the space heaters and winter coats, the garage door was wide open and many racers showed up in shorts.  More than thirty guys came to play with little toy cars for the third record turnout in a row this season!  Who says guys don't come to race when there's good weather?!!

With the large turnout, the VHORS welcomed more new faces and racers coming from upstate New York, and all the way down from Virginia.  The new guys were warmly welcomed by the regulars, and were quickly given tips/advice/help from the group.  JB donated a car to newcomer Chet Jones, when Chet's Cobra GT had some issues.  Another newcomer, John Smith from VA, ran the first Earl Harris prepared chassis to be raced in the series.  It was also good to see the progression of guys who were newcomers earlier in the season.  Bud Terry put up personal bests in both qualifying (12th) and finish (13th) with his top heavy custom Willy's.  And Dan Crawford has his red GT40 well up to speed now. We'll have to watch for them next season, and see how these guys progress in the off season.

It seems like no matter how many more guys we have racing, it's a familiar crew occupying the top 4 spots.  The field is definitely getting faster though, and making it very tight at the top.  I think any of the racers who place in the top ten at any given race has the talent to win that race (or at least a car that can win;-)!).  I just reviewed the race results from last season's April race (at Paperboy).  Back then the difference in lap totals from 1st place to 24th place was about 20 laps.  This time at Octorara, the differential from 1st to 24th was only 12 laps.  The upcoming races should really be interesting.

OK.  Back to the results of the day.  Thirty-three racers took to the track.  One minute (cut from 90 seconds last time due to the size of the field) qualifying runs determined the heat groupings by totaling the laps and sections for the one minute qualifying run.  The heats were 2:30 (again cut 30 seconds due to the size of the field), and run two lanes at a time.  Each group ran on two lanes, then had the laps and sections recorded.  When all the groups finished the first 2 lanes of the rotation, each group ran again to complete the final 2 lanes.  At the end of the 4-lane rotation, the top 4 finishers were the winners.  No mains were run in the interest of time.  The top 2 were separated by sections.  There was a tie for 3rd one lap behind the leaders.  It took two (2) crash-n-burn tie breaking runs to determine the final order.  The top 6 finishers were members of the Model Motoring Racing Team, the next 2 were Team Bigstuff.  See below to see who won...