Again this year, we had enough cars to run a full 16 car field. Unfortunately, breakage took it down to a 15 car field. The weather was perfect and the track was really working by Saturday. I will try and post a breakdown of how things went this year.
First round qualifying: Either the track wasn't working or the guys had the cars turned way up, because quite a few spun.
Edit: Steve Branger is really Billy T
After third round qualifying, the ladder was set. With the new 1/8th mile format, some of the heavy hitters were going to have to work a little harder against the great racers who jumped into TSO from THS & TSM.
Oops, picture in next post
#1 Dave Fiscus had a bye
Dave was the only guy to run a 4.xx in qualifying and looked like the guy to beat
#8 Dave England vs #9 Brad Tennison
These guys are great friends and probably weren't to happy to have to race each other first round
#4 Billy T vs #13 David Day
David's car was running the best it ever had in THS, but he was going to need it all against Billy who had also run a personal best in TSO
#5 Richie Balcom vs #11 Paul Dubois
This was a battle of TSM cars. Paul had been struggling with fuel issues all weekend and Richie had been sorting the starting line out
#2 Don Cruz vs #15 Jason Cramer
Both of these guys were having transmission issues. On paper it was Don's race to lose, but would his trans hold up?
#7 Jimmy Morrison vs #10 Martin Riendeau
Martin looked like he was having fun all weekend racing two classes. Jimmy was fighting traction issues and was way off the pace for him
#3 Gary Harmon vs #14 Junior Turner
Gary had been fighting an electrical gremlin all weekend. Junior was slowly sneaking up on the boost of his 4000#!!!! ride
#6 John Plog vs #11 Tom Dykeman
Both of these cars were TSM entries. John was hit or miss on the starting line while Tom had just ran a personal best
In a battle of the "Daves", Dave England was up against top qualifier Dave England. Dave Fiscus went low ET of the round with a 5.01 to take out Dave England
In what was the closest pairing of the round, Billy T was up against TSM top qualifier Richie Balcom. Billy ran a 5.22 for the victory
To put Don's questionable transmission to the test he was paired up against Martin Rindeau. Don's transmission passed and he went on to win with a 5.22
John Plog was paired up against Gary Harmon. In the biggest upset of the race, John's TSM entry edged around Gary when Gary's car had ignition issues at mid track
Billy T vs Dave Fiscus.
Billy's car was very consistent all weekend and he was doing very well on the tree.
Dave's car had a tire issue and he had to put on new unproven tires for this round.
Billy left first, but Dave edged around him with a 5.08 for the victory
Don Cruz vs John Plog
Don had been fighting ignition and transmission issues, but was still going rounds
John was the last TSM car in the field with one upset already.
Don ran another 5.20 pass to take the win
This race had the fences lined with spectators. Dave's car had been running consistent low 5's & high 4's. Don's car had ran a 5.03 in qualifying. The big question was what he had left in it.
Don left the light first by a small margin and ran quicker to the 60'. By the 330' they were within a couple thousandth's of each other. Dave edged out the victory with a winning 5.03 to Don's 5.06. The margin of victory was 0.02
Congratulations to Dave Fiscus on being the 2015 TSO champion
Congrats to ALL racers, especially Dave Fiscus for winning & having the low ET for the class.
THANKS to Holly & Cal for all they do, they are a HUGE asset to the class AND the whole community!
Can't wait for next year, going to be even closer!
Hope someone makes a video for the whole event, that way I can see what happened.
After third round qualifying, the ladder was set. With the new 1/8th mile format, some of the heavy hitters were going to have to work a little harder against the great racers who jumped into TSO from THS & TSM.
Oops, picture in next post
Cal,
I'm sure there was lots of talk about this, but why the change to 1/8th format. Were they getting too fast for 1/4?
Here I was talking about the TSO guys running a 7.5x this year. Thanks for the play by play.
Any idea why Tony Gomes didn't show up?