Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Round One

Round One.....Midwest OpenComp Series
Presented By ELIMN8U.COM & MustangCentral.Net

The weather at the first Midwest OpenComp Races wasn't all that cooperative and may have been the reason for the low turnout.
The April 16-17 event was held at Tri-State Raceway and day one turned out to be a very wet one after two qualifying sessions were held.
Saturday's race was a rain-out and there are no plans to reschedule nor were any points awarded for that days participants.
The weather for day two was much drier as well as warmer and the race went off without a hitch for the four entrants:

NAME.....................CAR........HomeTown.....INDEX
1...Gene Hinders.....79 Fairmont....Hudson, IA.............10.43
2...Steve Tisdale.....72 Torino........Boscobel, WI...........10.64
3...Mark Weerheim.87 Mustang...Rochester, MN........11.45
4...Eric Sloan............86 Mustang....Boone, IA...............14.10

ROUND ONE (semi-finals)
Name.........................CAR..............RT....INDEX........ET...MPH
Gene Hinders.....79 Fairmont .042 10.43 10.489 122.48
Mark Weerheim..87 Mustang .089 11.45 11.496 114.61

Eric Sloan...........86 Mustang .196 14.10 14.100 97.65
Steve Tisdale.....72 Torino .245 10.64 10.749 124.78

FINALS
Gene Hinders.....79 Fairmont .154 10.43 10.515 115.87
Eric Sloan...........86 Mustang .195 14.10 14.208 97.36

The Semi-Finals pitted the 2004 OpenComp Champion, Mark Weerheim, against the 2003 Champion, Gene Hinders, and it was another classic close race between these two and this time around it was Hinders who took the win.
After a weekend of thrashing on the big Torino Steve was welcomed into O/C racing by Eric Sloan (Top Twenty Finisher in '04) and his RIGHT-ON 14.100 on a 14.10 Index!!
This was a first in Midwest OpenComp race history I believe...a perfect run!
If Eric could have duplicated this feat in the finals he may well have had the "upset" of the day...neither Eric or Gene had a very good reation time in th finals and it came down to Gene and his "FlashBack" Fairmont being able to run closer to the index that was the deciding factor in Gene taking the win for the first race of the season.
One more "shout-out" to Matt Connelly who was running qualifying with us on Saturday but couldn't stick around for Sundays race...He had just gotten back from a year in Iraq and his buddies had finished getting his Mustang running for him while he was defending our freedoms. Nice to meet ya man!!! Hope you'll get some more opportunities to race with us in the future!

Next Event......June 17-18-19 at Cedar Falls Raceway.