T-Jet Racing - Challenge 2011 Race Report

This turned out to be the most challenging Challenge to date. The event as a whole went quit smooth
and the venue was top notch as usual. Before I get into the nitty gritty stuff, I would like to preface a
few facts for those that were not at the event. I personally sent out information and clarification to the
team captains before the event as I knew there would be problems with certain rules this year. Yes we
knew that certain rules would be a problem, however ECHORR does not change the rules after they are
published 60 days before the event and these issues did not turn up until @ 6 weeks before the event,
thus the extra documented and verbal warnings prior to the event. ECHORR feels that rules are necessary
in an event like this, and I will not back down on my decision to enforce the rules as they currently stand,
this does not mean that the rules will not be changed or modified for next year, they will! This event
has grown to be one of the biggest T-jet events in the country and to disagree with rules is one thing
but to go on a public forum and call it names or say that there was a pre-conceived tech committee….come on.
FYI, the tech committee was randomly chosen from names submitted by their captains. The 5 member
tech committee voted on issues before disqualifying anybody and in fact they made a mistake on a potential
DQ and were men enough to admit it and get it right! Everyone is entitled to their opinions and I have no
problem there, it is the feeding on this from people that were not even there or those that were there that did
not get the information sent out, that bothers me. I am looking forward to re-vamping the rules and getting
ready for next year’s event as I have gotten more positive feedback for standing my ground than not.

Friday morning more help and tracks poured in and we were ready to go at noon. We had 80+ racers representing
14 states. A brief meeting with the Captains to give them written material and verbal warnings about the rules and
off to practice everyone went. A few issues were presented to me during the day and I offered guidance and tech
tools to correct the issues before pre-tech. At 6 PM pre-tech and car impound began. The tracks were open for
practice for the Individual car classes to be run on Sunday, we voted on the individual race tracks before heading
out for the night. The Yellow MAX would hold the INDY race and the Grey TKO would hold the Nostalgia class race.

Saturday morning the doors opened at 7:30 AM, we held a drivers meeting and started the team event around
9:15 AM, each round had a ½ hour time limit and after 6 rounds we broke for lunch. Thanks to the volunteers at
the Gamber Fire House for providing breakfast and lunch foods for the racers. At 1 PM we started round 7 and
raced till completion @ 5:30 PM.

At 5:30 PM the tech committee was given the guidelines, tech tools and sequestered in a separate room, 5 man
committee and they were instructed to vote on discrepant issues and call me in to enforce decisions, unfortunately
they had to call me in 4 times. The first was a clear violation of the crown gear rule; the Captain had no issues, so
on to the next team. The next team had a problem with the controversial magnet rule, again they understood, the
next team also had a magnet infraction and again they did not argue. The 4^th team and eventual winner had a
mis-reading of one of the tech tools and after they protested it was reversed and set right.

Sponsor prizes were given out during tech and a special KC-Jet INDY car, thanks to Steve Ward was awarded to
Mark Webster. More details on the sponsors later. The awards were given out but by that time there were many
rumblings in the room about the disqualifications etc., but I know the tech committee and myself did the right thing.
I had arranged to get a private room at one of the local eateries and some of the attendees that were expected
did not show, I was bummed out over what happened but when I walked in the room and people clapped for me
and showed their support it again enforced my belief that we did the right thing.

Here are the team results:

Team	W	L	T
KC-Jet	14	0	0	Tech Issues
DCM	13	1	0	Tech Issues
Zoomin'	12	2	0	Tech Issues
Pa Posse	10	4	0	Event Winner
OHIO	10	4	0
Good Ole Boys	8	6	0
MASCAR	7	7	0
Woody Raceway	6	8	0
VRP	6	8	0
Longhorns	5	8	1
East Coast Outlaws	5	9	0
Zoomin' 2	4	10	0
Armed & Dangerous	2	11	1
Replacements	1	12	1
Tuff Ones	0	13	1

Sunday the doors opened at 7:30 AM and we had open practice till almost 10 AM. The crowd was lighter, 40 racers,
a lot of the teams do not stay for the individual event and some others had to leave for various reasons, at least 8
racers came by to say goodbye before they left and show their support, the racing was still intense and the
atmosphere was much more relaxed on Sunday. We held 2 minute qualifiers to determine the top 8 in each
class and then had a 3 minute round robin to determine the top 3 in each class. A computer malfunction
caused the IROC race to be called before completion but it turned out not to be a big deal. The results for the
individual races are below:

NOSTALGIA CLASS:

Qualifying:

Driver	lane 1	lane 2	lane 3	lane 4	total laps	Sections
James	13	13	13	13	52	35
Joel	13	13	13	13	52	20
Dave L	12	13	13	13	51	36
Rick P	12	13	13	13	51	23
Greg W	12	13	13	12	50	22
Ryan P	12	12	13	12	49	46
Ken O	12	13	12	12	49	43
Jim H	12	12	12	13	49	24
Chris A	11	13	12	12	48	35
Pit Stop	11	12	12	13	48	21
Warren	11	12	13	12	48	20
Steve D	12	12	12	12	48	7
Matt	12	12	13	11	48	5
Vic	11	12	13	11	47	44
Kevin	11	12	12	12	47	37
George	12	11	12	11	46	43
Rudy	11	12	12	11	46	21
Lynn	11	12	11	12	46	3
Derek W	11	12	11	11	45	19
Danny	10	11	11	11	43	30
Dave S	9	12	9	10	40	38

The Top 8 final results:

Driver	lane 1	lane 2	lane 3	lane 4	total laps	Sections
Joel	20	20	20	20	80	46
James	20	20	20	20	80	30
Dave L	20	19	20	20	79	25
Rick P	19	19	20	18	76	56
Ryan P	18	20	19	19	76	6
Ken O	19	19	19	19	76	4
Greg W	18	19	20	19	76	4
Jim H	18	18	19	19	74	12

Congratulations to Joel Lux and all the competitors in this highly contested race.

INDY CLASS:

Qualifying:

Driver	lane1	lane2	lane 3	lane 4	Total laps	Sections
Paul K	15	16	17	15	63	31
Hiram	14	16	16	15	61	21
Derek S	15	15	16	15	61	20
Don	14	16	15	16	61	14
Greg B	14	15	15	15	59	37
George II	15	15	15	14	59	33
Chuck S	14	15	15	15	59	33
Rick H	14	14	15	15	58	38
Gary	14	15	15	14	58	37
Lewis	14	15	14	15	58	22
Dave F	13	15	14	15	57	31
Mark Webster	14	15	14	14	57	25
Randy	14	15	14	14	57	23
Henry	13	14	14	15	56	4
John V	13	14	14	14	55	14
Kid Racer	13	13	15	13	54	34
Joe Rinn	13	13	14	14	54	14
Steve N	11	12	13	14	50	35
Butch	11	12	12	12	47	19