STC Race (Full)

Early Battle for 1st

Mid Race tight Battle for 1st

End Race battle for second with Markley, Smith and Braun

RAMS, Hint Hint Nudge Nudge, Keep this race for next year.

Oct 10-11 - The RAMS got everyone together and hosted a two day event. Their Halloween G.P. 1st Annual ???. Yeah they should keep this race. The weather was nice although it could have been hit and miss as there was rain predicted earlier in the week, that eventually changed. It was a pretty good turnout and some good racing as well. There were even some unexpected visitors as Tod Rizzo, Bryn and Tony Foskett showed up.

The event even dragged Tony Vega out who hadn't competed in 5th scale for nearly a year. We did miss seeing Sanchez and Drennen and the Soublet's.

Saturday was a good leisurely practice day with everyone getting the dust off their cars and getting some rubber down on the track. Times started off in the 20's and began to work their way down to a few low 17's by the end of the day. When practice was over we had a good get together at the Lazy Dog. All of the So Cal crew with some of the RAMS enjoyed some good food, chat and drinks. Thank you Jojo.

Sunday morning rolls around and a few more folks show up for a pretty good turnout for the race. Even Mr. F1 "Always Podium" showed up and Super Sport Champ Kurt. Even Tim (Gerace) got to run.

For F1 it was Fernando Jose Getting TQ and coming away with the win. In Sportsman, Tim Gerace got the win, Supersport had Steve Gerace as your winner and in STC John Burnett (TQ) was victorious. 6 of the 8 running cars in STC were all in the mid 16's so that shows you were you need to be on this track to be competitive.

STC

Once the flagged dropped John would never be seen again...lol. He ran a clean consistent race on his way to the win.

3rd -  Craig Kaplan   1st - John Burnett   2nd - Arnold Mercado

Opening Laps of STC Race

F1

Its good to be on the pole. Fernando Jose had a clear shot into Turn 1 and missed what happened behind him. May have been an interesting race otherwise....Just saying.

3rd - Chuck Clendenen   1st - Fernando Jose   2nd - Hau-Ching Liao (Mr. Podium)

Super Sport

Steve had a great run on his way to his win by 3 laps over 2nd place.

3rd - Hau-Ching Liao   1st - Steve Gerace   2nd - Chuck Clendenen

Sportsman

It was good to see Tim get out from behind the mic and run, Congrats

1st - Tim Gerace   2nd - Al Gerace

U.S. Nationals 2020

Steel City Raceway - US Nats
Thursday saw the arrival of most of the out of town drivers and those that wanted some extra track time. The fast times of the day were as follows

Satoshi Takesako 19.661   STC
Fernando Jose 21.112   F1
Gary Kyes 21.693   SPEC5

But don't get too comfortable because the track is going to change Big Time.  Friday had more practice and the seeding round held later that day. After round 1 of qualifying was complete your initial top three per class were: STC: Satoshi Takesako, Kyle Goodwine, Robbie Cerrato, F1: Fernando Jose, John Burnett, Chuck Clendenon, Sportsman: David Blakeney, Chuck Clendenon, salvador Valle, Spec5: Paul Smith, Dana Smeltzer, Gary Kyes Spec5 Sportsman: Dereck Butterfield, John Keck, Salvador Valle.

By the time round 4 came around Satoshi was still holding strong on top of the leader board but you had some interesting names in STC still struggling to get in the show, Craig Kaplan, Luis Diaz and Cedric Collins who all qualified for the Main last year and Tony Tam, Rich Reybok and Ken Gerberding, who where expected to have good runs and be in the A.  Some brought their A game to the last qual and others failed. By the time it was all said and done here are the qualifiers for the class finals.

Mains Day did not disappoint with some exiting races. Spec5 Sportsman was won by less than 8 seconds, Spec5 had a great race also with the win decided by 1.229 seconds with Gary over the Gerberding prepared ride of Bill Jeric. Those two were just too consistent and your pole sitter Paul Smith after swallowing the inversion pill never got past 3rd. STC Sportsman had a good battle for 2nd between James Stuard, Greg Shum and Simon Kau. Down to the wire separated by 9 seconds and STC had a race long battle for 1st between Satoshi and Kyle with Kyle getting past late in the race and the battle for 3rd with Craig Kaplan charging hard to get past David Blakeney (8th Scale) was separated by 13 seconds. We spoke with David after the race and asked if this was a one off. He said he had a blast and as long as the track was like this he would race again.

It was a great 4 days of track time and the grip was insane, the setup you started with on Friday was not what you ran on Sunday. Everyone had a great time in this C19 era of racing. Thank you to the Goodwines for an excellently prepared track. As racers we couldn't have asked for much more, well the Food Stand would have been nice but we all understand that is not possible at the moment.

STC

2- Satoshi Takesako (TQ) 1- Kyle Goodwine  3- David Blakeney

Results