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SpeedMerchant is the Title Sponsor for the 2002 R.O.A.R On-Road Carpet Nationals Hosted by STRC Hobbies and Ripon R/C Speedway March 22nd-24th, Stockton, CA. The race will be run using identically prepared SpeedMerchant SpeedSpec Sedans, and feature some of the biggest names in R/C as their pilots. The cars will be equipped with parts donated by several other racing manufacturers. These include: Speed Controls from Novak Bodies from ProtoForm Batteries from S.M.C. and Motors from Reedy Modifieds. The race will be run with 2 rounds of qualifying on Saturday followed by single Celebrity A-Main on Sunday. The races will be 5 minutes long with a spec motor provided by Sean of Reedy Modifieds and spec batteries from Danny at S.M.C. All the cars will be prepared by SpeedMerchant workers and the celebrity drivers will be using a different car for each round. The Celebrity Main winner will recieve a wicked cool... How did the Celebrity SpeedSpec Pan Sedan race turnout? One Word.........FUN!!! After some heated qualifying Trinty's own Jim 'Big Daddy' Dieter out qualified Associated/Reedy Modifieds Sean 'Puffy' Cochran by less than one second! Following not to far behind was Extreme magazines 'Deadly' Derek Buono and S.T.R.C.'s own 'Screaming' Scott Tomasello. It was shaping up to be a battle to the end! The Celebrity Main would be run with an inverted qualifying start. That put Jim and Sean on the back row with only 5 short minutes to make it to the front. What the fast qualifiers didn't plan on was a couple of old timers throwing some big heavy wrenches into their plans of a clean, quick race. Enter....... 'Terrible' T.Rex Baldwin and Mike 'The Un-guided Missle' Reedy. Suddenly... the race became one of survival! With the 'Fabulous One' Barry Baker doing a great job of announcing, the race was on! Amazingly from the back row Jim 'Big Daddy' Dieter took the holeshot! Would the race for lead be over that quickly?...Not if Mr. Reedy had anything to say about it! And man-o-man did Mike Reedy let his driving do the talking! Although Jim ran, he couldn't hide from one of the most ferocious beatings ever commited upon an R/C car. When it was all said and done, Jim 'Big Daddy' Dieter was left with a virtual shell of a race car...beaten, broken, limping around the track, and no longer in contention for the win. Mr. Reedy's only comment on the unbridled assualt........'Mission accomplished' With Jim's demise the lead fell into the hands of Extreme's 'Deadly' Derek Buono. Derek put on a super display of driving and pulled out to almost a third of a lap lead by the 3 minute mark. It looked like smooth sailing.... Smooth, until Derek came up to lap your ROAR President...'Terrible' T.Rex Baldwin. Apparently, T.Rex doesn't like to get lapped. In a matter of seconds, Derek went from leading the A Main to watching the A Main. 'It was horrible, I still have nightmares'-Derek Buono With death... comes life..... This time 'Screaming' Scott Tomasello inherited the lead. But, Scott had Sean 'Puffy' Cochran hot on his heals. For the final 2 minutes Scott and Sean battled their way through traffic that would kill an ordinary man! When the final buzzer went off it was S.T.R.C's 'Screaming' Scott Tomasello taking the win and the X-Box!!! 'I don't know how I survived. It's all just a blur. It sounded like a warzone.'-Scott Tomasello Congratulations Scott! For all the hard work you and your locals put into the race, you more than deserve the X-Box! A big thanks to Novak, S.M.C., ProtoForm and Reedy Modifieds for making the race possible. Also, a great big thanks to my crew for prepping the cars, all of the Celebrity drivers and the 'Fabulous One' Barry Baker for a great job announcing the heats and the most entertaining main. Hopefully we can do it again sometime.-Bruce  |
