The 5th race of the 2017 Cap-Pele offroad series was held September 23rd. The weather was clear and unseasonably warm. The track had a bit of ‘turf’ to it but is was clear in the racing line. A few corners saw some blue groove forming after the dust was swept from a few key corners.
1/16 Open – LAPS
1st: Ben Glazebrook, 2nd: Eric D’amours
1/16 open had a very small field this race day. Ben continued his streak of first place finishes. Eric tested a new set of tires and his truck seemed to handle much better than with the stock tires.
2wd Buggy – LAPS
1st: Shane Foote, 2nd: Yannick Leblanc, 3rd: Jeremy Sherriff
1/10 2wd buggy continues to be a favorite class for the Cap-Pele racers, and this week there was a good turnout. In the final Shane got off to a clean start and ran a clean race to finish 1st. We saw the return of Yannick testing a rear motor version of his TLR 22 and he improved in the final to finish 2nd. Jeremy was running 2nd until he got caught in a crash that dropped him to 6th, but he recovered and made his way back to 3rd. Notable was Mark Baird, who raced a roller coaster of a race ranging in spots from 3rd to 7th before finally deciding on finishing 6th.
2wd SCT – LAPS
1st: Jeremy Sherriff, 2nd: Mark McKinnon, 3rd: Gislain Leblanc
In 2wd SCT there was a good field of racers to challenge for the win. Mark McKinnon tried his hand in the class and TQ’d after the 3 qualifiers. In the race Jeremy proved to have the winning combination and quickly took 1st, leaving Mark content with 2nd. Gislain improved in the final to finish 3rd, which is quite an improvement considering this is his first year racing.
4wd SCT B-Main – LAPS
4wd SCT had enough entries to have an A & B main, with the reward being the top 3 finishers would move up to the A-Main final. In this race we also welcomed 2 new racers, Derek Vickery from the Halifax region, and James Fenton from the Moncton region. In this race there was a bit of marshaling with racers changing positions almost every lap. In the and the racers who bumped to the A-Main were Derek Vickery, Eric D’amours, and Danen Gallant. George Thompson declined the bump up.
4wd SCT A-Main – LAPS
1st: Yannick Leblanc, 2nd: Gregg Lawton, 3rd: Gislain Leblanc
4wd SCT was a full class and the fastest racers of the day started the A-Main final. Another new racer from the Halifax region, John Boucher, was able to qualify well into the A-Main. The first lap in the race had many exchanges for 1st that do not show in the chart. Gregg was able to break somewhat from the group for a couple of laps but was quickly caught up to by Yannick. Then for the next 5 laps Yannick and Gregg exchanged the lead at every other corner much to the delight of the onlookers. With 4 laps to go Gregg pushed his truck too hard into a corner and required a marshal allowing Yannick to take the lead outright and hold it to the end. Gislain started off with a strong start, fell back to 5th, battled with John for quite a few laps before he made the pass for the 3rd spot on the podium.
1/8 Buggy – LAPS
1st: Shane Foote, 2nd: George Thompson, 3rd: Mat Leblanc
In 1/8 buggy Shane took the lead from the start and drove his way to 1st place. In the battle for 2nd George had early trouble letting Mat take the 2nd spot fora couple of laps before earning the spot back. Danen had electrical problems in the race which held him back from finishing well. A notable item is in the awards picture Mat is wearing the ECWTRC brand he started and promoted a few years ago, maybe we’ll see a resurgence of the brand!
1/8 Truggy – LAPS
1st: Shane Foote, 2nd: George Thompson
In 1/8 Truggy there were only a few entries. That didn’t stop the drivers from making it entertaining as they tried to triple jump the large double single section close to the road each lap. George’s truck had an electrical problem, unsoldering a battery lead which ended the fun.
