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Ralph Burch doubles at Great Lake Challenge

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Aaron Waldron

0 Sept. 2, 2014, 7:36 a.m.

Main Photo: Ralph Burch doubles at Great Lake Challenge

9/2/2014
By Aaron Waldron

LiveRC.com

Race report from XRAY:

www.teamxray.com

XRAY NT1 & RX8 triple win at Great Lake Challenge in Toledo, USA

The 2014 Great Lake Challenge in Toledo Ohio had a nice turnout of 130 entries between four classes. In the 1/10th sedan class Ralph Burch and Paolo Morganti dominated the qualifying with Paolo coming out with the TQ. The final would end up being a great race all the way to the end. Paolo went with the strategy not to change tires, but Ralph went with the strategy to change tires and that would make for a very close finish. Ralph Lead most of the first half of the final and was able to put the field a lap down, until he changed tires at the halfway point of the 45 minute final. After changing tires Ralph Was down by one and a half laps and would put on a charge to run Paolo down and pass him on the next to last lap to take the victory.

The 1/8th final was very exciting for the first half of the race. Paulo was leading with Ralph in second only one second behind. Ralph came in for his tire change around the 23 minute mark and the stop went fairly smooth. A few laps later Paolo came in for his tire stop and would never make it back on the track. After Paolo went out, Ralph was never challenged again and was able to just cruise around and take the 1/8th final with his new 2014 RX8.

A positive weekend also for Mike Strack at the 2014 Great Lakes Challenge. He used Friday qualifying to focus on 1/8th open qualifying. Once he felt fairly confident he had the pace to make the main(Qualified 9th), he turned my focus on the 2014 RX-8 car and 1/8th Masters Qualifying. After some set-up tips from Ralph Burch and Mike Swauger(via Text from Hawaii), He was able to set TQ for 1/8th masters with a time that was faster than his 1/8th open qualifying time.

The main couldn’t have been more trouble free for Mike. From the TQ spot, He was able to set the pace and pulled out an early lead to cover my fuel and tire strategy. From that point, Mike kept the gap and stayed out of trouble to the win. The car, tires, and engine was amazing and consistent throughout the 40 minutes.

Having the 1/8th Master main track time under Mike’s belt, He made some minor changes to the car to compensate for the track conditions. His open car was even more impressiveand was able to move up to 4th position from 9th starting spot at the 30 minute mark. After tire changes, Mike set his focus on 3rd place. Unfortunately, his driving error ended his chances of maintaining position or moving forward. A very good weekend nonetheless.

1/10th Sedan Results