REPORT: ROAR Carpet Nationals! (Drama included)

0 March 28, 2011, 7:32 a.m.

The 2011 ROAR Carpet On-Road Nationals are in the books, and we saw two familiar faces at the top of the modified classes: Paul LeMieux and Josh Cyrul.

In modified touring car, it is no surprise to see Paul LeMieux add yet another victory to his growing list of wins in the class. Beyond LeMieux, there were two big surprises in the finishing order, though. Ty Tessman and Eric Albano put on a great showing this weekend that few would have expected.

Tessmann, who is known for his nitro off-road talent, qualified second in the highly competitive Modified Touring Car class. Eric Albano stepped it up and looks to be making a name for himself also. Albano finished second to LeMieux in the first two A-Mains, and won the third A-Main (Paul sat the third A-Main out because he already locked up the win in the first two). Rounding out the top three, was Kevin Hebert.

In the pan car classes it was no surprise to see Josh Cyrul at the top of the charts. He topped the field by taking both the TQ honors and the overall win in Modified 1/12th Scale and World GT.

*Aside from the racing action, the story of the weekend could quite possibly be the disqualification of many drivers and one manufacturers removal from the event for using illegal software in their speed controls in the non-timing class.

LiveRC.com will always remain neutral in situations such as this, so without picking sides, here is what we know happened:

Brushless motor/ESC company ORCA was not able to get their new speed control approved by ROAR prior to the event because it didn't provide true zero timing according to ROAR's specification. According to ROAR, ORCA was informed prior to the event that they would not be able to use this new software. After two rounds of qualifying, ROAR determined that the ORCA team was in fact using the new software in an older model ESC that had been previously approved. All drivers using the ESC had their first two rounds disqualified, but were allowed to continue competing in the event because they did not know about the software change. All people associated with the company were disqualified from the event completely.

What are YOUR THOUGHTS on how rulings were enforced? Do you agree with what happened? Give us your opinion by commenting below!

WINNERS:
Modified Touring Car: Paul LeMieux
Modified 12th Scale: Josh Cyrul
World GT 13.5 Open ESC: Josh Cyrul
12th Scale 13.5 Open ESC: Kevin Hebert
12th Scale 17.5 Non-Timing ESC: Andrew Knapp
Touring Car 17.5 Non-Timing ESC: Martin Crisp
Touring Car 21.5 Non-Timing ESC: Juan Aveytia

Click the link below for full results from the race: