2004 ROAR Paved Oval Nationals

2004 ROAR Paved Oval Nationals
Midwest Tri-Clone — West Bend, Wisconsin

The incredible Mid-West Tri-Clone track

This year’s Roar Paved Oval Nationals were held at one of the best oval facilities in the nation: Dave Jansen’s Midwest Tri-Clone in West Bend, Wisconsin. If you’ve never been to the facility, it is quite impressive. The track is a 350-ft banked tri-oval that is very well maintained. This reporter used to race there every weekend and was personally looking forward to coming home, so to speak.

Once again, Novak hosted the Brushless Class. Loaner systems were provided at no cost to entrants that needed them. At this event, like the others, the Super Sport 5800 Motor and Super Sport Brushless ESC were used exclusively. A total of 15 entrants made for some great racing action.

Throughout qualifying it was clear that two drivers had their cars working extremely well. Corey Heft and Bill Sullivan, two local racers, both qualified within tenths of each other to make up the front row. I took the 3rd position, while Jeff Skomski took fourth on the grid.

Oval racing has gone back to “Single A-Mains” so it was a 4-minute shootout to determine the National Champion. Everyone had their money on Corey or Bill. Their cars were about a tenth of a second faster per lap than the rest of us. That doesn’t sound like much, but with 6-second lap-times and 40 lap runs, it made a difference. Corner speed is king in oval racing.


Jeff gets a kick out of the hazards of racing

At the sound of the tone, the ten cars rolled off the line. Cap tire racing doesn’t really have the “drop the gate and go” approach. You need to take a corner or two to get your tires up to temperature, then you can start laying down the horsepower. Well, it appeared that a handful of drivers forgot this and went spinning into the infield. Corey and Bill were already nose-to-tail and pulling away. Skomski was reeling me in just a bit, but his car got a little loose coming out of turn three so he had to spend a few laps collecting it. Shortly thereafter, there was contact between the leaders. The announcer went nuts. I tried to see what was happening, but before I knew it I was rounding turn three with the lead. We were about halfway through the race when Bill and Corey got back on the track and were rolling about half a lap back behind me. My half-lap lead wasn’t enough. Corey reeled me in with no major problems, but I wasn’t going down with out a fight!

I’d like to take a second to point out that oval drivers can, in fact, drive. It’s not just driving in a circle. You have to fight the car, fight the track, and fight the other drivers for position just like any racing—but faster. Much faster. Corey came up and put a charge on, but my car was pretty decent coming out of turn one and going through turn two, so I was able to keep it interesting for several laps.

Scotty calling the race

I’ll have to admit we should have crashed about five or six times, but Corey knew what he was doing and only needed to wait. He tried to run under me coming out of turn one again and again, but I kept putting the squeeze play on him “hoping” he’d give way. Corey, however, wasn’t about to lose the race to some out-of-towner putting in the infield. He dropped back for a lap or two, made his charge coming out of turn two instead of turn one, and we ended up side-by-side going into turn three. There wasn’t much I could do at that point but sit back and wait for Bill to catch me. A few laps later, Bill’s pink and white Dodge was knocking on my back door. It looked like Bill was still trying to win this one, putting on a hard charge in the closing laps. He used the same move Corey did and got by in turn 3. Luckily for me, the race was just about done. We had a handful more laps, and finished in that order. Mr. Skomski held onto the 4th position.

Oval racing has gone to 4 cells for the past few years, but they’ve proven that they are just as fast as they used to be. This years TQ time was at or near the 6-cell track record from a few years back: 44 laps in 4 minutes and some change. You should see these little land missiles whipping around the tri-clone. It’s impressive. Danny Bartholomew was the TQ after 4 rounds of qualifying, just edging out 2nd place qualifier and newest Team Novak Driver, Andy McClellan. Andy and a few other A-Main drivers were using the yet-to-be-released GTX speed control. Monti Panzica qualified and finished 4th, while Paul “Git It Dun” Schwanbeck qualified 6th and finished a very impressive 3rd.

Corey Heft, Brushless Class winner

A lot of the drivers in the main had their cars very close to what they were capable of doing, but the consistency in the qualifiers proved to be the difference on the grid. Andy’s car had been fast all weekend, but he had some trouble in qualifying. As the owners of KSG Racing, Andy and his father know all the tricks to making their cars work. Consequently, all of the KSG cars looked strong all week.

At the tone, the cars gently rolled off. The TQ found something had changed in his car as he fought hard to get the car through the first corner. His car ended up looping a few times, putting Andy McClellan out front and checking out. Bartholomew struggled with his car for a few laps, but eventually retired.

After the dust settled, Andy was way out front. Danny Detlaff had made it safely through the carnage and was piloting his Demon Chassis to a comfortable 2nd place finish. Monti-the-Mangler Panzica was charging hard from the fourth spot to catch Schwanbeck in 3rd, but ran out of time. Andy McClellan took home the 2004 4-Cell Mod Paved Oval National Title for himself, KSG, Futaba, SMC, and now for Novak, adding yet another title to the newly-released GTX ESC.

Night practice sessions courtesy of Dave Jansen (thanks Dave!)

I’d like to extend a huge thank you to Dave Jansen and the entire Tri-Clone crew. I haven’t had as much fun hanging out at a National for a long time. Friday night Mr. Jansen even hosted a “TQ” Party with free food and drinks for anyone in attendance. Dave spent late nights during the week getting the facility ready, and leaving the track open past 1 AM so the guys could practice under the lights. What a great guy—Thanks Dave!!

I also have to extend my extreme gratitude to Corey Heft, Monti Panzica, and Perry Duchow. Having not raced oval in years, I was in dire need of setup help. Monti dialed me in with the tire treatment techniques and got me rolling. Corey took me under his wing and helped me with my car setup. He was a large part of the reason I was able to finish third. Mr. Duchow loaned me tools, gears, paint, tape, and what ever else I didn’t bring to the track. Thanks a bunch guys!!

Visit the Tri-Clone website for more information about their facility and for official race results. www.triclone.net or www.triclone.com

2004 ROAR PAVED OVAL NATIONALS RACE RESULTS Orange powered drivers are listed (appropriately enough) in orange
.	BRUSHLESS	..	.	MODIFIED	...	.	OUTLAW STOCK
1	Corey Heft	.	1	Andy McClellan		1	Ken Pepe
2	Bill Sullivan	.	2	Danny Detlaff		2	Hays Reeling Sr.
3	Charlie Suangka	.	3	Paul Schwanbeck		3	Buddy Paul
4	Jeff Skomski	.	4	Monti Panzica		4	Mark Balisterri
5	Butch Thompson	.	5	Dwight Smith		5	Calvin Viernes
6	Perry Duchow		6	John Foister		6	Jeff Carlson
7	Paul Schwanbeck		7	Jeff Irish		7	Mike Schultz
8	Bob Wright		8	Jason Hack		8	Jim Ovatt
9	Scott Larson		9	Danny Bartholomew		9	Mike Steineke
10	Lloyd Davis		10	Kevin Koback

.	1/10 NASCAR 19T	..	.	1/10 NASCAR STOCK	.	.
1	Johhny Broyles		1	Hays Reeling Sr.
2	Steve Goemans		2	Bruce Gayheart
3	Marty Hillman		3	Tony Balisterri
4	Corey Heft		4	Mike Steineke
5	Jeff Skomski		5	Mike Burbey
6	Bob Wright		6	Pat Hanson
7	Bill Sullivan		7	Mark Walczak
8	Jeff Carapellatti		8	Neil Hicks
9	Hays Reeling Jr.		9	Pat Simkins
10	John Foister		10	Ken Pepe