2011 US Indoor champs report
By Keven Hebert
This past week end (nov 24-27) was held the 32nd annual running of the US indoor championships in Cleveland Ohio. Being the longest running event in on road this race is one to attend every year for on road enthusiasts.
Every year, this race brings up challenging layout and this year was no different, the layout was challenging with a very good flow for racing, grip was awesome and there was no bumps whatsoever. The Schedule was 3 rounds of practice on Thursday followed by 3 rounds of qualifying on Friday, 3 other rounds of qualifying on Saturday and the mains on Sunday.
On Thursday, the first practice runs were just shake down to get the layout down but after running all 3 cars, I realized that all 3 of my cars ( Mod TC, 17,5 SS TC and Mod 12 scale) all had too much steering and were driving on the nose more than I am used too. It seems like the US indoor champs bring that feeling every year where the car tends to have a little too much steering so I ended up making a few minor changes to get the car easier to drive and at the end of the day, my cars got much better and I was ready for qualifying.
First off was superstock TC and not having run 17.5 since IIC it took me 2 qualifier to find the right power combination for my LRP SS esc and at the end of 2 days of qualifying, I was able to grab tq by a few seconds over Martin Crisp in 2 and Andrew Hardman 3 who also looked fast and would be contender for the main. In Mod TC qualifying went as good with trying a lot of setup changes throughout qualifying and I was able to tq every round over Andrew Hardman in 2nd and Martin Crisp in 3rd. Mod 12 was for me the most competitive class of the week end with team mate Mike Blackstock being fast all week long. I ended up tqing all first 5 rounds but I knew it would come down to the last run as it almost always does. Unfortunately for me, I came to a stop about 1 minut into the last qualifier due to mechanical failure but Mike Blackstock would have a solid run and drove a mear perfect run to reset TQ by a little over 2 seconds. So I would settle for 2nd on the grid with Mike in first and Paul Ciccarello in 3rd.
The mains on Sunday started early with Superstock in first. The car had been good all week and would be no different in the main. At the tone I was able to get away clean and a tangle between second and third place on lap 2 would give me about a 4 second lead and I was able to drive the rest of the race conservative to secure the win after the 6 minute run. In Mod TC, I was able to pull away slightly early on in the race and would put about a 4 seconds lead and then would remain calm for the rest of the race and drive conservative for the rest of the race to grab the win. Now on to the last race of the day, Mod 1/12. Knowing a good start was crucial since I could not let mike pull away if I wanted to have a chance and he had been fast all week end but knew my chances were good as well. We got off to a clean start while he put about a second gap between us in the first 2 minuts but then he bobble so I was able to close in and we made contact but he was able to keep the lead but on the next lap he would miss a corner coming in the sweeper and that would end his race so I would then gain the lead and was able to drive the rest of the 8 minute race with ¾ of a lap on the rest of the field.
