| Dog" award was presented,
Allison and Nate share an honorary version bestowed upon them by the Factory Five Racing
faithful. On Monday, beginning in a downpour only farmers can appreciate, the AutoCross event was visited only by the heartiest of racers. Coincidentally, those that chose to drive in the deterring weather were overwhelmingly Factory Five owners. By the afternoon, as the sun speared through the clouds to dry the course, the rest of the field filed in for the competition. In the meantime, however, Allison had set the street class time to beat (58.6) and no one could. Nate, finishing a close third (behind FFROG Rick Blackall in second place) kept the sibling rivalry running strong. At the same time, the Competition Tire class was also a focus of foggy attention. Again, it was the Factory Five contingency that battled for the lead. Both Gary Cheney and guest driver Wayne Presley (alternatively driving Gary’s Captain America car), were in a class by themselves, exchanging the lead with every run. With one run remaining, however, unknown Ben Siegal (son of FFROG Jack Siegal) ran the heat of the day (54.6 sec) to sneak into victory lane. In only his second autocross event ever driven, Ben chalked up the upset to a lack of fear of crashing dad’s dreamcar. Later that day, an Auto Rally was held, culminating at the Tilt-n-Diner for a cruise-in car show. Again, the FFROGs beat the hares, with three cars tying for the win. As expected, the Hine team led the large field, with FFROG Jack Rosen and Jack Siegal sharing the honors of most correct answers. On Tuesday and Wednesday the event moved inside the big track. Because of the reduced field there were more practice laps available for all entrants, which gave everyone a chance to really put their cars through the paces. New Hampshire International Speedway has one of the best road courses in New England, with fast straight-aways, great chicanes, quick turns, and elevation changes throughout. In general, any time you can get more laps, it’s a good thing. Get more laps on a quality track like NHIS however, and it’s a dream come true. Even during periods of heavy rain, participants wouldn’t give up their slots to get out on the track. You know it’s a great event when open roadsters are taking practice laps while water collects inside their cars. Mark Smith joined in on the slip-and-slide fun, taking the Coupe out for it’s inaugural submarine run. We all had a great laugh, as we saw the Coupe coming around turn two, its tires sending up a rooster tail of water behind it. The sun waited for the timed runs to arrive, making sure that everyone had several good quality runs, when it counted, on dry pavement. Again the FFROGs emerged from the rain-soaked paddocks to take the checkered flag. In the Street Class, Jack Rosen took the field, followed closely by the one-two punch of Allison and Nate Hine, in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively. Although valiant efforts were expended to replace a toasted
transmission with a spare T-5 donated by fellow FFROG Joe Gouveia, Cheney’s Supercar
could not break into the top three in the Street Prepared class. Mark Smith, however,
carried the team flag onto victory in the Pro class with a 127.09 run. All in all, many people went through tremendous efforts to get below the drastic reduction in noise levels in order to have another successful Northeast Replica Challenge. Special thanks go to Joe Traut, his wife Nicole, and the many
others who assisted in making this event possible. |
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