Third through fifth were Matt Hirschman, Jan Leaty, and Bobby Holmes. Hirschman’s night really grabbed my attention. He was mysteriously off the pace in his heat and consi. I later found out that it was by design- sort of. Matt explained that "I got a bad draw and saw that I wasn’t making good progress in my heat so I figured I would just ride" Same goes for the consi. Matt had a provisional he could use and running the consi allows you to have one more tire for the feature, so Matt was very sharp in that regard. Of course his plan could have backfired if he got caught up in a wreck as he worked his way to the front of the feature, but it didn’t. Jan Leaty was probably kicking himself for pitting too late. Jan was leading easily until he pitted on lap 64. In fact he started on pole and led every lap until he pitted. Jan just couldn’t work his way back up front at the end. I think a late yellow would have helped his cause a lot as he had fresher tires than Hossfeld and McGrath. In fact both Hirschman and Leaty pitted on lap 64 so they both would have been sitting pretty if a late yellow flew. Bobby Holmes drove a typically smart race. Holmes started fourth, pitted on the first yellow- actually he was sent to the pits as he was leaking fluid according to track announcer Dave Buchanan, and wound up fifth.

Of course this year’s race was round two of three season ending "combo" races on the RoC Tour. As always, check out raceofchampions.net for a detailed explanation of the "combo" format. Round one was last month at Oswego for the Sunoco Race of Champions 200. After Oswego, Earl Paules led Pete Brittian by 9 points and Hirschman by 30. Earl won his heat thereby getting another five points on his rivals, as Brittian and Hirschman didn’t win their respective heats. This is official, Paules still leads the points with his workman like fourteenth place result at Lancaster by a slim four points. His nearest title rival Brittian gained ten points back on Earl by finishing a button down ninth. Hirschman wound up third at The Open, so Matt is still in the hunt a mere thirteen markers adrift. It’s 643, 639, and 630 for the respective drivers. Round three is in two weeks (Saturday Oct 21) at Mahoning Speedway in PA. Earl is brimming with confidence as the Mahoning Speedway is his home track. He doesn’t run at Mahoning weekly anymore, but he has two wins in his limited appearances there in 2006. Brittian for his part was rather smart in his heat. He told me that he thought he had a shot at the heat win and tried like heck to get it. But after a few laps he realized it would be smarter to qualify for the race and take it from there.

It was a rather clean race as most of the yellows were for spins or light contact, except for the multi-car wreck that took place coming out of turn two on lap ?. I didn’t catch what lap we were on as the freaking lap counter still hasn’t been fixed after being down all summer long. It was late, maybe lap 80. Daren Scherer, John Markovic, TJ Potrzebowski, and Billy Putney were all involved. For me the big surprise was the pace shown by two former LRP regulars that we haven’t seen in a long time. Matt Alix hasn’t been in a Mod in God only knows how long, but showed good form. He eventually wound up thirteenth. Danny Knoll Jr. ran very strong the whole race and was rewarded with an eight place finish. I suppose that I shouldn’t be too surprised by their respective performances. Matt is a fine racer and Danny has a ton of experience to draw on and is a former winner of the event. But anyone who has raced before knows that it is not an easy task to run well after not running for a long period of time.

News and Notes- I thought the race was too short. I think the race should go back to being 125 laps like it has been for the past five years. Or if they insist on keeping it 100 laps and counting yellow laps, they should only count until lap 50 instead of lap 75 like they did this year.

Sharp eared and eyed fans might have heard that the four heats qualified 5 cars, and the two consis took three more from each making the feature 26 cars. Then when the feature rolled out, there were 31 cars on track. Huh? This is what happened. Matt Hirschman took a provisional. Then I was told by a RoC official that three more cars were taken out of the consis based their finish and on the provisional taken by Matt. That is my understanding anyway. Also, Mike Leaty did what is called a "buy in" This is similar to a provisional in that you need to be in the top twenty in points. But with the "buy in" you agree to pay last placed money in order to be in the race. A provisional is free. In other words if last place pays $200 and Mike’s eventual finish of sixth pays $1,500. Mike would earn $1,300 for his result.

This year’s Open was the eighteenth running and unfortunately inclement weather on the original date in late September pushed the race into October. While the weather on Saturday was brilliant, the crowd wasn’t. The place didn’t crackle with energy like in year’s past. I hope it was down to the schedule being messed up rather than declining interest in the event.

Dave DeLange gave me the low down on Bobby Holmes engine and Dave Wollaber’s woes as well. Holmes was using an eight year old steel head motor that was glued together. Well, one of the heads was cracked and they used a ceramic sealer to "glue" the crack in the head. Dave Wollaber’s race ended when the radius rod brackets for the rear end broke.

Ever wonder what kind of budget it takes to run the RoC Tour and a bunch of weekly shows when the Tour isn’t running? Pete Brittian estimated that he spends around $50,000-$60,000 a year in operating expenses. Earl Paules says that he spends about $80,000-$90,000 and broke it down in the following manner. The US Open cost around $2,000 for the weekend. This includes paying for everyone on his crew to get in the pits, hotel, food, tires, gas, etc. For the year he figures they travel around 12,000 miles, racks up $40,000 in spare parts, and $16,000 for tires for the three (!) cars that he rotates on the Mod Tour and for weekly shows in PA.

Sometimes you get a little lucky. You might have noticed Tom McGrath being pushed back to the pits after winning his heat. According to his crew chief Greg Edwards the non magnetic pick up assembly for the MSD crank trigger ignition decided to quit working just as the heat ended. Tom told me that "if it crapped out on lap eleven I would have had to run the consi. If it waited another lap I would have finished last in the feature."

In the Writer’s are Frustrated Racers Department- I raced a (Go) Kart at Oswego Speedway this past Sunday. It was a ton of fun and Rich from Victory Lane Karts was tremendous. Go to victorylanekarts.com to learn more about the program or read my post on raceny.com if you want more details on my experience. I put this out there because Rich provides hard core fans and ex racers like me a chance to race at a reasonable cost. I figured others might be interested too. First timers are also welcomed. This won’t start a trend of reporting my personal exploits, but I felt compelled to mention it as I know a lot of hard core fans get the itch to race at one point or another.

That’s it for now. I’m still not certain if I will be going to Mahoning for the RoC finale. I hope to go but no promises. Email me at joeracefan@msn.com and remember: The right amount of purse money is a little more!