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U.S. Nationals - Las Vegas
Three race teams from the Legend Cars
of Alberta race series made the 4200km run to The U.S. National
finals in Las Vegas in October. Our Pro Champion #38 owned by Ira
Laughy and James Van Domselaar in the #17 car, the Western Canadian
Masters State Champion #78 Brian Mario and 2007 Legend Cars of
Alberta Master Champion #H20 Darrell Buckingham all made the trip to
Las Vegas for the 2007 Nationals.
Also making the trip was Geoff and
Shirley Winter who were helping with Tech, and yours truly Wayne
Miller who went to see first hand a Legends National Event and help
any of the 4 teams that needed help.
Wow is all that I can say, as
approximately 265 Legend racers from all over North America and
England put on some spectacular racing. What can you say when you
have approximately 80 racers in each class, the cream of the crop.
Again WOW.
Our racers represented us very well,
raced their hearts out, and made us all proud.
#78 Brian Mario qualified for the C-Main in the Masters Division. By
virtue of BJ accumulating the most National Points in Western Canada
he also got to race in the Masters Race of Champions on Friday night.
With awesome race set up's by his crew chief Mike, BJ had a great
run on Saturday in his C Main and managed to transfer to the B Main
where he moved from his 23rd place starting position all the way to
9th, just missing the cut for the A Main. Well done Brian!
Our Masters Champ #H20 Darrell Buckingham qualified for the B-Main
and finished 3rd, in what I would say was the best driving that I
have ever seen by Darrell. Darrell also had an A Main provisional
due to his Froster 50 win this year but he did not need it as he was
able to transfer to the A Main and improve his starting position.
The A Main started 33 drivers. Darrell got caught up in an early
incident that put him near the back and the car was not the same
afterwards. Darrell finished a hard fought 28th.
#38 Ira Laughy qualified for the C-Main and was doing very well
until he damaged his racecar while in an accident, the racing is so
close that when things go bad there is nowhere to go. Undaunted the
crew tore the damaged fender off the racecar and Ira joined the race
finishing 13th out of 21 cars. Between Mains the guys went to work
and repaired Ira's wounded racecar and had him ready for the A-Main.
The Pro A Main started 38 racers, Ira started in the 30th spot but
the car was not the same after the C Main accident and he ended up
with a 34th spot finish. Ira got the A Main starting spot by winning
the Froster 50.
The downer of the whole weekend was
that the #17 James Van Domselaar had the misfortune of having his
weekend cut short when he hit the wall hard in the final practice,
while trying to avoid an accident that left him no where to go but
the wall. The car was beyond repair so James went into fulltime crew
mode as Ira kept wrecking his car.
Overall it was a great showing by all
of our racers and a great learning experience. The quality of racing
teams and drivers at this level is unreal, you really get to see
where the next Jimmy Johnson or Tony Stewart is going to be coming
from. Some of the 13 and 14 year old racers were amazing to watch
and the racing was so close. In the Pro class, there were 81 drivers
and they all qualified within just over a second of each other. It
was the same in every class. The Las Vegas Bullring is a great
facility as well and the safety crews were amazing to watch when
things did go bad. |
