A beautiful Saturday afternoon in Sudbury was spent indoors by the participants in the first race of the 2001-2002 OHORA Championship Series.

Three racers made the 3 1/2 hr drive from Newmarket for the day of racing. Neil unvieled a new 4x16 Tomy layout for the event virtually eliminating any 'home track' advantage as Neil and crew added finishing touches to the layout early Saturday morning.

The layout was challenging, with heaps of 6's on the red lane. As a result, the Yellow lane (outside) was the longest on the track..but it was also the fastest. Many racers had their best heats on the Yellow lane despite the added length.

First race of the day was a support race featuring Life-Like NASCAR's straight out of the box with only silicones being added. The race was a good warm up and helped racers determine what part of the course was going to give them the most problems. Keeping with tradition, Bob made his best showing in this non-points race, finishing first with 95 laps. Following close behind Bob were Ed in second with 94 laps and track owner Neil in third with 91.

After the Life-Like the track went on for practice. First points race of the day would be with A/FX Magnatractions. These cars are essentially stock as would have been when first introduced. The class allows for either a red or mean green arm to be used with slip on silicones (on stock rims) in the rear.
The class is alot of fun and provided some good close racing. As mentioned above, the red lane has more than it's share of 6's and many racers found themselve taking full advantage of other cars going into those turns. Fender rubbing was plentiful (as were the deslots). When all was finished and the power shut off, Steve sat at the top of the mountain having completed 68 laps. Fellow Newmarket racers Bob and Ed followed close behind in second and third with 66 and 64 laps respectively.

SG+ Open Wheel / Indy cars followed the slow paced Magnatractions and proved to be a handful for a few racers. Paul, a Sudbury South Slotcar Raceway newcomer took the field by storm finishing three of four heats with over 30 laps and ending the race with 121 to take first place. The confidence Paul had with the SG's didn't come so easy for a few of the other racers. Behind Paul by 10 laps was Neil with 111 who in turn was followed by Bob at 107. The remaining three racers finished the race under 100.

Tyco PolyStock NASCAR was the final race of the day. Before the end of the first heat lap counting errors were noticed. With the first heat finished and no one sure of who got too many or too few laps it was decided to re-run the first heat. Once the lap counting problem was solved the first heat was re-run. The rest of the race went well with only standard track calls slowing down the pace. when all was said and done, Neil had won another Tyco NASCAR race with 120 laps. On Neil's bumper were both Paul and Ed finishing with 119 and 118 respectively.

Throughout the day, many close fought battles were won and lost (many of those on the red lane) and some good close racing was had. Thanks to Neil and group for organizing such a good day of racing.

Ed Pleadwell