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AMSRA Season Opener
The first race of the 2004/2005 AMSRA season was held on the "Beast of the East" ...a 190 foot Ogilvie road course that was imported from Britain last year. Lou's Cicconi, owner of the raceway, had the track in perfect shape and ready for some fast action. This is the same track that is being moved to a hotel in Philadelphia in February 2005 for the AMSRA National Championships. This would be our first race under the AMSRA flag since converting our three-year-old program previously known as the Jersey Scale Racing Series.
The first class up was our Contender powered Indy car. This class is an optional class for AMSRA racing and is always a racer favorite. Passing with open wheeled cars is always a challenge, especially passing in the "esses" on this fast road course. We saw some really great racing and some awesome multi-flip accidents. Open wheeled expert, Dave Demott is always tough in this class and today would be no exception, as Dave jumped into the lead during the first heat and was never really challenged. Matt Bruce and Joseph Rosales would battle it out for second place throughout the race, but in the end Joseph would finish just 3 feet in front of Matt, with "Liquid" Lou Cicconi taking fourth and Dom Roselli taking the fifth spot.
The next class was our balanced 16d/16c Nascar. We run an Amateur and Expert division in Nascar, GT-1 and GT-12. The Amateur division would be first up and local racer Bob Lewis would take his first ever Nascar win over visiting fast guy "Magnet" Mike Spisak Jr. with Bill Drill taking third.
In the Expert division, "Liquid Lou" had something special in the box for this class and fresh from his USSCA National Championship victory the previous week in 4.0 Nascar, was driving like he owned the track...in fact he does own the track! Dave Demott would challenge him in a couple of heats, but Lou would not be denied and cruised to a relatively easy victory with Dave in second, Matt Bruce edging out Joseph Rosales for third and Dom taking fifth.
In the first GT-1 race, Matt Bruce racing in Amateur, would set the fast lap time and lap total in almost every heat and prove why he should (and will) be racing with the Experts. Matt would take the win over Dom Roselli, with Bob Lewis taking third, Rich Demarco fourth and Ted Costa rounding out the top five. In the GT-1 expert race, we had a visitor from Tampa, Florida, Kelly Pro racer Mike Shaw was up for the race and would show why his Champion "blue printed" chassis' are so good...in fact three of the top four places were running Mike's blue printed masterpieces! With awesome Kelly power, incredible handling and never come off driving, Mike was not going to be beat today...he would take the win over Dave Demott by several laps. Lou Cicconi would have his problems and give away just enough to let Joseph Rosales slide into third place despite his own problems, and Mike Spisak Jr. would take the fifth spot.
The final race of the day would be our GT-12 cars and would set up to be a round robin with both Expert and Amateurs running in the same race. Everyone must have been saving their best stuff from last season because the pace was blistering, however so were the crashes. It was apparent within the first two heats that this race would be a race of "attrition"...as the last car on the track would most likely be the winner. And sure enough, heat-by-heat, cars left to the pits, until there were but three left in the battle. Last year's GT-12 series champion, Joseph Rosales would burn a lead wire in a freak incident and would leave Matt Bruce and Dom Roselli to finish the race. It would end with Matt first and Dom second. Joseph would take third by circumstance followed by Dave Demott and Lou Cicconi.
All in all everyone had a great time racing and we would like to thank Lou for a great track and for all his help with our Association.
The next race is at Dom's Raceway on November 13th in Cream Ridge, NJ. For information about our series race schedule, or the AMSRA Nationals to be held in Philadelphia on February, 24th-25th and 26th, 2005 you can email me at beinit1@comcast.net
Joseph Rosales
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