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| 2nd Annual 8 Hours at the Glenn |
| Mark Osier. Photographer and co-writer with Glenn Gordon. |
On a beautiful March 15th in sunny and warm Goodyear Arizona the 2nd annual 8 Hours at the Glenn was held at Glenn Gordon's home track, a nicely laid out circuit that will test any drivers meddle.
As with any other endurance race there is the need to fuel the drivers as well as the cars and even if this race doesn't require fuel for the cars the drivers needed to top-off before the big race. That's where Cathy Gordon came into play. She laid out a huge spread of food for the drivers to munch on all day and was a super hostess for everyone there!!! She even took some video of selected race segments, so she was the epitome of a multi-tasker... right down to the chocolate chip cookies she baked!
For the first 35 minutes of the race Mike Stewart and Glenn Gordon raced within a lap of each other, with a record setting a pace and maintained that pace until the first drivers change for each team.Team Denver Boys continued on with their blistering high speed assault on the previous 8 Hour race record finishing the first 2 hours with an astounding 2002 laps. MRT Racing finished 2nd in the heat with a very respectable and record pace of 1861 laps. GSL Racing finished third in the heat after a strong start with 1818 laps. Jordan's Team had some problems and burned up the first of 2 motors in the race and finished heat 1 with 1274 laps.
The second 2 hour heat saw the Denver Boys continuing where they left off in the first 2 hours by running fast and consistent lap times on the Yellow gutter lane. It appeared that their Slottech T2 was the car to beat on this day, they finished heat 2 with 2057 laps putting them well ahead of the 8 hour record set the year before. Team MRT picked up their pace by churning out 1917 laps in the second heat falling behind the leaders by 281 laps after 4 hours. GSL Racing had a down heat running 1694 laps trailing by 547 laps. Jordan's Team toasted their second motor in the race and ended up running one of Glenn's other cars, they were only able to get 1182 laps into the books before the timer ended for the heat. Their second heat results turned out to be the lowest lap total for any heat. Although they may have been out of the running for the win they got some very good practice under intense race conditions. Eventually, they would be able to increase their lap totals for the last 2 heats after getting their car to survive the heat issues that plagued them in the earlier stages.
Heat 3 (hours 4-6) witnessed a lot of close racing for the next 2 hours with the Denver Boys and MRT Racing battling it out. GSL Racing had some body issues for the first 20 minutes of the heat cutting into their lap total for the heat finishing with 1571 laps and slipping further behind the leaders. MRT completed this segment with 1854 laps besting the Denver Boys by 4 laps. Someone had finally broke through and ran a higher lap total for a heat than the boys from up north. Jordan's Team showed some improvement grinding out 1340 laps for the heat.
Heat 4 started with the Denver Boys within easy reach of the 8 hour record, and a 277 lap lead over Team MRT. In this heat the Denver Boys experienced their first mechanical failures as there motor started going south. MRT Racing continued to pour it on for the miracle comeback out running the Denver Boys by 146 laps in the final heat but they fell short by 131 laps in the end. The Denver Boys broke the old 8 hour record with 19 minutes left in the race. A Huge Congratulations to Mike, Dennis and Tim for their stellar efforts. GSL Racing finished ahead of the Denver Boys for the heat giving them a token victory in an epic battle. Jordan's Team had their best run of the day with a total of 1371 laps and 5167 for the race. It was a great achievement for a team of amateur drivers and one driver who had never held a slot car controller until 15 minutes before the event.
The final totals in order of finish were:
Denver Boys: 7,705 laps, they bested the old record by 315 laps.
Mike Stewart
Dennis Schoenberger
Tim Essman
-Car type- Slottech T2
-Motor type- Wizzard Hot Stock
MRT Racing: 7,574 laps, they also beat the old record by 184 laps
Tom Ramsay
Al Thurman
Mark MacVittie - was the oldest racer at: 56
Pete Vespender
-Car type- Wizzard Storm
-Motor type- MRT Hot Stock
GSL Racing: 6,901 laps
Glenn Gordon
Steve Jones
Larry Stewart
-Car type- Wizzard Storm
-Motor Type-Wizzard/MRT Hot Stock
Jordan's Team: 5,167 laps
Jordan Cline - She was the youngest racer at: 12 years old.
Bill Cline
Chris Fielder
-Car type- Wizzard Storm
-Motor type- MRT Hot Stock
With the successful completion of the 2nd "8 Hours at the Glenn" event everyone is already looking forward to next spring when we will run the next one!
