Mooch ST Series
The Short Track series kicked off on March 3 with the 1st
Walter’s No Frills ST race. The
1.5 mile course located on the Boy Scout property at Allamuchy was the same one
used last fall for the premier of short track racing in NJ. After positive
feed- back we decided to stay with the same course for the spring series for
the 1st 3 races then use a newly built track built over the winter
for the 4th race. We dropped the Bagels and Bacon title and went
with Walters No Frills. This title
reflects our goal going into the spring ST; keep it simple while getting into
race shape on the cheap.
(Norm: On that note, we're always looking for new & exciting names for our races. If we do a fall series there may be free pickle juice for all racers.)
The 4 Saturdays in March grew each week in racing intensity. We saw some excitement over the weeks
from the top 3 finishers in the crazy men class , Rob Lichtenwalner, Jesse
Epstein and Jonathan Lombardo.
Strong finishes from Ed Ceccolini, Rich Wolter, Matt Miller, Jonathnan Lombardo and
Utah Joe kept the series battle raging up until the end. The last race in the
series saw an appearance from Mike Montalbano lining up for the final showdown.
Last weeks ST winner Ed Ceccolini (fast Eddy) gave Mike a fight to the finish
but Mike was able to pull out a win getting to the line 8 seconds before fast
Eddy.
As the crazy men class grew every week so did the women’s
and men’s sport class. The MTBNJ ladies were consitant in there races and
getting faster each week with Robin Everson, Patty Bender and Mandi Tabbit
finishing 1-3rd in the series. It was nice to see the field grow by
the 4th ST race, thanks for your support ladies!
The silly sport class grew as the weeks went on thanks to
William Lorenzo for spreading the word. The first ST race saw 11 racers while
the last one was at 60 (Norm: these numbers are not real, no clue where Iggy got them), thanks guys! Congrats to Doug Alpers, Willy and Greg
Heller for placing top 3 in the Silly Sport Class.
While we don’t have an official slogan, motto or mission
statement for team MTBNJ , if we
did it would say something like who we are off the bike is what makes us
winners (Norm: Actually, I prefer "Beer & ice cream for dinner, thanks!"). At the close of our ST race series I am happy to be a part
of a team that made this series a success. Norm and Matty Bender were instrumental in making this
happen as was Chris Ruiz (Norm: Let's not forget his lovely sidekick, Kayla), who came through all aces in the scoring. Carson, Mandi
and Robin, with Shaggz floating in between scoring and registration to keep
things flowing, handled registration smoothly. Filling in the gaps to take care
of all the other race prep was done by the team who came together to make this
event as enjoyable to work as it was to race.
We look forward to seeing everyone at the MTBNJ Stewart
6-Pack on July 1!
