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USA: Ciccarello wins GLC with Serpent 966 (31/08/2010)

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Reporter

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Serpent 966 1/8 scale 4WD EVO, Serpent 966 -TE 1/8 scale 4WD, Serpent 966 -TE v2 1/8 scale 4WD


2010 Great Lakes Challenge Report

All year I have been looking forward to the GLC. Last year the Roar fuel nats was at Toledo, my home track and I finished 3rd. This year I was running a different car, engines, tires, bodies and was looking forward to see where I stacked up against the competition compared to last year.


I arrived at the track Thursday, I missed a day of practice but since it was my home track I did not see it as a problem since I know the layout quite well. I ran there 2 weeks before and thought I had my engine program all set. So Thursday I ran my car a bunch and to be honest nothing working like I am used to. The traction was a lot higher and even my engines were not working well. Everything was a mess I was slow running out of fuel etc. Between Thursday and Saturday I tried all kinds of setup stuff engine things and nothing seemed to be working.

For the last qualifier I decided to try an engine that I had not run in quite sometime, I had some newer ones that must be better, right? How can this old one be better. I also decided to try a setup that I came up with in the beginning of the season. Some of it was from when I went to Homestead that Dj helped me with and some of it was little things I changed for this track. I took the last qualifier to get the engine close to tune for the main and as it turns out the engine, and car setup were really good. I did not complete all the laps in the qualifier but the package showed some great hope and progress compared to what I was doing.

Saturday night I left the track at 6:30, I needed a break, a nice dinner and some rest after being up so late the last 2 nights. Sunday I also slept in a little and got to the track just before I had to turn marshal. After that I worked on my car getting it ready for the main and getting a few more settings back to my old setup.

In the warm up for the main, I was thinking man I really have something here compared to what I was running all week. If I can have a good start I could be really competitive!! I started 8th for the main and as I thought, it was a mess. I got wrecked on the first lap and chunked a rear tire. I tried to hang on to it until the tire change but I was losing just too much time. I decided to come in for a tire and the car was really fantastic again!! Some guys had some trouble so that helped me move up but looking at the laptimes I was really competitive so if I would have started in the front from the beginning I think I could have had a great shot regardless. I worked my way up to second gaining on Josh, his 10 second lead, I got down to 5 seconds. Then I had to do a tire change. I knew he was not going to to change tires so my work was cut out for me. When I got back out there I had just gotten lapped. I was able to catch back up to josh to get my lap back. He nicely moved over to let me go. Now I had to really push to make up a lap. I wound up clipping a few dots and Josh got really close. I decided so I could get my flow back I would let him go but it did not work out exactly the way I planned and he hit me from behind and his steering ball cup broke. I felt so bad, I wanted to race to the end. From then on to the end of the race I ran clean, Ralph and I were on the same lap and at some point he was only a few feet in front of me from going a lap down but I decided to play it safe and back it down. On the last 2 laps he wound up running out of fuel so I was able to cruse.

My set-up is here:
http://www.serpent.com/racing/setups/

Thank you to my mechanic Mike McBride, DJ, Joaquin, Paolo, Futaba, Serpent America, Byron’s Fuel, Mike Pulfer and Doug Filo for all their support this season.

Paul Ciccarello
Team Serpent America