2001 IDRC HURRICANE NATIONALS: IDRC RACERS REWRITE THE RECORD BOOKS AT MOROSO

By Angela Wall

While South Florida's race fans set track attendance records for an import event (19,867 over two days), the stars of the IDRC set records of their own. In the Toyo Tires Pro Class, Matt Hartford and his Hoyos Racing Ford Focus made history by setting a new official IDRC elapsed time and mph class record with a 7.386-second blast at 189.19 mph, just a breeze under the magical 190-mph mark. The APEX Integration Outlaw class had local Carlos Gonzalez make an impressive IDRC debut with 8.5-second performance and a double-points victory.

Carlos said, "I was originally planning on going to Sacramento for a different import race, but I'm real happy that I stayed. This was an incredible event."

Records continued to be set in the Nitto Tire Turbo Magazine Quick XVI class, as Mike Crawford, Sean Glazar, Gary Gardella and Brent Rau became the four quickest qualifiers in the history of the class with 9.3 to 9.5 second times. Crawford and Gardella both ran personal bests over the weekend, as did a number of other racers. During elimination rounds, the competition only became more heated as Gardella and Brent Rau had the quickest side-by-side race in the history of this class when Rau's Extreme Motorsports Eclipse's holeshot gave him three thousandths of a second victory over the ultra-hot, IDRC rookie phenom Gary Gardella and his Ecko Unlimited/DC Sports Honda's 9.39-second performance.

In the final, Sean Glazar and the Extreme Motorsports' Talon would upset the favorite Mike Crawford with his Phatridz Neon automatic. Glazar took home a much deserved and overdue win. Still, the runner-up finish was enough to move Crawford just a handful of points ahead of Rau, while the double-points win launched Glazar into championship contention.

To the delight of the APC All-Motor enthusiasts, the crowd witnessed an all Maryland final as the Neon of Scott Mohler took on the CRX of CRX-guru Fred Ellis. Ellis would get a big .122-second advantage on the holeshot (.467 versus .589), but his Honda wouldn't have the horsepower to defeat the hard charging Neon that got to the finish first with an 11.555 to a losing 11.720.

According to IDRC Operations Director Wayne Kiang, "The positive phone calls and emails from this event are continuing to pour in to the IDRC office. We've never seen anything like it. We're thankful for the fan and racer support of South Florida and look forward to increasing our presence for the 2002 season." Track owner Sue Moroso went on to comment that, "the Saturday turnout was three to four times the level of past import events and by every measure the event was a big success."

Eliminations
APC ALL-MOTOR XVI CLASS

1st Round

		R/T	E.T.	MPH
1	Scott Mohler	.561	11.510	117.14	WIN
16	Daniel Travieso	BROKE

		R/T	E.T.	MPH
8	Albert Balingit	1.614	13.717	98.12	WIN
9	Adrian Carr	BROKE

		R/T	E.T.	MPH
3	Cory Thompson	.559	12.188	111.01	WIN
14	Marc Podkowik	.691	15.217	90.14

		R/T	E.T.	MPH
6	Maurillo Nareiso	.936	12.998	88.67	WIN
11	Robert Lopez	.885	18.294	50.43

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