MINI Cooper Invitational III was held on March 3rd, 2007. Due to limited space, I placed a hard limit of 12 entries this year. That was a difficult thing to do, because I could have easily invited twice that many racers. But as we've seen in the past, more than 12 racers and things get too crowded and the day just runs too long.

I always start by inviting people who have previously raced this event, but a few could not return this year because I moved the race to a Saturday. Sorry about that - we'll return to an early Sunday morning start next year.

The race format stayed the same: Qualify your main car (VHORS SS rules), run the IROC (Italian Job MINIs) and then run the main event. Laps and sections are added together from those 2 events to determine the overall winner.

First the qualifying results:

The qualifying order determined the starting lineup in the IROC race. I supply 4 nearly identical T-jets (we all know that no 2 T-jets are ever really identical) all sporting Vincent rims and custom-made Mini Cooper bodies from Fandango Racing, done in the style of "The Italian Job". (See race photos) Drivers each use their own controllers and race 2 minute heats.

Here's the IROC results:

That 16-lap heat by my brother Guy raised a few eyebrows, and as we would learn later, the lap counter on the blue lane was picking up an extra lap here and there throughout the day. But if you check the numbers, you'll see that we could subtract as much as 4 laps from Guy's total, and he still would have won the IROC event. The bottom line is that he likes driving those cars, and they seem to like him as well!

The IROC results determined the starting order for the MAIN. For the MAIN we run 3 minute heats so that the results would be weighted towards this race. Also, somewhere between the start and end of the IROC, everyone took a break for lunch. Some track owners ask for a $5 entry fee and only put out a few snacks - NOT HERE! We had a full spread of hot meatball subs, cold subs from Jersey Mike's, plus chips, snacks, sodas, etc. throughout the day. NO ONE GOES HOME HUNGRY AFTER A RACE AT MY HOUSE! :-)

Here's the MAIN results:

In the MAIN we would see that a fast qualifying time did not necessarily translate to a fast finish. Capt Pitstop was running well until his car picked up a hairball. We gave him a short track delay to cough that up and continue racing - but he lost just enough time to put that trophy out of reach. The Chief, who has a lock on racing at NJNH every Friday night, just continued to struggle on the Maxtrack. He vowed to crush his car into very small pieces before returning here again. Hats off go to Manny, racing T-jets for the first time with a borrowed car and controller. Manny ran very well, even leading his heat at times, and finished ahead of 3 guys who have much more experience. But in the end, it was the consistently smooth Kevin "Big Mac" McEvoy who would take the win and bring home the MCI3 trophy. Congrats Big Mac!

Here's the overall final results:

This report would not be complete without some special thanks:

-> Fandango Racing! Jack has supported this race 3 years in a row now, and this year he provided a whole collection of MINI Cooper Bodies and Fandango FANGS tires which were given away as door prizes. It's no coincedence that almost every car in this race runs a Fandango body, the quality of his bodies and tires are second to none!

-> My wife Nancy who year after year helps me get the place cleaned up before the race, and keeps us all fed on race day.

-> JoeRinn and Ian Furqueron for coming over 2 weeks before the race to help me clean up the electrical connections in the track, as well as staying late after the race to help clean up.