First crack at video recording on SR3. It’s a bit larger track and difficult to get one shot of the whole course. This is a qualifying session with a Viper V-SPEC car using a typical Indy-style qual session.
Some lighting issues to resolve but might work for recording races. If not, will have to do dual cameras to break the track into two sections and get a better capture of the action.
Those of us who have raced the MG/MG+ cars know of this problem all too well. Now that we’re racing Jag Hobbies platforms, this issue has come to the fore once again.
Some of you may have experienced a Mega-G or Jag Hobbies car suddenly stop, stutter, or otherwise display intermittent rail contact issues.
This is a well-known problem and actually has several solutions. The easiest of which is to simply change the bend profile of the shoe. Another is to install shunt wires or Tyco dual-lever shoe springs.
This bulletin provides some detail on addressing this problem by changing the shoe bend profile, which is probably the simplest and certainly the cheapest and quickest method to resolve.
The following link provides detail on how to modify the shoes to overcome this issue and maintain pick-up shoe continuity.
Courtesy of WHOSCAR ICT Facebook pages and author, Mike Linkous, who has done a great job of both illustrating and describing how to solve this issue.
WHOSCAR is a very active HO-scale slot car racing organization in Wichita, Kansas dedicated to the hobby of building and racing h.o. scale slot cars.
Thanks, Mike!
Well, it’s a little late but here are the current points standings for the 2022 racing season.
Veteran Sportsman driver, Kevin Webster, is currently leading the Sportsman Class points chase. Kevin has done very well in nearly all of the 2022 season events and is well positioned to take top honors.
2021 Junior of the Year driver, Jordan Walker, isn’t too far behind Kevin and certainly has a shot at the points championship and the 2022 Junior of the Year award.
The Rookie of the Year points battle is between Jerry Pearson and Eric Lane. Both drivers entered the season fairly late but have demonstrated outstanding driving abilities and amazing success against much more experienced drivers, including “Home Cook’n”.
| Place | Name | Laps | Points | Total Time |
| 1 | Kevin Webster | 5024 | 328 | 40787.13 |
| 2 | Jordan Walker | 4420 | 262 | 40542.1 |
| 3 | Russ Toy | 2403 | 146 | 11253.26 |
| 4 | Jerry Pearson | 1423 | 120 | 16802.69 |
| 5 | Eric Lane | 229 | 25 | 2558.784 |
In the Expert ranks, the battle for top honors is pretty much a moot point. No driver can catch the 2022 NASCAR MADness Series Champ, George Peters, providing he makes appearances in at least one of the remaining events. 2021 ROTY champ, Brad Sandahl, has a shot at the podium in the season points chase but he’ll need to make dominant appearances at every event remaining this season.
| Place | Name | Laps | Points | Total Time |
| 1 | George Peters | 7719 | 672 | 55081.97 |
| 2 | Greg Kondrek | 3657 | 307 | 14456.61 |
| 3 | Ian Douglass | 2674 | 256 | 10887.75 |
| 4 | Brad Sandahl | 1496 | 99 | 11627.83 |
| 5 | Steve Stewart* | 8299 | 861 | 53878.37 |
* Home Cook’n
There are three more events in the current 2022 IROC Championship Series. That series will likely be the last series of the 2022 season. Don’t miss any of the final three events if you like big hardware in your trophy room.
Okay, shut up and drive!
Still pursuing video recording of races at Stewart Raceway. The initial goal was to display the whole SR2 track on-screen, which was possible using inexpensive cameras. The next goal was to get the Race Management screens/windows in the recordings so viewers could see what the heck is going on.
Thanks to Open Source software developers, and just plain incredible talent in that realm, displaying the race management computer’s screen is possible. In fact, you can even display windows and areas of another remote or local computer’s screen–way cool!
So this video is a 10-lap segment race, utilizing fuel and tire allocation settings of SlotTrak’s RMS. SlotTrak is an amazing race management system.
Let me know your thoughts on this addition to the raceway. We can also do live streaming of race events with this setup. However, we have limits to how much data we can push to the Internet right now. That said, we could certainly live stream special events if warranted.
Okay, shut up and drive!
Round 1 of this exciting new series kicked off Saturday, October 1, 2022 with just five drivers but a competitive bunch for sure. We ran exclusively on the SR3 “straight” road course and with a 4-race format instead of 6. New driver, Eric Lane, joined in for his first “official” race at Stewart Raceway. Eric raced 1/32 cars back in the day and looks to be getting back into slot car racing with a large collection of HO-scale cars.
| Place | Name | Laps | Points | Total Time |
| 1 | George Peters | 265 | 55 | 2561.742 |
| 2 | Jerry Pearson | 248 | 39 | 2577.19 |
| 3 | Kevin Webster | 243 | 32 | 2573.008 |
| 4 | Eric Lane | 229 | 25 | 2558.784 |
| 5 | Steve Stewart | 268 | 61 | 2540.275 |
Race 1: Retro Vipers (12.5v)We started the day with the challenging Retro Viper platforms and decided to run three lanes so we could allocate a couple of drivers to marshaling, which worked out well for this class.
The Retro Vipers are really better suited for oval track racing but it was surprising how well everyone adapted to the cars. Of course, the seasoned Fray/T-Jet drivers dominated this one. The big story here was that Jerry Pearson bagged the final podium spot in this one, only four laps off the pace of 1st and 2nd, and won his final heat. Impressive driving for a guy who seemed to prefer L4 Vipers. (Details)
| Place | Name | Laps | Points | Total Time |
| 1 | Steve Stewart | 60 | 16 | 636.668 |
| 2 | George Peters | 60 | 13 | 668.988 |
| 3 | Jerry Pearson | 56 | 11 | 722.443 |
| 4 | Kevin Webster | 51 | 7 | 660.196 |
| 5 | Eric Lane | 46 | 6 | 676.079 |
Race 2: Tyco-Jets (12.5v)Another “loose” but much easier to drive platform. This race debuted two new cars for the SR3 IROC set. Both without weighted front-ends for the orange and green lanes. While one weighted FE car won two of the five heats, the two unweighted cars won three. And, both Jerry Pearson and Eric Lane won heats in this one–nice! (Details)
| Place | Name | Laps | Points | Total Time |
| 1 | Steve Stewart | 59 | 16 | 637.996 |
| 2 | George Peters | 59 | 13 | 647.849 |
| 3 | Jerry Pearson | 55 | 11 | 614.09 |
| 4 | Kevin Webster | 54 | 7 | 684.675 |
| 5 | Eric Lane | 50 | 6 | 630.976 |
Race 3: MegaG+ 1.7 Camaros and Mustangs (15v)The usual suspects battled it out in this race utilizing Kevin Webster’s nicely prepared set of MegaG+ 1.7 cars. Most of us have driven these cars before and they are very smooth and predictable. Jerry Pearson won the final heat of this fuel race with some nice fuel management tactics. Jerry is well on his way to a 2022 Rookie of the Year award. (Details)
| Place | Name | Laps | Points | Total Time |
| 1 | Steve Stewart | 75 | 16 | 758.092 |
| 2 | George Peters | 71 | 13 | 732.61 |
| 3 | Kevin Webster | 70 | 11 | 716.082 |
| 4 | Eric Lane | 68 | 7 | 724.382 |
| 5 | Jerry Pearson | 66 | 6 | 727.872 |
Race 4: Jag Hobbies TR-3 “Augorans” (15v)The TR-3 is an amazing car. An inline 6-ohm chassis that fits old-school screw-on bodies, including JL, AW, Aurora, MM and Dash. Still, it’s a blazingly fast magnet car with superb handling and driveability.
2022 NASCAR MADness Series winner, George Peters, dominated this final race of the day by winning all of his heats. Jerry Pearson took the final podium spot with two second-place heat finishes. (Details)
| Place | Name | Laps | Points | Total Time |
| 1 | George Peters | 75 | 16 | 512.295 |
| 2 | Steve Stewart | 74 | 13 | 507.519 |
| 3 | Jerry Pearson | 71 | 11 | 512.785 |
| 4 | Kevin Webster | 68 | 7 | 512.055 |
| 5 | Eric Lane | 65 | 6 | 527.347 |
| Place | Name | Points | Total Time |
| 1 | Jerry Pearson | 39 | 2577.19 |
| 2 | Kevin Webster | 32 | 2573.008 |
| 3 | Eric Lane | 25 | 2558.784 |
| Place | Name | Points | Total Time |
| 1 | George Peters | 55 | 2561.742 |
| 2 | Steve Stewart | 61 | 2540.275 |
Round 2 is tentatively slated for October 29, 2022. Stay tuned for details.
Okay, shut up and drive!
