Announcements – Stewart Raceway

2024 Summer 50/50 Series, Round 1, July 6, 2024

That’s right, we’re going racing again on July 6. More details on the new series and the first event are here.

If you haven’t already secured your place on the starting grid, you can do that via the Google Calendar page here.

This will be a five (5) round series. You can miss one complete race day, best points total out of four events.

I’d also like to introduce at least one new car class in this series. I’m thinking of any of the following cool platforms:

- Viper V-SPEC “SPEC STOCK” Hardbody class (no body posts chassis)
- Jag Hobbies NC-2 “SPEC STOCK” GT40 Harbody class
- Jag Hobbies PR-5 “SPEC STOCK” Hardbody class
- Jag Hobbies TR-3 “Lites” Grand Sport Corvette bodies or maybe the short wheelbase Augoran bodies.
- Another option for a new class could be the MG+ 1.5 chassis. We could run many hard bodies or paper bodies on that platform.

I’m bullish on the Jag Hobbies platforms but open to anything the group considers a good choice. Please review the links above and let me know what platforms you’d be okay adding to the mix by completing the following survey.

New Platform Survey

Looking to add a new car class to our program soon. We currently run two predominant classes: the MG+ 1.7 "Lites" and "Modified" classes and the Viper V-SPEC "SPEC STOCK" Lexan class. I'm proposing one of the following platforms be added to our racing program.

Please review the choices below and select any platform that you feel might be a fun car to add to the mix.

AFX/Racemasters MG+ 1.5 short-wheelbase chassis. Can utilize many AFX hardbodies with appropriate body clip.

Viper V-SPEC Level 4 chassis w/o body posts. Can utilize most MG+ hardbodies with a body clip.

Jag Hobbies NC-2 "SPEC STOCK" rules. Can utilize the venerable AFX/Racemasters GT40 hardbody and other AFX and LifeLike bodies with appropriate Jag body clip.

Jag Hobbies PR-5 "SPEC STOCK" rules. Can utilize many MG/MG+ NASCAR and F1/Indy hardbodies, LifeLike bodies, as well as the various 3D-printed bodies out there using the appropriate Jag body clip.

Jag Hobbies TR-3 "Lites" rules. Could utilize the various Grand Sport Corvette T-Jet bodies out there or the short-wheelbase Jag Augoran bodies.

I'm fine with the two classes we're currently running.

Other than the Viper V-SPEC chassis at ~$50.00, all the others are relatively cheap. The Jag Hobbies TR-3, for example, is only $25.00 for a complete rolling chassis. In any case, expect to invest roughly $50 to $75 to procure any of these platforms with the appropriate body.

Jag Hobbies Platform Info

Stewart Raceway Wall Of Fame

The last 2023 Wall Of Fame plaques have been nailed and we’ve completed the season with seven (7) awards:

- Junior Champion (Abe Maddox)
- Sportsman Champion (Kevin Webster)
- 50/50 Series Sportsman Champ (Jordan Walker)
- 50/50 Series Expert Champ (George Peters)
- 50/50 “Xtreme” Series Champ (Aaron Castro)
- Most Improved Driver (Jerry Pearson)
- Team of the Year (Team Maddox)

There was one additional plaque hung this season. Jerry Pearson won Rookie of the Year honors in 2022 and somehow we didn’t get that plaque up on the wall in 2022. Sorry, Jerry! It’s on the wall now.

One of the cool highlights of the 2023 season was the many female drivers that competed at Stewart Raceway. We’ve been blessed by truly great and very competitive female drivers who love to race. The drivers listed below win races and are amazing drivers who are only going to get better and better:

- Shaylin Maddox (Sportsman)
- Martha Elderon (Sportsman)
- Madeline Johnson (Junior)
- Grace Maddox (Junior)

Next season we may consider separate awards for female drivers but I fully expect at least some of the above drivers to win awards outright. They are awesome!

Okay, shut up and drive!

Final Round of 2023 50/50 Xtreme Series Captured On Video

Yep, we video-recorded all four official races of Round 4. Could be a little boring since we didn’t have enough marshals to pull off a normal race, so there are a lot of yellow flags and other interruptions. However, you can fast forward, rewind, skip, whatever. The bottom line is you can learn a lot about reviewing how you did during a race.

Check out what’s here and let me know what you think. Lots to work out, including better lighting, presentation, and plenty of other improvements.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Driver Stats Updated

Okay, I finally updated the driver stats on the site. A few interesting metrics are available at the moment:

- - Driver average placing for both races and heats/segments, and driver’s total laps, for each track and layout.
  - Driver total race wins.
  - Driver total heat/segment wins.

I think I have a good system for doing this now so I should be able to keep this data updated going forward. Please let me know in the comments section below if you can think of any other interesting metrics to report. I’m no SQL guru but I love dinking around with this stuff.

So who’s the most prolific driver in our group? If you exclude our expert drivers, junior driver, Abe Maddox has the most race and segment wins.