Announcements - Stewart Raceway

2022 I.R.O.C. Champs Enshrined

After a grueling four-event racing series, on both road and oval courses, the best “drivers” have emerged.

IROC racing removes the advantage of a particular type or build of car and determines the best overall driver by pure driving and adapting abilities.

In IROC racing each driver has to drive a fixed car on each lane for a set number of laps or rotations. The driver is not allowed to change the car other than clean the tires and pickup shoes between each segment.

In the Stewart Raceway IROC series, all kinds of different cars, courses, and race formats were utilized to determine which drivers best adapted to the varied conditions and scored the most points in four different race day events.

Today, the following drivers were enshrined on the Stewart Raceway “Wall of Fame” for outstanding achievement in a very competitive racing series:

- - Kevin Webster (Sportsman)
  - George Peters (Expert)

Congratulations, Gentlemen!

Track Records Page Updated

Added a new page to the site to support better access to track record data. The new page is much easier to view the data and allows for sorting and searching for specific information.

For instance, you can sort by any column in the table or search for records by Car Class simply by entering the term “TFX” (w/o quotes) in the search bar.

The best way to find, for example, the fastest laps for all V-SPEC classes would be to enter “V-SPEC” (w/o quotes) into the search bar. The page will produce all the entries for any V-SPEC class run on all track layouts.

To find the best laps for a Viper-Jet, you’d enter “Viper-Jet” (w/o quotes) into the search bar.

To find a more specific class of car, enter “TFX Modified” (w/o quotes) into the search bar. The page will produce all records related to the TFX Modified class. Of course, you can also enter a driver’s first or last name to see their collection of track records and related details.

Unfortunately, the search capability is very primitive right now. I’ll certainly try to find better ways to quickly query the data. I’m also working on both track databases to clean up bogus records, data inconsistencies, etc.

You can use your phone to find SR2 and SR3 track records as you’re testing or practicing simply by using your phone’s browser and going to HTTP://stewartraceway.org/track-records.

Next up is expanding the Driver Stats data to include both SR2 and SR3 with current data.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Introducing the “Super Stock” Class

While I’m not sure of the interest level in this class, several drivers have expressed interest in a slightly more advanced set of rules to enable more tuning and flexibility in building cars.

Our Super Stock class is based on the 2022 HOPRA SUPER STOCK rules but has two key differences:

1. HOPRA restricts motor and traction magnets to stock Ceramic-only material and does not allow Compression-molded Polymer (Level 4) magnets in this class. We allow standard V-SPEC Level-4 magnets.
2. HOPRA does not, however, have any restrictions on armature bushings, gearing, axles, or wheels and tires. This means HOPRA rules allow dual-compound tires, we don’t. Only silicon slip-on tires are permitted.

Kevin Webster has a bunch of HOPRA-legal Super Stock cars, which he and I tested extensively. The general consensus was that the HOPRA car was not significantly different than our current Viper V-SPEC (SPEC-RACER) class and forcing interested drivers to purchase expensive ceramic-grade magnets for these platforms would be a burden to many of our drivers.

Due to the cost of dual-compound tires and the lack of interest in purchasing them, we decided against allowing dual-compound tires—for now. In our testing, dual-compound tires produced about a half-second faster lap times.

So, why setup and race a Super Stock car? Well, one reason is that there are a few more tuning options available in this class:

- - Open gearing choices, unrestricted.
  - Adjustable brush tension (on brush-barrel type chassis’)
  - Any material for armature bushings, except ball-bearings.
  - Many competitive chassis options: BSRT G3/G3R/G3RS/G3RSB, Mattel/Tyco 440-X2, Micro Speedworks T+, Slottech T1/T2/T3
    and T1X, Wizzard-Patriot P2/P3/Scorpion/Storm/Storm CH22/Fusion, Viper V1 (V-SPEC).

Bottom line, this class provides a bit more speed and tuning flexibility to those drivers interested in moving up a notch or two in tuning ability and options.

We’ll see where this class goes. Right now, only a couple of active drivers have these cars ready to race. That said, you can actually just run a good stock Viper V-SPEC and do fine on most tracks. The gearing options are pretty simple, all you need are a couple of spare rear axle assemblies with lower or higher gearing and swap them out to see what works best on the particular course you’re running on.

The other tuning options are a bit more nuanced but also very useful.

Feel free to comment on this new class here or on my Slot Car MeWe page here.

Okay, shut up and drive!

IROC Championship Series

Next up for the 2022 Stewart Raceway season, is an IROC Championship. Yes, take a break from preparing competitive race cars and enjoy the art and leisure of just showing up with your controller and having some fun driving cars you don’t need to worry about.

Stewart Raceway IROC fleet. A few missing but coming along.

Unless other track operators chime in and decide to host a road course event, all race days will take place on either SR2 or SR3. Two oval events, and two road course events. We’ll run all sorts of different cars and five races during each race day event.

The first round is tentatively slated for October 1, 2022. There will be two mondo trophies awarded in this series. Both the Expert class winner and the Sportsman class winner will receive hardware for their efforts. Both series winners will be awarded a Mondo trophy and, of course, will be enshrined on the Stewart Raceway Wall of Fame.

The 2022 IROC Series rules, points, and racing format are documented here.

Okay, shut up and drive!

George Peters Earns Spot On Stewart Raceway Wall Of Fame

The veteran Sportsman driver took home top honors in the final round of the NASCAR MADness Series on August 6, 2022. George not only won the five-race series, but he also won the Concours d’ Elegance competition as well.

George led the series from the end of the very first round and maintained a commanding lead in the points going into the final round. The only thing that could have stopped George from winning the series was his “real job” or a Shark’s game. Neither scenario played out, and George took the checkers in the final segment of the series well ahead of his closest rivals. Welcome to the Stewart Raceway Wall of Fame, George.

Congrats to George for winning his first series at Stewart Raceway and taking home the prestigious Concours d’ Elegance trophy. It is certainly rare when a driver not only wins races but also wins them in style. George produced a number of beautiful cars that were judged by both peers and independent judges to be the best detailed and crafted cars entered in several events throughout the series.

George’s MAC Tools NASTruck Concours winner.

The good news for Sportsman drivers is that George now has an average placing score that elevates him to an Expert driver classification. The bad news is that Expert drivers have yet another formidable driver to contend with on race day.

Okay, shut up and drive!