News - Stewart Raceway

Track Day Report, February 17, 2024

What to do on a rainy day? Play with slot cars, of course!

We had no Junior drivers in the mix for the first time in a long time.

Eric “Fast” Lane was the first driver to show up and the first to leave but not without testing out some tweaks to his IROC fleet of “Scooby Doo” vans. Eric and I did one race with those and the tweaks appear to have improved these already fun-to-drive cars. It was just the two of us but we did a full rotation with all six cars to flush them out.

Shortly after Eric departed, Webster Motorsports and then Aaron Castro of Team Forza, showed up. Kevin and Aaron worked on a few MegaG+ cars before racing broke out. The three of us ended up doing about five fuel and tire wear races, running well into the night.

Aaron’s 1965 Shelby GT350 Mustang on a MegaG+ chassis, very cool new AFX/Racemasters offering.

The highlight of the day was adding Tire Wear to the racing formats. This is a feature of SlotTrak that we hadn’t used before. Similar to Fuel Allocation in the Race Management settings, Tire Wear is an additional factor that can be injected in addition to fuel stops. We found out that it works pretty much like the fuel allocation, when you wear out a tire, power is cycled just like running out of fuel. Fuel races make things more interesting, for sure, but adding tire wear into the equation and things get even more interesting and challenging.

New Lexan F1/Indy bodies for the Open Wheel Series fitted to the Viper V-SPEC “SPEC STOCK” chassis in the standard wheel base configuration.

Top: Lexan Sprint Car bodies for a, hopefully, Round 2 Tyco 440-X2 IROC set being prepared by George. Bottom: New Lexan for our “SPEC STOCK” Vipers. Hopefully, we’ll have enough to go around and debut them in Round 2.

We started with 25-lap heats and then upped it to 50-lap heats with a 25-lap fuel allocation and a 75-lap tire allocation, with each driver starting the race having one tire 25% worn. Made for some interesting but exciting pit strategies and seemed like more competitive racing. We’ll try this out in Round 2 and see how everyone likes it. Might be a bit too much for the Junior drivers, we’ll see.

New Lexan Sprint Car body on a Tyco 440-X2 narrow chassis.

Okay, Round 2 is currently set for next Saturday, February 24. Stay tuned for more details but this round will be on the SR3 Oval.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Wow! What A Track Day!

Moms, Dads, and kids. The future of slot car racing!

We had thirteen participants show up on a rainy day in the mountains. Yes, thirteen drivers cut a bunch of laps on SR3. Not all ended up racing, but all did a lot of laps on the Fast Esses road course during practice.

I was expecting several juniors since Team Maddox and Team Johnson indicated they would appear. Team Maddox, however, blew through their advocacy goals and invited six new drivers to the event, which pretty much made practice, racing, and marshaling a breeze!

I think most of the fun was in open practice where all the new drivers got to experience a little hot lapping and the thrill of racing without any pressure. It was way fun to watch everyone get so excited besting each other and just having fun dicing with one another.

We only did one Dash race and one Team Race, which I’m sure was probably more than most new drivers expected. Still, I think everyone had fun and, hopefully, will return for more slot car action soon.

As usual, our 2023 Junior Champ, Abe Maddox, accumulated the most laps in practice (507). Abe also won the Dash race just ahead of Madeline Johnson in a close second. New junior driver, Makana Haglund, finished in third, just two laps behind Madeline.

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Abe Maddox	25	16	197.444
2	Madeline Johnson	23	13	203.566
3	Makana Haglund	21	12	193.704
4	Lucy Abramyan	20	7	197.478
5	Morag Macleod	19	6	197.49
6	Jenny Haglund	16	5	203.923

The final race was a team race between Team Johnson/Abramyan and Team Haglund in a full-rotation race with 10 lap segments in all six lanes. Madeline Johnson would be the dominant driver against a field of all first-time slot car drivers, winning three of the six segments and finishing three points ahead of her Mom, Lucy Abramyan, in second. Another Mom, Jenny Haglund (Team Haglund) finished third, just three points behind Lucy. That’s pretty competitive racing, for sure.

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Madeline Johnson	57	83	684.106
2	Lucy Abramyan	58	80	675.083
3	Jenny Haglund	54	77	677.665
4	Malia Haglund	39	42	734.276

Team Johnson edges out Team Haglund in a very close team’s race. Likely our youngest racer today, Malia Haglund was awesome and hung in there the whole race, finishing every segment.

Very cool to see a bunch of new racers show up and check out Stewart Raceway. Hope everyone had a good time and we didn’t over-expose you to our addiction. It can be very discouraging for new drivers to run with more experienced drivers but today showed that here in the mountains, we have a whole lot of very capable slot car racers.

Thank you all for braving the wet weather and coming over to drive little cars and hang out. We have a large contingent of junior and parent racers in the area, which calls for more of this kind of fun soon. Stay tuned for details on our next Open Track day.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Open Track Day Report: Jan 6, 2024

Wow! We had a total of nine (9) drivers show up for this track day event.

It was quite a mix of all the various skill levels but we decided to do a couple of open races with Experts, Sportsman, and juniors participating.

The big story was awarding Kevin Webster (Webster Motorsports) his 2023 Sportsman Championship trophy. Kevin had five (5) race wins during the season and managed to make an appearance at most of the races, which collected valuable points towards the 2023 championship.

Kevin has yet another plaque on the Stewart Raceway Wall of Fame. With an average placing of 3.5, Kevin is a player in not only the Sportsman class but also a frequent podium finisher against Expert-class drivers. Congrats, Kevin!

So back to the racing. We were supposed to work on some skill-building for Sportsman and Junior drivers but everybody wanted to race. What better way to develop skills than just flat-out racing each other?

The first race was way fun. We utilized Eric “Fast” Lane’s Ford Econoline and Dodge Tradesman IROC Vans with MegaG+ 1.7 chassis’. These cars are fairly quick and very top-heavy, which made for some driving challenges for all of us.

In the end, George Peters won the race with some superb driving against the hard-charging Sportsman driver, Jerry Pearson, and home-track favorite, Home Cook’n. Everybody had a blast driving Eric’s Vans despite a few issues with body retention and a couple of cars that were quite a handful to drive.

The highlight of the first race was Eric Lane and Kevin Webster battling it out in the final segment. Both drivers finished the final segment on the same lap (25) and just an inch or so apart as they crossed the finish line in 1st and 2nd. Amazing!

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	George Peters	143	77	1478.292
2	Steve Stewart	144	74	1447.122
3	Jerry Pearson	137	67	1453.532
4	Eric Lane	132	65	1513.803
5	Kevin Webster	138	64	1538.08
6	Matthew Johnson	121	49	1539.587
7	Madeline Johnson	120	44	1498.206
8	Shaylin Maddox	125	42	1482.958
9	Abe Maddox	123	40	1563.437

Again, we didn’t get much mentoring or skills-building done in between races and went right into the final race of the day. This time, we decided to use a set of house 440-X2 wide-pan chassis’ with late-model sportsman Lexan bodies. These cars have seen a lot of laps with guest and junior drivers this season and were not in the best shape for competitive IROC racing.

Despite a couple of issues, we forged ahead and completed another IROC race. This time it was Home Cook’n who came out on top by just two laps over George Peters in second. As usual, Kevin Webster bagged the last podium step only nine laps down on the top two finishers.

The notable result of this race was Junior driver, Abe Maddox, besting Sportsman driver, Jerry Pearson, by just one point in fourth place. In fact, other than Madeline Johnson spending more time practicing fuel stops instead of racing, the last race was incredibly close with just 10 laps separating the field.

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Steve Stewart	100	64	754.995
2	George Peters	98	61	702.631
3	Kevin Webster	91	48	763.299
4	Abe Maddox	86	45	778.729
5	Jerry Pearson	98	44	839.809
6	Shaylin Maddox	87	44	728.629
7	Eric Lane	90	36	802.219
8	Madeline Johnson	77	34	724.444

What a great day of fun racing and hanging out with a great bunch of slot car racers. We’ll try to do at least one more track day before we kick-off the 2024 racing season. Stay tuned for details.

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!

Track Day Report, October 14, 2023

Well, it was kind of a staggered day with Team Maddox showing up in the AM and doing a bunch of testing laps and one full rotation race. Shaylin Maddox won the only race we did, which I think is her first full race win–Way to go!

Abe Maddox seemed to be a bit distracted but wasn’t too far off. He also won a heat or two. Shaylin and Abe were both running Viper V-SPEC cars while I was running a bone-stock MegaG+ with a “paper” Whelen Modified body.

Normally, a V-SPEC Viper would blow the doors off a stock MegaG+ 1.7 car. However, with the paper body, the chassis is much faster and handles significantly better. Still working on the paper body design for the 1.7 MG+ but I am getting close to a simple and easy-to-install version. I’m focusing on a USAC Whelen Modified style first and will look at other designs once I sort out what works and what doesn’t.

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Shaylin Maddox	174	83	2428.881
2	Steve Stewart	178	81	2443.839
3	Abe Maddox	158	76	2452.908

Later in the day, Aaron Castro showed up to test some MegaG+ cars and got to meet most of Team Maddox as they were getting ready to roll towards home. Webster Motorsports showed up shortly after Aaron’s arrival.

Team Maddox departing was a bummer but they accomplished their goals and had a great track day. The good news was we still had three drivers on the track so we did a bunch of hot lapping and then clicked off one Viper V-SPEC rotation race. The racing was very close with Aaron bagging second place overall and Kevin Webster very, very close.

We decided to tech the cars to show Aaron the process. Both Kevin’s and Aaron’s cars were relatively close in both dyno numbers and downforce, while Home Cookn’s car was substantially better in both categories.

Turns out, both drivers were running out-of-the box V-SPEC chassis’ with only timing adjustments. Kevin’s car was actually running retarded timing, which is good for small home tracks and tight courses. Aaron’s car was running fairly neutral timing. Both cars had stock Razor front ends and stock PST rear tires.

Of course, advancing the end bell timing makes a big difference in off-the-corner and straightaway speeds, installing smaller profile rear tires increases downforce considerably, and an independent front-end improves corner speed.

All this made me realize that most of our Sportsman drivers are probably running bone-stock Viper V-SPEC cars, which can be very competitive but obviously inferior to a properly setup HOPRA SPEC RACER chassis, which are the only V-SPEC rules we run at Stewart Raceway right now.

Maybe we need to revive the HOPRA SPEC STOCK class. Pretty much the same rules as SPEC RACER but is restricted to hardbodies and no adjustable brush barrels. Independent front-ends are still allowed but that is not a big game changer.

Any other ideas out there? I think the SPEC RACER rules are pretty basic but it looks like we need to bring some parity to the Viper V-SPEC class racing.

Okay, shut up and drive!