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My first iteration of a “super-light” paper body for our MegaG+ Support Class cars. This one is made out of premium glossy photo paper and is mounted on a 1.7 MegaG+ chassis using 8 mil clear double-sided tape I got from George.
Kevin worked up this body using some sort of drafting paper and then laminated it with some other material.
Both bodies are pretty cool. Haven’t tested them on the track yet but I did run a regular paper prototype last Saturday on a Jag DR-1 chassis and it held up pretty well. These bodies are way light and the car feels and handles like it has no body at all.
Design ideas are limitless and very appealing. We’ll see how durable they are. I’m looking forward to coming up with a Midget car design and upgrading my SWB MegaG+ IROC set. Once you get the design set and printed, it takes about the same time to trim and mount as a typical Lexan body. And way, way cheaper than even a clear Lexan body.
The plan was to run all day exclusively on the 4-lane SR2 track. We started on SR2’s straight road course and did a bunch of hot laps before the usual suspects wanted to do some racing.
This was the first time in almost two years that we were running anything on the SR2 table. It took quite a few laps to clean the rails and get the cobwebs off the track. Due to a technical issue, we ran both practice and the only race on SR2 using Race Coordinator software, which did the job but had a couple of issues. Regardless, we were able to click off a race of six 25-lap heats using Kevin Webster’s Wizzard Storm Extreme IROC set.
Finish
Seed
Driver
Laps
Score
L1
L2
L3
L 4
1
1
Abe Maddox
87
18
7
11
16
16
2
4
Steve Stewart
94
18
11
16
13
13
3
3
Martha Elderon
91
18
7
7
16
16
4
5
Shaylin Maddox
88
17
11
7
13
16
5
2
Jerry Pearson
94
15
11
11
13
13
6
6
Kevin Webster
86
15
7
7
13
11
Just a fun race but it was very, very competitive. Abe won two heats and Martha Elderon won two heats. Only Kevin and I had experience on SR2 so it was quite impressive to see the new drivers do so well on the different course. Detailed Results
Abe’s Mom, Shaylin, wins the final heat of the Wizzard Storm race on SR2.
As seems to be the trend these days, Abe won on points and Martha bagged the final podium spot just three laps down on Home Cook’n. Not to be outdone by Abe, his Mom, Shaylin won the final heat with a perfect score of 25 laps.
Matthew Johnson didn’t race but he sure did a bunch of laps.
Abe was eager to get back to the SR3 course and let his Viper car rip. After a bunch of laps on SR3 with a whole new slew of drivers, Abe continued his dominance on the day by winning the second race on SR3. It wasn’t exactly a level playing field since Abe was running a Viper V-SPEC rig against mostly less capable cars. But Abe remained focused as ever and managed to edge out his schoolmate, Dax Schwartz, by just two laps. Madeline Johnson was just three laps behind Dax. Dax’s brother, Julian Schwartz, was just one lap behind Madeline. Extremely close racing by our neighborhood junior drivers!
Visiting adult driver, Andrew Noske, from Australia, did very well in his first-ever slot car race posting the second-fastest lap of the race! Thanks for joining us, Andrew! Detailed Results
Place
Name
Laps
Points
Total Time
1
Abe Maddox
40
17
364.271
2
Dax Schwartz
38
13
369.306
3
Madeline Johnson
35
11
370.117
4
Julian Schwartz
34
7
372.34
5
Andrew Noske
32
6
369.146
Okay, there it is. A beautiful day in the mountains, with a fantastic group of slotheads, and some seriously competitive and fun racing.
The juniors picking up their Hot Wheels hardware and medals.
Next weekend is the final round of the 2023 50/50 Series. Sportsman drivers, Jordan Walker and Kevin Webster are just eleven points apart in the series. Round 5 should decide which driver wins the series and moves on to the Expert ranks of our hobby. Best of luck to both drivers! The final round will be run on SR2 and will include at least two fuel races.
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Yep, could not get the minimum driver/team registrations so ended up with a casual track day instead. Just four drivers but we did make history…
Kevin Webster, Jerry Pearson, and Martha Elderon showed up on a beautiful day in the Santa Cruz mountains to race but were not disappointed. We ended up racing our newest additions to the track’s IROC fleet.
Race 1 was the new AutoWorld Super III NASCAR cars running on the inside four lines of SR3. Jerry Pearson was on fire in both races. We decided on 16v for these cars as 18v seemed a bit too much for the longer NASCAR body wheelbase bodies.
AutoWorld Super III 1.7 chassis’ with NASCAR bodies. With a few easy mods, they run pretty good.
Jerry dominated the first-ever Super III race held on SR3 with a convincing win in the first segment followed by a second, third, and a first in the final segment, edging out Home Cook’n by just one point overall. He didn’t set any lap records in the process but he garnered the most points and took the top spot on the first-ever Super III podium at Stewart Raceway. Way to go, Jerry! (Details)
Place
Name
Laps
Points
Total Time
1
Jerry Pearson
78
56
1297.84
2
Steve Stewart
80
55
1250.01
3
Kevin Webster
76
45
1286.333
4
Martha Elderon
72
32
1302.092
Jerry wasn’t quite done with his stellar driving on the day. Next up was the Eric”Fastlane” Lane Viper V-SPEC F1/Indy cars. Eric gifted a brand-new set of four of these cars to the track recently and, boy, are they a hoot to drive. Smooth, very fast, and just a pleasure to drive.
Jerry, again, had a great race, winning two heats and only missed the top podium spot by two points. Jerry matched Home Cook’n lap for lap except for Segment 2, where he lost a lap and finished third. Had Jerry finished second or better in Segment 2, he might have secured the top podium spot in both races. Great driving by all, especially Martha, she doesn’t think so but she’s cutting exceptionally fast laps for somebody who has never owned a single slot car. Nice driving, Martha! (Details)
Place
Name
Laps
Points
Total Time
1
Steve Stewart
80
58
988.626
2
Jerry Pearson
79
56
1026.13
3
Kevin Webster
76
42
1015.468
4
Martha Elderon
67
32
1011.375
So, all in all, the two new IROC sets are very nice additions to the raceway fleet. The Super III cars took some work to get dialed in equal enough for fun IROC racing. Kevin Webster spent some extra time after the races and got all six running great for next time. As usual, the Viper V-SPEC cars were all very close in performance and very, very fast out of the box.
A fun day and great to flush out the new IROC sets before the next round of the 50/50 Series.
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While I’ve been “self-quarantined” I’ve been hacking on the Stewart Raceway website even more than previously announced.
Last week I added a new Forums service with a bit of a different twist. The new Forum is also available to the larger slot car community. We’ll see how that goes but anybody can create an account and post to the forums. Currently, Roseville Raceway and Thunder Road Raceway have their own forum categories, which they can manage. We’ll see if there is any interest from these track owners in taking advantage of forums to communicate with their communities. Their members/subscribers can also use most of the services available to Stewart Raceway members.
Native Private Messaging service. This is the primary and recommended PM service to use.
In addition to the forum features, I also added Private Messaging, Group Messaging, and Member/Subscriber Profile capabilities to the site. The basic idea behind these services is to allow members/subscribers to message each other directly or in a group fashion, and keep their member profiles updated with the most current info.
Yea, so what? I know, most of you could care less about these features. But one very useful aspect of profiles is having Stewart Raceway member profile information accessible to the Race Director. Right now the profile is pretty basic, consisting of contact info, scale interests, and classes currently competing in. The profile also includes driver availability for racing and/or track events. All of this helps track owners plan and organize racing and track events.
So, for now, the CALL TO ACTION is to simply log in to the site when you get a chance. This will automatically register you to the new profile and messaging features. All of these features, including the Forums, are only available to logged-in users.
Standalone PM service. Still evaluating but feel free to try it out and compare to the standard PM service. I may restrict this one to Race Director use-only, we’ll see.
Feel free to edit/update your profile while you’re logged in, only takes a few minutes.
NOTE:Right now there are two Private Messaging services. One is an integral component of your site account, which is accessible on your account/profile page after log in. The other is a stand-alone private messaging app accessible from the Member Resources page. Both are fine to use but each has its own interface and functionality. Â
If there seems to be interest in these new services, I’ll post additional user information and maybe a video or two on how to use them, we’ll see.
Given the holiday hustle & bustle, it’s not likely we’ll be able to pull off another race day event this year. As such, our season officially ended after the 2022 IROC Championship finale on December 10.
First off, I’d like to thank all of you who stuck with our program and attended as many races/events as you could. Kathy and I really appreciate your loyalty, interest, and friendship.
We’ve had a wild ride this season, for sure. The season started out well but once we made the planned switch to HOPRA rules, we lost a few drivers. Not only that, we lost those drivers while we were trying to bring a new 6-lane Brad Bowman track online. Nothing is more impactful than losing participation when you’re increasing racing capacity by 50 percent.
In spite of that setback, we also added a few new drivers to the group in 2022. These new drivers are entering a program that is very well-positioned to both encourage and cultivate new participants in this great hobby we all have loved for most of our lives.
So, again, I really appreciate those of you who stuck with the program and made it as successful as it has been. We’ve done a whole lot of different types of racing, with all kinds of different types of cars, body styles, racing formats, etc. And through it all, the competition has been extremely close and the racing super exciting and–most important–fun.
So who were the top dogs in the two different driver classifications we currently offer?
2022 Sportsman Class Standings
Place
Name
Laps
Points
Total Time
1
Kevin Webster
6861
454
55303.45
2
Jordan Walker
5483
315
47097.53
3
Jerry Pearson
1949
167
21366.55
4
Eric Lane
915
69
7651.906
5
Gabe Maddox
35
29
218.53
6
Kathy Stewart
120
16
394.248
7
Martha Elderon
204
9
1020.019
8
Jared Johnson
122
7
1576.468
9
Madeline Johnson
105
5
1650.493
2022 Expert Class Standings
Place
Name
Laps
Points
Total Time
1
George Peters
9674
862
69452.86
2
Greg Kondrek
4490
379
19191.5
3
Ian Douglass
3530
344
15465.58
4
Brad Sandahl
3157
265
25463.15
5
Russ Toy
3180
197
15957.58
6
Randy Cook
136
13
1566.557
7
Steve Stewart
10607
1182
70235.96
Again, congratulations to Kevin and George. They love racing these little cars and it clearly shows in the results they’ve achieved.
I hope everyone enjoyed the 2022 Stewart Raceway season and certainly hope all of you return for the 2023 season. We’re going to stick to our rule set and overall program in the hopes of growing our ranks by making it easier, more affordable, and more competitive–for more racers.
Stay tuned for the 2023 racing schedule and a couple of exciting additions to the program. Happy Holidays to all of you!
Kevin worked up this body using some sort of drafting paper and then laminated it with some other material.
Given the holiday hustle & bustle, it’s not likely we’ll be able to pull off another race day event this year. As such, our season officially ended after the