Category: Stewart Raceway III

All about Stewart Raceway

2023 50/50 Xtreme Series: Round 1 – Short but sweet!

Well, we didn’t have all of the usual suspects in the paddock but we clicked off three action packed races, all with the MegaG+ 1.7 platform.

George Peters, Abe Maddox, Jordan Walker

The first event was qualifying. We had hoped to do a new style/format for qualifying but it didn’t work so we just did an Indy-style format but with 10-laps to get the best average lap time.

Young gun, Abe Maddox, of Team Maddox fame knocked first-up qualifier, Kevin Webster, of Webster Motorsport fame off the leaderboard with a blistering 10-lap average of 6.072 putting Abe on the pole until the last qualifier, George Peters, put in another blistering 10-lap performance with an average lap time of 6.026 and an average speed of 546-mph. Neither driver appeared to have suffered a crash during their 10-lap pole setting efforts.

Qualifying
Track: SR3 Road Course Fast Esses (Chicane)
Date: Oct-21-2023 12:33
Class: Mega-G+ 1.7 Support Class “Lites”
Descr: 10-Lap Qualifying Session
Name Lap Time Speed (Mph) Place
George Peters 6.026 546 1
Abe Maddox 6.072 542 2
Kevin Webster 6.433 512 3
Jordan Walker 6.56 502 4
Shaylin Maddox 6.742 488 5
Steve Stewart 7.489 440 6
Grace Maddox 8.269 398 7
Race #1: MegaG+ “Lites” IROC (Paper Whelen Modifieds)
George Peters, Home Cook’n, Kevin Webster

These cars are fun but when you fit a super-light paper body on them, they get even more fun. The paper bodies are so light, the car handles like it doesn’t have a body at all.

George Peters pretty much dominated this event, but Team Maddox had one heat win and several second-place finishes with Shaylin Maddox winning the final segment handily while filling in for teammate, Grace Maddox. Shaylin completed all laps of the final segment and clicked of the best lap of the segment (5.954).

Sportsman driver, Kevin Webster, quietly bagged the final podium spot with one solid segment win and solid placings in his other segments. Detailed Results

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 George Peters 98 56 889.721
2 Steve Stewart 97 52 816.236
3 Kevin Webster 89 47 898.078
4 Jordan Walker 83 47 740.99
5 Grace Maddox 82 45 716.313
6 Abe Maddox 81 42 789.937
7 Shaylin Maddox 88 40 870.364
Race #2: MegaG+ 1.7 “Lites”
Home Cook’n, Kevin Webster, George Peters

These are our pretty much box-stock MegaG+ cars with very slight mods and hardbodies, typically F1/Indy or NASCAR stock car livery.

Kevin Webster very nearly won this event with outstanding driving, Kevin and Home Cook’n were neck and neck the whole event going into the final segment. Kevin would end up one lap down after a hard crash with just a few laps left in the final segment. The crash gave Home Cook’n a good gap and Kevin was unable to close it before the race ended.

The past, present, and future of slot car racing. Team Maddox rocks!


George Peters came on very strong in the final segment placing second and on the same lap as the leader but struggled during the other heats due to distraction from erratic driving by teammate, Jordan Walker. Jordan put in some amazing laps during the race but lost his focus and would abandon after the third segment. Detailed Results

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Steve Stewart 100 64 1446.079
2 Kevin Webster 99 50 1461.834
3 George Peters 92 46 1463.719
4 Jordan Walker 58 28 1472.685
Series Standings after Round 1
Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Steve Stewart 197 116 2262.315
2 George Peters 190 102 2353.44
3 Kevin Webster 188 97 2359.912
4 Jordan Walker 141 75 2213.675
5 Grace Maddox 82 45 716.313
6 Abe Maddox 81 42 789.937
7 Shaylin Maddox 88 40 870.364

So, there you have it. Round 1 of the 2023 50/50 Xtreme Series is in the books. As always, you can miss one race in any series and still be in the hunt for a series win.

The MegaG+ platform has been an amazingly competitive platform and appears to be a keeper at Stewart Raceway. With the addition of the new “paper” bodies, we’re considering adding a “Modified” version of this car using the superlight paper body and maybe an independent front-end, and possibly N42 or even N52 traction magnets. Personally, I think just the paper body addition is quite the performance improvement, but some folks like to go even faster.

Stay tuned for details on Round 2 and our next track day.

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!

A Track Day Racing Fest

Just a few drivers showed up for this one but we sure did a whole lot of racing. Our newest driver, Aaron Castro, braved the Beachcomber traffic and got to the track around 12:40. Webster MotoSports arrived around noon so we got to business by 1:00.

Kevin and I were dinking around with “paper” bodies for various chassis’ when Aaron arrived. Cheap but not without their own issues. Paper bodies have been around for years. The draw is the customization possible and almost zero weight. The plan is to come up with a simple template that anyone could use to make a body. Of course, paper bodies are primarily intended for a body-clip chassis, replacing heavy and expensive plastic or 3D-printed hard bodies.

Once we figure out a workable design we’ll move the material to some thin synthetic material, which will be obviously more durable and easier to secure to the chassis.

On To Racing Action

I won’t bore you all with details but we did seven (7) Dash races, all on the same lane assignment, and all 40 laps. Aaron won the first race running our MegaG+ Support Class cars and he won the last race running Wizzard Storm Extreme cars, courtesy of Webster Motorsports. As you can see, the racing was very close and the cars were all vastly different, from very loose Box Stock TFX cars to Wizzard Storm Extreme magnet cars, we did a lot of racing for a track day.

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Steve Stewart 239 98 2932.967
2 Aaron Castro 236 82 2954.773
3 Kevin Webster 216 66 2950.298

A very fun track day in spite of the heat wave. We stayed on SR3 instead of going indoors and enjoying SR2 in an air-conditioned environment. Had the fans going and the doors wide open.

Thanks for showing up, guys! 

 

Track Day Report

A few hours on the SR3 straight road course and a few races. Team Maddox, Pearson Racing, and Fast Lane Racing showed up to cut some laps and run a few Dash races.

Bottom line: Jerry Pearson dominated the Dash racing with two wins. However, Shaylin Maddox (Abe’s Mom) was so close in second that we needed to review the tapes.

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Jerry Pearson 75 46 1037.239
2 Shaylin Maddox 72 41 1040.78
3 Eric Lane 62 30 1088.66
4 Steve Stewart 56 20 1050.672
5 Abe Maddox 14 11 224.264
6 Grace Maddox 11 7 225.035

Jerry won two of the three but Shaylin won one and was extremely close (1000/sec) in the other two. Both drivers were running Team Fast Lane Vipers. Way close racing!

I’m hoping to get back to some formal racing next weekend. Stay tuned for details on that.

Okay, shut up and drive.

Track Day Report: Team Racing

Abe Maddox way ready for the start.

We tried something different and it seemed like everyone enjoyed it.

Just three races were preceded by a qualifying session, which paired up the fastest drivers with the slowest drivers for a subsequent team race-off.

Qualifying

Name Lap Time Speed (Mph) Place
Steve Stewart 5.173 631 1
Abe Maddox 5.322 614 2
Jerry Pearson 5.643 579 3
Shaylin Maddox 6.035 541 4
Eric Lane 6.646 491 5
Grace Maddox 11.299 289 6
Kevin Webster DNS

Junior driver, Abe Maddox was amazingly focused on his qualifying run. His 2nd fastest lap time shows just how much. Jerry Pearson, with the third-fastest time, actually clicked off a blistering 4.9-second lap during qualifying.

Team Race Race-Off

The SR3 road course in team racing action.

So the event format was to pair the fastest qualifiers with the slower qualifiers and set up two-driver teams with the goal of making team racing more challenging and competitive. By the looks of the first team race, the format was very successful.

Second fastest qualifier, Abe Maddox and fifth-fastest qualifier, Eric Lane, were pitted against third-fastest qualifier, Jerry Pearson, and fourth-fastest qualifier Shaylin Maddox in the first team race:

Team Competition Points Summary
Track: SR3 Road Course Straight
Date: Sep-02-2023 11:30    Class: Viper V-SPEC SPEC RACER
Segment Length (laps): 10    Descr:
Team Name: Cat People Points
Team Members: Jerry Pearson 75
Shaylin Maddox(2) 64
Total Team Points = 139
Team Name: FastTrackers Points
Team Members: Abe Maddox(2) 76
Eric Lane 67
Total Team Points = 143

If the above results aren’t a good indicator of just how successful this racing format works, I’m not sure what is. Just 4-points decided the first team race, very close racing!

Team Race Finale

Grace Maddox was amazing in the penultimate team race!

After successfully winning the first team race in the bracket, the Fastrackers team was pitted against the fastest qualifier and the slowest qualifier in the finale.

The finale should have been much closer but junior driver, Grace Maddox, drove a superb race, bagging a second-place and a third-place segment finish and 46 total laps, only 7 laps less than the second-fastest qualifier and her big brother, Abe Maddox– awesome!

Team Competition Points Summary
Track: SR3 Road Course Straight
Date: Sep-02-2023 12:07    Class: Viper V-SPEC SPEC RACER
Segment Length (laps): 10    Descr:
Team Name: Fastrackers Points
Team Members: Abe Maddox(2) 66
Eric Lane 62
Total Team Points = 128
Team Name: Silly Pickles Points
Team Members: Steve Stewart 96
Grace Maddox(2)(2) 58
Total Team Points = 154

Team Race #3

Not sure how we decided on the team structure for the last team race but we didn’t qualify. We only had four drivers after Team Maddox had to depart to tend to some other important things (picking up a couple of new kittens). We decided to change up the racing platform from Vipers to to MegaG+ F1 cars for the last race of the day.

This one was interesting with three drivers winning two segments each. However,  the “Donuts” team won four total. Eric Lane stepped up at the right time, winning two segments and sealing the deal with 74 of the team’s 156 total points.

Team Competition Points Summary
Track: SR3 Road Course Straight
Date: Sep-02-2023 12:54    Class: Mega-G+ 1.7 Support Class
Segment Length (laps): 15    Descr:
Team Name: Dollars Points
Team Members: Jerry Pearson(2) 66
Kevin Webster 60
Total Team Points = 126
Team Name: Donuts Points
Team Members: Steve Stewart 82
Eric Lane 74
Total Team Points = 156

So, what did the individual results look like on the day?

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Eric Lane 183 203 1666.433
2 Steve Stewart 148 178 1159.493
3 Abe Maddox(2) 110 142 860.476
4 Jerry Pearson 57 75 449.013
5 Jerry Pearson(2) 82 66 812.677
6 Shaylin Maddox(2) 54 64 470.328
7 Kevin Webster 82 60 833.123
8 Grace Maddox(2)(2) 46 58 399.498

It pays to hang in there and run as many races as you can, way to go, Eric!

Something a little different and lots of fun. Thank you all for showing up and trying something new.

Okay, shut up and drive!