Author: Race Director

Just an old slot car racer and Race Director at Stewart Raceway.

Dean Donaldson Dominates Second “Friday Night Lights” Event

What was expected to be a low-key test and tune event turned into a barn-burner racing night.

After the scheduled event was canceled due to low turnout, we opened up to allow local driver, Dean Donaldson to get his newly procured Viper V-SPEC car dialed-in. Dean had worked on the body but needed some help getting it trimmed and mounted. Dean brought along his neighbor, Bev Seltzer, who was curious to check out the Stewart Raceway action and cut a few laps with Dean.

While I worked on Dean’s Viper body, he and Bev had some fun cutting laps and dicing with each other with MegaG+ 1.7 cars. Once I got Dean’s Viper body installed and ready, Dean took it for a spin and immediately started clocking some speedy laps. Dean quickly realized he had a blazingly fast car and suggested we run a race or two to see what it could do.

Bev and Home Cook’n pulled out a couple of Fast Lane racing’s Viper V-SPEC F1/Indy Lexan IROC cars, and we lined up at the starting line for a 35-lap Dash fuel race.

As you can see, Dean was hooked up and smoking on SR2 with a fastest lap of 3.270, which is quite close to the lap record for this type of car on SR2’s straight road course.

Track: Stewart Raceway II Straight Road Course
Date: Apr-11-2025 19:46
Class: Viper V-SPEC SPEC STOCK Lexan
Descr: Test
Name Lane Avg
 Fast
 Median
 Laps Place
Dean Donaldson Yellow 11.978 3.270 3.629 35 1
Steve Stewart Red 12.592 3.623 4.028 33 2
Bev Seltzer White 16.983 4.037 7.606 25 3

After the first race, Kathy joined us, and we did three more Dash races but with 40 laps instead of 35. Dean didn’t win them all, but he clearly dominated the night and clicked off a 3.261 lap in the process.

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Dean Donaldson 154 58 108.13
2 Steve Stewart 146 53 106.589
3 Bev Seltzer 118 36 101.94
4 Kathy Stewart 105 34 332.422

Kathy won the third race by a lap over Dean and a fastest lap of 3.351. Our newest competitor at Stewart Raceway, Bev Seltzer, had a fantastic first time, with a fastest lap of 3.666. Bev could be an up-and-coming driver for Team Donaldson Racing; we’ll see.

Track: Stewart Raceway II Straight Road Course
Date: Apr-11-2025 22:00
Class: Viper V-SPEC SPEC STOCK Lexan
Descr: Test
Name Lane Avg Fast
 Median
 Laps Place
Kathy Stewart Blue 8.302 3.351 4.086 40 1
Dean Donaldson Yellow 8.596 3.346 3.702 39 2
Steve Stewart Red 9.557 3.539 3.910 36 3
Bev Seltzer White 11.197 3.669 4.578 30 4

So, the bottom line is that Dean is pleased with his purchase of his first Viper V-SPEC chassis and is eager to see how it does in an “official” racing event. Not to mention that Dean is also a very capable magnet car driver. SR2 is a hard course for such powerful cars, and Dean proved he was up to the task, for sure.

Okay, maybe the next Friday Night Lights event will feature both a men’s and a women’s race. Or at least an “A” and “B” main.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Friday Night Lights Event Videos Posted

While it wasn’t an official race, we did manage to get video of the three races last Friday night: two on SR2 and one on SR3. The two SR2 videos are mostly unedited because one of the cameras froze before the recording started and did not capture any action from that view. Editing those dead spots out is way too time-consuming, so it is what it is.

The SR3 video is fine, just not as edited as I would normally do.

https://rumble.com/c/c-3364960

Fast forward through the SR2 dead spots.

Hopefully, we’ll get it right next time.

Friday Night Lights Inaugural Event

What a great track night! Six drivers showed up for an evening of fun and speed on both Stewart Raceway tracks.

This is an older picture of SR2’s “straight” road course layout as a screen background on its RMS system.

After an hour or so of hot laps on SR3’s oval course, we ran a fuel race using MegaG+ 1.7 F1/Indy “Lite” cars.Milo hanging out in the SR2 paddock.

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Steve Stewart 117 16 306.499
2 George Peters 113 15 313.98
3 Joe Vargas 110 13 315.069
4 Oxana Che 106 8 325.79
5 Dean Donaldson 105 8 309.884
6 Kevin Webster 102 6 331.667

Team Hummingbird’s Joe Vargas is on the podium on just his third visit to Stewart Raceway.

We again ran Race 2 on SR2 with the MegaG+ “Lite” cars. Joe bagged another podium in this one, just one lap off the pace of Home Cook’n.

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Steve Stewart 99 61 506.044
2 Joe Vargas 98 56 491.132
3 George Peters 98 53 494.965
4 Dean Donaldson 86 42 498.826
5 Oxana Che 91 36 511.277
6 Kevin Webster 83 34 532.675

Race 3 was on SR2 again, but this time with Viper-built Super 7 cars with Tyco NASCAR hardbodies. Joe bagged yet another podium finish with these fine IROC cars donated by Eric’s Fast Lane Racing fame. Another new driver, Dean Donaldson was sitting in 2nd place after completing his rotations with 91 laps at the start of the final segment. Joe Vargas would end his rotation on the Red Lane but just slightly behind Dean in points. In the end, Joe knocked Dean off the last podium spot with a nice 3rd place in the final segment and 3rd overall.

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 George Peters 100 61 470.639
2 Steve Stewart 98 55 459.415
3 Joe Vargas 92 49 474.536
4 Dean Donaldson 91 42 491.275
5 Kevin Webster 81 28 477.341

George Peters, Home Cook’n, and Joe Vargas

Overall Results of Three Fuel Races On Two Different Tracks
Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Steve Stewart 314 132 1271.958
2 George Peters 311 129 1279.584
3 Joe Vargas 300 118 1280.737
4 Dean Donaldson 282 92 1299.985
5 Kevin Webster 266 68 1341.683
6* Oxana Che 197 44 837.067

* Oxana did not participate in the final race but did a great job marshaling.

Overall, it was a great night of racing, and the new drivers all did well. Oxana did a fantastic job adjusting to the different cars and tracks, but running on an oval for the first time and then switching to the smaller but very fast SR2 road course was just too stressful after a long work week, so Oxana decided to skip the final race with even faster cars.

Dean Donaldson had a great night, with one segment win in the oval race and at least two second-place segments in the last two races on the SR2 road course.

Joe Vargas had a phenomenal night, with three segment wins, several second-place segment finishes, a second overall, and two third-place podium visits.

Of course, these were all “unofficial” race results, but our newest drivers showed they can best these results and win races as they progress.

While not an “official” race event, SR2 saw a couple of notable track record benchmarks set in Race 2: George Peters set the bar for the MegaG+ 1.7 Lites with a 3.910 in the White Lane, and Joe Vargas set the bar for the Blue Lane with a 3.927 lap.

George and Dean Donaldson also set new benchmarks for the Eric “Fast” Lane Super 7 NASCAR IROC set in Race 3: George clicked off a 3.745 in the Blue Lane, and Dean clicked off a 3.753 in the Yellow Lane.

GP Designs latest IROC set, AFX Magna-Traction IMSA Sedans

It was a fun night of racing and good exercise to run on two different tracks for an event. It’s challenging to go from one road course to another, but going from an oval to a road course is way more challenging. I did get video action on both tracks and will post that ASAP.

Thanks to everyone who showed up for our first-ever Friday Night event! I hope everyone enjoyed it; I know I did.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Interesting Open Track Day

This one started as a small group of four and nearly doubled at Go time! Nine drivers showed up Sunday around noon for some track time.

It was unique because four juniors and five seniors showed up: one new driver to Stewart Raceway and two returning drivers.

Participating Teams:

      • Team Maddox
      • Donaldson Racing
      • Che-Vargas Racing
      • Team Johnson
      • Stewart Racing

The juniors quickly overtook SR3 and began hotlapping on four of the six lanes, leaving the rest of us with limited lane access. We could have set up a rotation, but we opted to fire up SR2 instead.

Jared took over Race Director duties on SR3 and ran a couple of Dash races with the juniors while the rest of us cleaned off SR2 and started to cut laps there. I think Jared might be Deputy Race Director soon.

SR2 was remarkably clean indoors and didn’t take many laps to clean off. We need to do more racing on SR2; it’s a bit hectic with Vipers and other magnet cars, but it’s a fun and challenging track.

So, what was expected to be a small group of drivers getting track time on the SR3 oval turned out to be quite a multifaceted track day.

Our newest driver, Dean Donaldson, once again brought out some engaging vintage HO-scale platforms to try out today. This rig is a Tyco Truck platform that ran well after some oiling and greasing. We need to get three more of these rigs for some IROC fun. Dean and Eric “Fast” Lane are definitely “Pickers.” They’ll get along very well.

We didn’t do much racing, but it was a fun Open Track day. The juniors cut a few laps, Donaldson Racing broke in his new MegaG+ 1.7 Alpha-Romeo F1 car, and Che-Vargas Racing cut some fast laps with Viper V-SPEC L4 cars on SR2.

There’s a back story with Che-Vargas Racing. Joe Vargas has procured the remnants of an SR2 clone track. The copy was created shortly after I designed the layout and had the original SR2 built by Viperscaleracing.com back in July 2018. Joe found the whole track and table somewhere in Sacramento, but they only wanted to sell the track pieces, not the whole table. Anyway, a longer story to tell here, but the bottom line is Joe is working on getting “SR2.2” operational again.

Aaron is also very near to procuring another cool 4-lane routed track. He’ll be driving down to the LA area later this month to check it out. There could be a nice revival of HO-scale racing in the Bay Area soon!

Okay, stay tuned for an email about resuming racing and completing the final round of our 50/50 series. It’ll be an oval event on SR3.

Okay, shut up and drive!

2025 50/50 Series, Round 4 Video Coverage Posted on Rumble

Race #2 Podium: GP Designs bags the top step!

Videos of all three races have been posted on our Rumble channel.

Your favorite Race Director got all four races on video, and I edited them down as much as I could. Just fast-forward through any pauses in the racing action.

We STILL need a better camera crew in our video production department. If anyone would like to volunteer to manage the video operations, I’ll show you what’s involved. You ensure it is set up and working and monitor things throughout the race day.

Okay, shut up and drive!