Race Director – Page 13 – 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!

Prototype “Paper” SK Modified Body

(Right-click and open in a new tab for larger image)

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.

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.