Author: Race Director

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

Canceled Race Results in a Lot of Racing

Wow! This event was canceled in the early AM but somehow ended with eight races being run and 10 drivers total.

By Thursday afternoon, we hadn’t received enough RSVPs to confirm a go for Round 3 of our 50/50 Series. So, an Open Track Day was scheduled instead. However, in the early morning of Saturday, one of the catalysts driving the event bailed out due to illness, and the Race Director canceled via email.

So, long story short, I was going to work on a few of our house IROC sets anyway, and Team Maddox said they had an hour or so for track time. I invited them over, then told Team Johnson they were welcome to join in. It turned out that another neighbor, Team Rowland, was also interested in some track time.

By 11:30, we had eight drivers in the paddock and two more expected. We stuck to the plan and had a fantastic open track day, with a lot of practice, a few practice qualifying sessions, one full rotation race, and four Dash races!

Unsurprisingly, Junior ace Abe Maddox won the one full rotation race, but only had an hour or so to practice and do a couple of qualifying runs. Lucille Rowland placed second in the same race. Our junior ranks are getting faster and faster with each event.

After Team Maddox departed, Team Johnson showed up with two drivers. Team’s Johnson and Rowland cut a whole bunch of laps practicing, with the highlight being Coe Rowland clicking off a 4.452 lap in the green lane running a box-stock Lexan Viper.

Team Johnson completed their practice session with some very respectable lap times, also with a Lexan Viper, and departed before racing broke out.

With just Team Rowland remaining and seemingly bored with practice, some Dash racing broke out. As you can see, Coe Rowland dominated the Dash racing with two 1st and 2nd place finishes in the four Dash races.

Arlo Rowland would end up 2nd overall on the day but also has the distinction of being the only driver in history to drive every car in the Stewart Raceway stable on the same day. Arlo cut laps with every type of IROC and race car in the house!

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Coe Rowland 149 104 NA
2 Arlo Roland 140 89 NA
3 Abe Maddox 90 75 NA
4 Dave Rowland 73 51 NA
5 Lucille Rowland 76 47 544.134
6 Steve Stewart 10 16 NA
7 Shaylin Maddox 10 11 NA

Overall, it was a pretty nice turnout, and everyone had a lot of fun.

A big thanks to Mrs. Stewart for arranging the delicious fresh bagels,  very tasty treats on a cool day. Oh, and thanks to Team Rowland for bringing the delicious tortilla chips and salsas.

Our video production staff muffed the setup today, so we don’t have anything to post other than audio and the race display to show for it. We’ll take disciplinary action against the staff to ensure that doesn’t happen again, sorry!

Okay, shut up and drive!

A Blast From The Past

A neighbor brought over a couple of rare finds from an estate sale he recently attended. These are very old, early Aurora Model Motoring cars. They were manufactured sometime in 1960 and were unopened in their original factory packaging.

A Mercedes Benz and a Ford Thunderbird.The original foam packaging inserts were way deteriorated and falling apart, and the plastic yellowing, but the cars were in remarkably good shape and both ran and took a bunch of laps on SR3.While they are similar to their younger sibling, the Aurora Thunderjet later manufactured in 1962, they are very different. I think these cars were called “Vibrators,” hence the strange drum and noise mechanism.

These cars wouldn’t have had much success in racing circles since they were pretty much throw-away once you wore out the pickup shoes or motor brushes. Cool little cars ran a lot like the original 1962 Aurora ThunderJet, probably a bit slower since the motor appeared to be a bit different, and they have some sort of noise-making mechanism, which probably reduces overall speed and power output. My neighbor plans to sell them on eBay soon and likely didn’t want me tearing into them, so I didn’t. I am curious how much different the motor box is from the later Thunderjet platform. If I ever see them again, I’ll ask him if I can remove the top plate to look closer. Maybe he’ll come across a couple more, and we could all do some IROC racing with them. They are so slow that you have to try hard to crash them.

Thanks for sharing, Dean!

 

2025 50/50 Series, Round 2 Videos Posted on Rumble

Two race videos posted on Rumble today. Sadly, I didn’t get recording setup for the first race, which Junior driver Abe commandingly won–Darn!

Race 2:
https://rumble.com/v6gaovy-2025-5050-series-round-2-race-2.html
Race 3:
https://rumble.com/v6gb2jm-2025-5050-series-round-2-race-3.html

Also viewable from our website on the Video Gallery page.

2025 50/50 Series, Round 2 — A Team Battle Royale

Round 2 of the 2025 50/50 Series was mainly a battle between Team Maddox and Team Rowland. We did three races (all IROC), and both teams duked it out with segment or race wins from almost every driver.

Short Story
Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Abe Maddox 193 169 1386.527
2 Lucille Rowland 177 130 1414.206
3 Coe Rowland 165 123 1382.171
4 Steve Stewart* 158 119 1554.584
5 George Peters* 155 111 1581.338
6 Arlo Rowland 157 102 1921.991
7 Shaylin Maddox 143 94 1072.58
8 Dave Rowland 142 92 1625.006

* Expert

Race 1: Viper V-SPEC (SPECSTOCK) F1/Indy Lexan (IROC) (Sponsored by Fast Lane Racing)

Local phenom Abe Maddox won three of his four segments to come from behind and win Race 1 by tying Home Cook’n on laps and points but with a total runtime of ~5 seconds faster. Team Rowland driver Dave Rowland had a strong showing in his second appearance at Stewart Raceway with a fourth-place finish just ahead of Team Maddox driver Shaylin Maddox in fifth-place. Details

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Abe Maddox 79 61 540.671
2 Steve Stewart 79 61 545.814
3 George Peters 76 55 559.269
4 Dave Rowland 72 47 590.117
5 Shaylin Maddox 71 46 516.662
6 Lucille Rowland 72 42 578.195
7 Coe Rowland 62 32 527.784
8 Arlo Rowland 60 32 597.176
Race 2: Jag Hobbies TR-3 Augorans (IROC)

Team Maddox looked to be the dominant team early on in this one, leading the race through the first three segments. However, the two Experts in the mix had their own battle going on, and about halfway through the race, it became a battle for the last podium spot between Team Maddox and Team Rowland. In the end, Abe would win his final segment, putting Team Maddox on the podium in third place. The battle for the final podium spot was extremely close, with just two to three laps separating each driver. Details

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Steve Stewart 79 58 1008.77
2 George Peters 79 56 1022.069
3 Abe Maddox 74 50 573.644
4 Shaylin Maddox 72 48 555.918
5 Dave Rowland 70 45 1034.889
6 Coe Rowland 67 44 582.821
7 Lucille Rowland 70 43 570.725
8 Arlo Rowland 62 32 1045.951

Race 3: Viper V-SPEC (SPECSTOCK) F1/Indy Lexan (IROC) (Sponsored by Fast Lane Racing)

George wisely suggested we let the Junior drivers do an entire race by themselves, and boy, did they put on a show! 

Abe Maddox won two of his segments, Coe and Lucille Rowland each won one segment, and Arlo Rowland bagged second place in one of his segments.  All drivers laid down some speedy laps throughout the race and displayed impressive driving throughout. Details

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Abe Maddox 40 58 272.212
2 Coe Rowland 36 47 271.566
3 Lucille Rowland 35 45 265.286
4 Arlo Rowland 35 38 278.864

2025 50/50 Series Points Standings After Round 2:
Place Name Laps Points Total Time
Junior
1 Abe Maddox 305 270 2295.515
2 Coe Rowland 301 233 2735.668
3 Arlo Roland 289 208 3177.244
4 Lucille Rowland 177 130 1414.206
5 Matthew Johnson 67 42 518.012
6 Madeline Johnson 54 28 507.557
Sportsman
1 Dave Rowland 286 234 2916.617
2 Shaylin Maddox 245 177 1918.909
3 Jared Johnson 169 142 1292.315
4 Eric Lane 66 40 498.861
5 Cameron Bill 50 32 411.714
Expert
1 George Peters 393 343 3226.778
2 Steve Stewart 317 293 2713.285
3 Aaron Castro 139 120 868.844
4 Jerry Pearson 79 58 496.859

Congrats to both teams today for some very impressive driving and a big win by Team Maddox’s Abe Maddox in the first race of the day. Abe is an amazing slothead, for sure. Another outstanding performance today was first-time visitor Lucille Rowland, who achieved at least two segment wins on the day–great driving!

Okay, Round 2 of this series is in the books. We’ll see how next weekend shapes up and who’s available. Maybe we’ll do an oval day on SR2 or SR3; we’ll see.

Thank you all for showing up and making Round 2 a fun and exciting day of racing! The only downside on the day was that somebody ate all the animal cookies before I could get some. I hate it when that happens!

Okay, shut up and drive!

2025 Season Opener Videos Posted

All four official races ran last Saturday and a clip of the closest finish yet recorded on video have been posted on Rumble.

The closest finish clip is a segment finish between Aaron Castro and George Peters in the MegaG+ 1.7 Modified race. The gap at the end of the 20-lap segment was just three-hundredths of a second. It was not the closest ever witnessed at Stewart Raceway, but it was pretty close nonetheless.

Enjoy!