Race Director – Page 9 – Stewart Raceway

Open Track Day Video: January 27, 2024

Another cool open track day on the 27th. We had a great turnout of junior and team drivers in the AM session and then another great turnout of Sportsman and Expert drivers in the afternoon.

We recorded a lot of the days action but only captured three of the fun races with the SlotTrak screens and these three were late-in-the-day and only three drivers remaining.

Still, for those interested, below is a link to those races on Rumble. I edited each video as much as possible but didn’t have time to reduce them to the nitty-gritty, so you’ll have to fast-forward through crashes or just grin and bear it. And, yes, we crashed a bunch.

The main reason for posting these particular videos is to show everyone a new video shooting scene setup. If you have time, please check it out. This setup utilizes two cameras above opposite corners of the track and switches between each view throughout the video, showing the SlotTrak scoring screens in one of the two whole-track scenes.

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

Please feel free to comment below. The next step in this video venture is to get some close-up video of various areas of the track and be able to produce slow-motion shots of the action.

Thank you all for showing up and supporting another very fun track day.

Next Saturday will be another open track day, if enough interest. Our racing season-opener will be February 10th. Stay tuned for more details on our first racing series of the 2024 season. It’s all open-wheel cars and probably three oval events and two road course events. Hopefully, one of the oval events will be held on SR2’s oval or road course.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Another Amazing Track Day!

Open track days are always full of surprises but when you get a bunch of Juniors in the mix, it’s never a dull moment.

Today, Team Maddox and Team Haglund showed up in full force. We had two Moms and five juniors in the paddock, most of them cut a bunch of practice hot laps. Even Dax Schwartz made an appearance on the track.

It was a pretty crowded track for an hour or so until the juniors realized it was a bright sunny day outside and decided to go out and explore the great outdoors. Not necessarily a bad thing for us big kids since it freed up a bunch of lanes for some senior hot-lapping.

The kids seemed to enjoy each other playing outside more than on the track so they didn’t return to the paddock and would depart before any racing broke out. And boy, did racing break out after that. We had a pretty stacked field of Sportsman and Expert drivers who had had enough practice and wanted to do some racing.

Home Cook’n, George Peters, Aaron Castro

Eric “Fast” Lane brought over his IROC fleet of Dodge Tradesman & Ford Econoline vans on MG+ 1.7 chassis’ to play with. Very challenging cars to race but very fun also.

Home Cook’n, Jerry Pearson, Aaron Castro

Of course, with this group, once racing starts it goes on for a while. The next race was another IROC set, this time the venerable Tyco 440-X2 chassis with Harden Creek “Hammer Head” Lexan bodies. These are the cars the Juniors typically practice and race with. They were recently tuned up by GP Designs so we thought we’d give them a go.

We did have a few issues with a couple of the cars but managed to complete another very competitive fuel race with them.

Home Cook’n, Aaron Castro, George Peters

Yep, even though we lost Eric and Jerry after the first two races, we pressed on and kept going. This time, the drivers wanted to go faster, so we picked Eric’s Viper V-SPEC F1/Indy Lexan IROC fleet. Not too many tracks where the host can pull out a full set of Viper V-SPEC cars to thrash–Thanks, Eric!

These are the fastest cars we run and the lap times did not disappoint. Vipers are fast and furious cars that make a whole lot of noise when they exit rails and slam into something.

Home Cook’n, Aaron Castro, Kevin Webster

Yep, more racing ensued after an adrenaline-pumping Viper race. George and Jordan departed just before our fourth race of the day. This time, the remaining group decided on Stewart Raceway’s fleet of Jag Hobbies TR-3 chassis’ with Jag Hobbies “Augoran” hardbodies. These cars are slightly modified versions of the TR-3, with independent front-ends and dual flange rear hubs. Very fast and stuck rigs!

Yep, this last bunch wasn’t quite finished for the day. After careful consideration, the small group decided on the Jag Hobbies NC-2 chassis’ with NASCAR-style bodies. Race 5 would be a very close battle between Aaron Castro and Home Cook’n. One of the cars had a larger body than the other two and would prove to be difficult to compete with the other two for all drivers. In the end, Home Cook’n edged out Aaron Castro by just two laps and three points in a hard-fought fuel race.

Yep, we did one more! This time, we opted for Stewart Raceway’s AFX Super G+ chassis’ with F1/Indy Lexan bodies. Haven’t raced these in quite a while but they did not disappoint, very fast but very predictable cars. Another barn-burner race with Home Cook’n just edging Aaron Castro out by one lap and one heat win.

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Steve Stewart	524	324	5172.575
2	Aaron Castro	507	275	5285.698
3	Kevin Webster	456	211	5377.044
4	George Peters	289	146	2425.914
5	Jordan Walker	271	123	2424.157
6	Jerry Pearson	189	97	1740.457
7	Eric Lane	180	77	1784.339

While there were quite a few highlights on the day, the top one was when Jordan’s recently captured snake found its way inside of Kevin’s controller. Kevin had to disassemble the controller to remove the snake!

Right-click and open in new window to see a larger image.

Brings a whole new meaning to “Racing with Vipers.”

Okay, shut up and drive!

Wow! What A Track Day!

Moms, Dads, and kids. The future of slot car racing!

We had thirteen participants show up on a rainy day in the mountains. Yes, thirteen drivers cut a bunch of laps on SR3. Not all ended up racing, but all did a lot of laps on the Fast Esses road course during practice.

I was expecting several juniors since Team Maddox and Team Johnson indicated they would appear. Team Maddox, however, blew through their advocacy goals and invited six new drivers to the event, which pretty much made practice, racing, and marshaling a breeze!

I think most of the fun was in open practice where all the new drivers got to experience a little hot lapping and the thrill of racing without any pressure. It was way fun to watch everyone get so excited besting each other and just having fun dicing with one another.

We only did one Dash race and one Team Race, which I’m sure was probably more than most new drivers expected. Still, I think everyone had fun and, hopefully, will return for more slot car action soon.

As usual, our 2023 Junior Champ, Abe Maddox, accumulated the most laps in practice (507). Abe also won the Dash race just ahead of Madeline Johnson in a close second. New junior driver, Makana Haglund, finished in third, just two laps behind Madeline.

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Abe Maddox	25	16	197.444
2	Madeline Johnson	23	13	203.566
3	Makana Haglund	21	12	193.704
4	Lucy Abramyan	20	7	197.478
5	Morag Macleod	19	6	197.49
6	Jenny Haglund	16	5	203.923

The final race was a team race between Team Johnson/Abramyan and Team Haglund in a full-rotation race with 10 lap segments in all six lanes. Madeline Johnson would be the dominant driver against a field of all first-time slot car drivers, winning three of the six segments and finishing three points ahead of her Mom, Lucy Abramyan, in second. Another Mom, Jenny Haglund (Team Haglund) finished third, just three points behind Lucy. That’s pretty competitive racing, for sure.

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Madeline Johnson	57	83	684.106
2	Lucy Abramyan	58	80	675.083
3	Jenny Haglund	54	77	677.665
4	Malia Haglund	39	42	734.276

Team Johnson edges out Team Haglund in a very close team’s race. Likely our youngest racer today, Malia Haglund was awesome and hung in there the whole race, finishing every segment.

Very cool to see a bunch of new racers show up and check out Stewart Raceway. Hope everyone had a good time and we didn’t over-expose you to our addiction. It can be very discouraging for new drivers to run with more experienced drivers but today showed that here in the mountains, we have a whole lot of very capable slot car racers.

Thank you all for braving the wet weather and coming over to drive little cars and hang out. We have a large contingent of junior and parent racers in the area, which calls for more of this kind of fun soon. Stay tuned for details on our next Open Track day.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Open Track Day, January 13, 2024

Race 1: MegaG+ 1.7 “Paper” Whelen Modifieds

Wow, another mostly “racing” track day! We did about 300 laps of practice before the usual racing action broke out. So much for mentoring and driver development, this bunch just wants to race!

Race 3: Auto World Super III NASCAR hardbodies

We also had a couple of new folks show up to check things out. Turns out Kevin (Webster Motorsports) ran into one of them at a hobby shop in San Leandro sometime last year as he was trying to fulfill his annual recruitment quota (just kidding). Anyway, he gave Joe our contact info and Joe finally touched base and wanted to swing by and scope things out.

Joe brought along his girlfriend, Oxana, who may not have been looking forward to driving a HO car for a couple of hours as they passed through the Santa Cruz Mountains. But they both jumped right into hot lapping and drove many of the various cars we run during practice. Before long, some wanted to race and both Joe and Oxana were all good with that.

We started with an IROC set of MegaG+ 1.7 cars with “Paper” Whelen Modified bodies, which Joe and Oxana adapted to very quickly since they had run the same class during their practice sessions. Joe finished third in his very first segment in the Orange lane, which was very impressive. Oxana, however, would stun the paddock with a full six-lane rotation and only one segment finishing worse than 4th place. Oxana finished four segments in the top 3–amazing!

Race 4: Viper V-SPEC F1/Indy 1.7 (i) Lexan (Eric Lane)

The good news is both Oxana and Joe had a great time. The bad news is that if Joe decides to get more into HO slot car racing, he’s going to need a box big enough to haul both his own AND Oxana’s equipment. The pair appear to be destined to dominate slot car racing very soon. Oxana and Joe didn’t have all day to play with little cars and had to depart shortly after our first race.

The other three races were pretty much the usual fast-and-furious events. The highlight of the day for me was the three female drivers in the mix. Oxana was amazing in her very first slot car race but we also had Aaron’s girlfriend, Olga Rosetta, and Team Johnson’s star Junior driver, Madeline Johnson in the mix. Olga and Madeline had a bunch of top 3 heat finishes throughout the day’s racing.

Not that I think there are any differences between male and female drivers when it comes to slot car racing, nevertheless I’m amazed at the caliber of female drivers we have participating in our program–way cool!

Next weekend will likely be another track day. Hopefully, Joe and Oxana will return for more driving experience and fun. The 2024 racing season will likely kick off on February 3rd with some sort of NASCAR series and an oval course event or two, we may even do more racing on SR2 this season. We’re upgrading the power control on SR2 to be the same as SR3.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Open Track Day Report: Jan 6, 2024

Wow! We had a total of nine (9) drivers show up for this track day event.

It was quite a mix of all the various skill levels but we decided to do a couple of open races with Experts, Sportsman, and juniors participating.

The big story was awarding Kevin Webster (Webster Motorsports) his 2023 Sportsman Championship trophy. Kevin had five (5) race wins during the season and managed to make an appearance at most of the races, which collected valuable points towards the 2023 championship.

Kevin has yet another plaque on the Stewart Raceway Wall of Fame. With an average placing of 3.5, Kevin is a player in not only the Sportsman class but also a frequent podium finisher against Expert-class drivers. Congrats, Kevin!

So back to the racing. We were supposed to work on some skill-building for Sportsman and Junior drivers but everybody wanted to race. What better way to develop skills than just flat-out racing each other?

The first race was way fun. We utilized Eric “Fast” Lane’s Ford Econoline and Dodge Tradesman IROC Vans with MegaG+ 1.7 chassis’. These cars are fairly quick and very top-heavy, which made for some driving challenges for all of us.

In the end, George Peters won the race with some superb driving against the hard-charging Sportsman driver, Jerry Pearson, and home-track favorite, Home Cook’n. Everybody had a blast driving Eric’s Vans despite a few issues with body retention and a couple of cars that were quite a handful to drive.

The highlight of the first race was Eric Lane and Kevin Webster battling it out in the final segment. Both drivers finished the final segment on the same lap (25) and just an inch or so apart as they crossed the finish line in 1st and 2nd. Amazing!

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	George Peters	143	77	1478.292
2	Steve Stewart	144	74	1447.122
3	Jerry Pearson	137	67	1453.532
4	Eric Lane	132	65	1513.803
5	Kevin Webster	138	64	1538.08
6	Matthew Johnson	121	49	1539.587
7	Madeline Johnson	120	44	1498.206
8	Shaylin Maddox	125	42	1482.958
9	Abe Maddox	123	40	1563.437

Again, we didn’t get much mentoring or skills-building done in between races and went right into the final race of the day. This time, we decided to use a set of house 440-X2 wide-pan chassis’ with late-model sportsman Lexan bodies. These cars have seen a lot of laps with guest and junior drivers this season and were not in the best shape for competitive IROC racing.

Despite a couple of issues, we forged ahead and completed another IROC race. This time it was Home Cook’n who came out on top by just two laps over George Peters in second. As usual, Kevin Webster bagged the last podium step only nine laps down on the top two finishers.

The notable result of this race was Junior driver, Abe Maddox, besting Sportsman driver, Jerry Pearson, by just one point in fourth place. In fact, other than Madeline Johnson spending more time practicing fuel stops instead of racing, the last race was incredibly close with just 10 laps separating the field.

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Steve Stewart	100	64	754.995
2	George Peters	98	61	702.631
3	Kevin Webster	91	48	763.299
4	Abe Maddox	86	45	778.729
5	Jerry Pearson	98	44	839.809
6	Shaylin Maddox	87	44	728.629
7	Eric Lane	90	36	802.219
8	Madeline Johnson	77	34	724.444

What a great day of fun racing and hanging out with a great bunch of slot car racers. We’ll try to do at least one more track day before we kick-off the 2024 racing season. Stay tuned for details.

Okay, shut up and drive!