Announcements – Page 4 – Stewart Raceway

God’s Speed, Paul

Paul at center in photo, Fray in Ferndale, CA, 2020

Another accomplished Fray racer, Paul Josephy, passed away on January 9, 2023, Paul was 75.

I raced with Paul quite a bit over the years that I participated in Fray T-Jet racing. He was always helpful, kind, and always funny. In fact, Paul always had a funny joke or story to tell no matter what you were doing…even if you were racing.

I still have a pair of special pliers he gave to me during a race here in the Bay Area. They were excellently crafted and extremely precise pliers used for flattening or tweaking a T-Jet pickup shoe. I’m sure they weren’t cheap but he just handed them to me and said “keep them, they’re yours.”

Paul is on the far right, standing next to Curtis Adams, who also recently passed away.

I recall once showing up for a Fray race at George Peter’s Hillview Raceway with a new DiFalco controller. Paul came by my pit area and picked up the controller and said “nice feel, very smooth.” I said, yea, “it’s like air.” He said, hold on a minute…” He came back with his controller and said “try this.” Oh my, his controller was “air” smooth! Turns out, it was a Medanic “wiperless” Magic controller and I’ve raced with one ever since.

I hadn’t seen or heard from Paul over the past couple of years at all, likely due to his situation and C19. Paul died in Wichita Falls, Texas with family and friends.

God’s speed, Paul. You’ll be missed by the slot car community, family, and friends, for sure.

https://www.hart-wyattfuneralhome.com/obituary/paul-josefy

God’s Speed, Curtis

Don’t remember the year, Curtis (second from right) with the South Bay team accepting second-place in the Teams racing at the Fray in Ferndale, CA.

Curtis Adams was just 64 years old when he passed away from apparent congestive heart failure on December 19, 2020.

Curtis was an avid Fray car builder and racer. I didn’t know him well but in pretty much any Fray racing event I attended he would be there and do extremely well.

The things I remember most about Curtis were his smile and generosity. He helped everyone and often gave struggling racers a set of his self-made dual compound tires, which were incredibly good.

Curtis (right) finished third in the “A” Main at Junewood’s Festival of Speed in Loomis, CA.

Curtis’ last race at Stewart Raceway was back in late January of 2020, just before the Covid-19 fiasco was unleashed.

He’ll be missed by many, many, slot car racers. He was one of the best sportsmen in the hobby, for sure. God’s speed, Curtis.

The 2022 Racing Season Is In The Books

Given the holiday hustle & bustle, it’s not likely we’ll be able to pull off another race day event this year. As such, our season officially ended after the 2022 IROC Championship finale on December 10.

First off, I’d like to thank all of you who stuck with our program and attended as many races/events as you could. Kathy and I really appreciate your loyalty, interest, and friendship.

We’ve had a wild ride this season, for sure. The season started out well but once we made the planned switch to HOPRA rules, we lost a few drivers. Not only that, we lost those drivers while we were trying to bring a new 6-lane Brad Bowman track online. Nothing is more impactful than losing participation when you’re increasing racing capacity by 50 percent.

In spite of that setback, we also added a few new drivers to the group in 2022. These new drivers are entering a program that is very well-positioned to both encourage and cultivate new participants in this great hobby we all have loved for most of our lives.

So, again, I really appreciate those of you who stuck with the program and made it as successful as it has been. We’ve done a whole lot of different types of racing, with all kinds of different types of cars, body styles, racing formats, etc. And through it all, the competition has been extremely close and the racing super exciting and–most important–fun.

So who were the top dogs in the two different driver classifications we currently offer?

2022 Sportsman Class Standings

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Kevin Webster	6861	454	55303.45
2	Jordan Walker	5483	315	47097.53
3	Jerry Pearson	1949	167	21366.55
4	Eric Lane	915	69	7651.906
5	Gabe Maddox	35	29	218.53
6	Kathy Stewart	120	16	394.248
7	Martha Elderon	204	9	1020.019
8	Jared Johnson	122	7	1576.468
9	Madeline Johnson	105	5	1650.493

2022 Expert Class Standings

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	George Peters	9674	862	69452.86
2	Greg Kondrek	4490	379	19191.5
3	Ian Douglass	3530	344	15465.58
4	Brad Sandahl	3157	265	25463.15
5	Russ Toy	3180	197	15957.58
6	Randy Cook	136	13	1566.557
7	Steve Stewart	10607	1182	70235.96

Again, congratulations to Kevin and George. They love racing these little cars and it clearly shows in the results they’ve achieved.

I hope everyone enjoyed the 2022 Stewart Raceway season and certainly hope all of you return for the 2023 season. We’re going to stick to our rule set and overall program in the hopes of growing our ranks by making it easier, more affordable, and more competitive–for more racers.

Stay tuned for the 2023 racing schedule and a couple of exciting additions to the program. Happy Holidays to all of you!

Okay, shut up and drive!

2022 I.R.O.C. Champs Enshrined

After a grueling four-event racing series, on both road and oval courses, the best “drivers” have emerged.

IROC racing removes the advantage of a particular type or build of car and determines the best overall driver by pure driving and adapting abilities.

In IROC racing each driver has to drive a fixed car on each lane for a set number of laps or rotations. The driver is not allowed to change the car other than clean the tires and pickup shoes between each segment.

In the Stewart Raceway IROC series, all kinds of different cars, courses, and race formats were utilized to determine which drivers best adapted to the varied conditions and scored the most points in four different race day events.

Today, the following drivers were enshrined on the Stewart Raceway “Wall of Fame” for outstanding achievement in a very competitive racing series:

- - Kevin Webster (Sportsman)
  - George Peters (Expert)

Congratulations, Gentlemen!

Track Records Page Updated

Added a new page to the site to support better access to track record data. The new page is much easier to view the data and allows for sorting and searching for specific information.

For instance, you can sort by any column in the table or search for records by Car Class simply by entering the term “TFX” (w/o quotes) in the search bar.

The best way to find, for example, the fastest laps for all V-SPEC classes would be to enter “V-SPEC” (w/o quotes) into the search bar. The page will produce all the entries for any V-SPEC class run on all track layouts.

To find the best laps for a Viper-Jet, you’d enter “Viper-Jet” (w/o quotes) into the search bar.

To find a more specific class of car, enter “TFX Modified” (w/o quotes) into the search bar. The page will produce all records related to the TFX Modified class. Of course, you can also enter a driver’s first or last name to see their collection of track records and related details.

Unfortunately, the search capability is very primitive right now. I’ll certainly try to find better ways to quickly query the data. I’m also working on both track databases to clean up bogus records, data inconsistencies, etc.

You can use your phone to find SR2 and SR3 track records as you’re testing or practicing simply by using your phone’s browser and going to HTTP://stewartraceway.org/track-records.

Next up is expanding the Driver Stats data to include both SR2 and SR3 with current data.

Okay, shut up and drive!