The plan was just open track for the big kids but hot-shoe junior driver, Abe Maddox, showed up with his awesome Mom, Shaylin, sister Grace, and some delicious snacks to cut some laps with us.
Grace did a bunch of laps with Abe while Shaylin marshaled the practice session. Jerry Pearson, always interested in more track time, shared the track with Abe and Grace while the rest of us worked on cars.
As usual, after Grace got bored with hot lapping, Abe wanted to do some racing. Abe is a guy who likes fast cars so he wanted to race Level 4 Vipers.
Well, nobody objected, so we clicked off three Dash format races and one team race.
Abe didn’t podium any of the races on the day but he did cut several of the fastest laps and was never very far off the pace. Abe is only 6 years old so it’s pretty amazing that he remains focused and competitive with the big kids at that age. In fact, Abe does fuel races also and manages to stay in the hunt every race.
The bigger story on this day, however, was his Mom, Shaylin, who raced three of the four races, including the final team race. We can see why Abe is so talented, his Mom is too!
Shaylin won one of the team race heats and was only two laps off the leader’s pace in the end. Abe was also amazing, only six laps down on the leader.
What an awesome day and a spectacular showing by Team Maddox. In fact, Shaylin and Kevin Webster won the team race, 149 laps to 133 for Abe and I.
Very fun day and cool to see the young guns racing and their parents enjoying the same. Seems to me, Abe and Shaylin are very capable slot car racers and are welcome to race with the big kids anytime.
The SR3 track is open this Friday from 11:00 to ~3:45 for open practice.
Okay, shut up and drive!
Indiana isn’t the only place a 500-mile open-wheel oval track race takes place. We did one of our own Saturday in advance of the “Official” Indy 500 on Sunday.
Segments 6 through 12 were a Brad Sandahl/George Peters show with Brad finishing his rotations prematurely in the lead at 424 laps. George Peters would win his share of segments while Eric Lane and Jerry Pearson held solid positions in 3rd and 4th. Meanwhile, speedster, Kevin Webster was laying down 1.9s laps on his way to 2nd place in Segment 12.
In the end, it was George Peters taking the checkers over fast qualifier, Kevin Webster, by just three laps. 
On a cold, windy, and rainy day in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the four top drivers in the series took the green flag for the final round of the 2022 IROC Champs Series.
These are actually pretty cool magnet cars and easy to drive. The race wasn’t all that eventful after the first segment, which was quite a dogfight between all drivers. The rest of the race was pretty much a broken record with no lead or place changes but a very close race between the top three expert drivers. (
Recently updated from zero-downforce cars to L42 magnet cars, the MTS 3D-printed Super Modifieds are quite a bit faster and much more stable on the road course. Brad Sandahl and Kevin Webster burst from the starting line in this race to take 1-2 in the first segment.
The third race of the day was the VSR Viper-Jet utilizing a Maximum Leeway Lexan body. Brad Sandahl would suffer not only a flaky car in his first segment in the white lane but also a controller malfunction that forced him to replace it in the middle of the race. Sportsman driver, Kevin Webster, took advantage of the mayhem and secured a nice second-place finish in the second segment. George Peters stayed steady and smooth throughout the race and would secure the second podium spot while Brad Sandahl recovered nicely for the final podium spot. (
The final race of the series was the always fast and exciting Jag TR-3. These are slightly upgraded from the stock configuration so a bit faster but smoother to drive.
