What to do on a rainy day? Play with slot cars, of course!
We had no Junior drivers in the mix for the first time in a long time.
Eric “Fast” Lane was the first driver to show up and the first to leave but not without testing out some tweaks to his IROC fleet of “Scooby Doo” vans. Eric and I did one race with those and the tweaks appear to have improved these already fun-to-drive cars. It was just the two of us but we did a full rotation with all six cars to flush them out.
Shortly after Eric departed, Webster Motorsports and then Aaron Castro of Team Forza, showed up. Kevin and Aaron worked on a few MegaG+ cars before racing broke out. The three of us ended up doing about five fuel and tire wear races, running well into the night.
Aaron’s 1965 Shelby GT350 Mustang on a MegaG+ chassis, very cool new AFX/Racemasters offering.
The highlight of the day was adding Tire Wear to the racing formats. This is a feature of SlotTrak that we hadn’t used before. Similar to Fuel Allocation in the Race Management settings, Tire Wear is an additional factor that can be injected in addition to fuel stops. We found out that it works pretty much like the fuel allocation, when you wear out a tire, power is cycled just like running out of fuel. Fuel races make things more interesting, for sure, but adding tire wear into the equation and things get even more interesting and challenging.
New Lexan F1/Indy bodies for the Open Wheel Series fitted to the Viper V-SPEC “SPEC STOCK” chassis in the standard wheel base configuration.Top: Lexan Sprint Car bodies for a, hopefully, Round 2 Tyco 440-X2 IROC set being prepared by George. Bottom: New Lexan for our “SPEC STOCK” Vipers. Hopefully, we’ll have enough to go around and debut them in Round 2.
We started with 25-lap heats and then upped it to 50-lap heats with a 25-lap fuel allocation and a 75-lap tire allocation, with each driver starting the race having one tire 25% worn. Made for some interesting but exciting pit strategies and seemed like more competitive racing. We’ll try this out in Round 2 and see how everyone likes it. Might be a bit too much for the Junior drivers, we’ll see.
New Lexan Sprint Car body on a Tyco 440-X2 narrow chassis.
Okay, Round 2 is currently set for next Saturday, February 24. Stay tuned for more details but this round will be on the SR3 Oval.
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!
Home Cook’n, Aaron Castro, Kevin Webster
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.”
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.
Amelia and Callum Macleod
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
Team Race Summary
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.
Madeline Johnson and Morag Macleod
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.
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!
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.
Our amazing 2023 racing season has ended with a final track day and potluck event. Thank you all for attending and bringing all kinds of great food, snacks, chocolates, and wine!
We had a full contingent of junior drivers, Team Johnson and Team Maddox all here. The juniors did a bunch of laps in open practice (Madeline Johnson finished practice with over 500 laps!).
We only did one fun race, A Dash race of six drivers and 35 laps. Madeline Johnson won it by 3 laps over hard-charging Junior Champ, Abe Maddox in second. Olga Rosetta (Aaron’s girlfriend and team manager) bagged the final podium spot in her first-ever slot car race–very impressive!
Madeline Johnson, Abe Maddox, Olga Rosetta
Here are some pics of the awards festivities.
Junior Points Champion, Abe Maddox.
Rookie of the Year and Most Improved Driver, Jerry Pearson.
2023 50/50 Extreme Series winner, Aaron Castro.
2023 50/50 Xtreme Series, Aaron Castro (right), and the rest of the award and race winners.
Wow! Slot car racing is one of those activities that everyone can enjoy. It is so awesome to have such an amazing cross-section of racers participating in our program. Thank you all for making our 2023 racing season so fun and memorable.
Have a great Christmas and New Years!
Okay, shut up and drive!
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