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General news and information

Interesting Open Track Day

This one started as a small group of four and nearly doubled at Go time! Nine drivers showed up Sunday around noon for some track time.

It was unique because four juniors and five seniors showed up: one new driver to Stewart Raceway and two returning drivers.

Participating Teams:

      • Team Maddox
      • Donaldson Racing
      • Che-Vargas Racing
      • Team Johnson
      • Stewart Racing

The juniors quickly overtook SR3 and began hotlapping on four of the six lanes, leaving the rest of us with limited lane access. We could have set up a rotation, but we opted to fire up SR2 instead.

Jared took over Race Director duties on SR3 and ran a couple of Dash races with the juniors while the rest of us cleaned off SR2 and started to cut laps there. I think Jared might be Deputy Race Director soon.

SR2 was remarkably clean indoors and didn’t take many laps to clean off. We need to do more racing on SR2; it’s a bit hectic with Vipers and other magnet cars, but it’s a fun and challenging track.

So, what was expected to be a small group of drivers getting track time on the SR3 oval turned out to be quite a multifaceted track day.

Our newest driver, Dean Donaldson, once again brought out some engaging vintage HO-scale platforms to try out today. This rig is a Tyco Truck platform that ran well after some oiling and greasing. We need to get three more of these rigs for some IROC fun. Dean and Eric “Fast” Lane are definitely “Pickers.” They’ll get along very well.

We didn’t do much racing, but it was a fun Open Track day. The juniors cut a few laps, Donaldson Racing broke in his new MegaG+ 1.7 Alpha-Romeo F1 car, and Che-Vargas Racing cut some fast laps with Viper V-SPEC L4 cars on SR2.

There’s a back story with Che-Vargas Racing. Joe Vargas has procured the remnants of an SR2 clone track. The copy was created shortly after I designed the layout and had the original SR2 built by Viperscaleracing.com back in July 2018. Joe found the whole track and table somewhere in Sacramento, but they only wanted to sell the track pieces, not the whole table. Anyway, a longer story to tell here, but the bottom line is Joe is working on getting “SR2.2” operational again.

Aaron is also very near to procuring another cool 4-lane routed track. He’ll be driving down to the LA area later this month to check it out. There could be a nice revival of HO-scale racing in the Bay Area soon!

Okay, stay tuned for an email about resuming racing and completing the final round of our 50/50 series. It’ll be an oval event on SR3.

Okay, shut up and drive!

2025 50/50 Series, Round 3 — Not Quite 50/50, But a Fast Day Anyway

A shortened schedule, but some good fast racing.

Team Rowland debuted its new stable of MegaG+ 1.7 “F1/Indy” and Viper V-SPEC “Porche 917” cars in this series round. Judging by the smiles on their faces all day, they are enjoying their racing and eager to return to racing as soon as possible.

Race 1: Viper-Jet NAStruck Lexan (IROC)

Dave Rowland bagged the top Sportsman podium with a good run of 75 laps and 48 points. Team Maddox bagged the last two Sportsman podium spots, just one point and a few laps behind, despite both Abe and Shaylin each winning a segment outright. Unfortunately, an avoidable software glitch caused Expert’s George Peters and Aaron Castro to sit this race out. Details

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Steve Stewart* 80 64 726.397
2 Dave Rowland 75 48 826.388
3 Shaylin Maddox 71 47 824.679
4 Abe Maddox 70 47 842.062
5 Coe Rowland 73 44 823.209
6 Arlo Roland 63 32 772.229

* Expert

Race 2: MegaG+ 1.7 Modified

A very close race in this class with Aaron winning a very close battle with George in the Expert ranks. Local Junior driver, Abe Maddox drove masterfully, taking 3rd overall and 1st in the Sportsman ranks. Dave Rowland just edged out Shaylin Maddox with a 1st in his final segment. A very close race in this one, as always. Details

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Aaron Castro* 79 59 488.43
2 George Peters* 78 56 500.083
3 Abe Maddox 78 55 527.692
4 Steve Stewart* 79 53 531.205
5 Dave Rowland 74 45 548.616
6 Shaylin Maddox 75 38 546.348
7 Arlo Roland 62 38 517.27
8 Coe Rowland 68 32 568.431

* Expert

Race 3: Viper V-SPEC SPEC STOCK Lexan

It’s another always-close race. The Experts duked it out in this one, with George Peters bagging the top Expert podium with three segment wins. Abe Maddox had another great race, winning one segment outright and steadily placing well in each rotation, finishing 4th overall and 1st in the Sportsman class. Teammate Shaylin Maddox edged out hard-charging Dave Rowland for the second Sportsman podium spot. Details

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 George Peters* 100 61 631.616
2 Steve Stewart* 99 59 579.94
3 Aaron Castro* 99 55 604.705
4 Abe Maddox 93 47 633.921
5 Shaylin Maddox 89 42 639.329
6 Dave Rowland 83 42 626.293
7 Coe Rowland 77 38 687.817
8 Arlo Roland 69 32 674.541

All in all, it was a good day of racing and a lot of fun. Thank you all for supporting our racing program and bringing some wonderful snacks to share with everyone. We’ll have to get Shaylin to bring some of her wonderful deviled eggs again, but this time, only share with Kathy if she does a race with us.

NOTE:
In Race 1's Viper-Jet NAStruck race, a new lap record was set in the White lane by Shaylin Maddox, with a blistering 5.626 lap and 2nd overall in the segment. Junior driver Coe Rowland clicked off a new lap record for this car in the Green lane with a 7.374 lap.
Series Points Standings after Round 3:
Place Name Laps Points Total Time
Sportsman
3 Abe Maddox 443 325 1335.726
4 Dave Rowland 410 299 NA
5 Coe Rowland 465 297 NA
6 Arlo Roland 432 275 NA
8 Shaylin Maddox 347 221 751.357
9 Jared Johnson 169 142 1292.315
11 Lucille Rowland 76 47 544.134
12 Matthew Johnson 67 42 518.012
13 Eric Lane 66 40 498.861
14 Cameron Bill 50 32 411.714
15 Madeline Johnson 54 28 507.557
Expert
1 Steve Stewart 427 366 1620.116
2 George Peters 416 349 2777.139
7 Aaron Castro 317 234 1961.979
10 Jerry Pearson 79 58 496.859

Hopefully, we can pull off Round 4 next weekend; we’ll see what happens. Round 5 will likely be an oval race on SR2 or SR3.

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!

 

2024 Racing Season Ends Without Drama

Happy Holidays!

Our final “official” race day of the season ended with just three races but not the drama expected.

Team Maddox: Abe and new Junior driver, Arlo Roland.

With the Junior and Sportsman categories pretty much settled going into the final race, the only points contest still up in the air was the Expert category. Aaron Castro and George Peters were just eight (8) points apart going into the final day of racing.

Unfortunately, George would come down with a cold after a grueling and crowded week at work and would make the right call to skip the final race. Of course, that left the Expert points leader, Aaron Castro, with a much less stressful day.

Race 1: MegaG+ Modifieds

We had also expected a fierce battle between Team Maddox driver, Shaylin Maddox and Team Fast Lane’s, Eric Lane. That battle seemed to get off to a roaring start in the day’s first race. Shaylin bested Eric by just four points in the MegaG+ Modified class, 40 points to Eric’s 36 points. Abe Maddox would finish the race with three 3rd place segment finishes and a win in the final segment, just ahead of a hard-charging Expert driver, Jerry Pearson. With that success, Team Maddox decided to pack in for the day and would not continue. Details

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Aaron Castro 80 61 607.119
2 Jerry Pearson 79 58 513.648
3 Steve Stewart 76 58 607.263
4 Abe Maddox 72 49 523.955
5 Kevin Webster 74 46 645.044
6 Shaylin Maddox 69 40 619.259
7 Eric Lane 61 36 530.198
8 Arlo Roland 58 28 534.319
Jerry, Kevin, Abe, Arlo, and Eric.

Abe Maddox had a fantastic race, winning the final segment and placing 4th overall! Abe’s good friend, Arlo Roland, showed up with Team Maddox and got in an hour or so of practice just before the day’s first race. Arlo took to the various cars and racing quite quickly. Unfortunately, due to the rotation mix, Arlo only got to race directly against Abe in the final segment. Abe came in for his final rotation on the White lane and Arlo finished his rotation in the Blue lane. Arlo’s fastest lap was a 6.129 in the Orange lane. Based on his ear-to-ear grin during and after the race, we expect him to return to Stewart Raceway soon.

Race 2: Viper Super 7 GT40’s Team Forza IROC Set

With Team Maddox accomplishing their team objectives and calling it a day, the rest of us continued the program and started Race 2.

With all the points chases settled, it was all about just having fun and enjoying the always competitive racing with pretty much out-of-the-box cars.

These particular cars are fascinating. They drive like an L4 Viper V-SPEC but have L10 traction magnets. Everything feels great until they release the rails and hit things very hard. You have to know your limits and not go too far over. The RaceMasters GT40 hardbodies are beautiful!

Eric Lane blew out of the starting grid, clicked off two 3rds and a 2nd place finish in this one, and was constantly in the rearview mirrors of all who led the race. Ultimately, the Experts were fortunate to stay ahead of the hard-charging Sportsman driver. Details

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Steve Stewart 80 61 520.077
2 Aaron Castro 80 53 522.537
3 Jerry Pearson 77 51 521.222
4 Eric Lane 71 42 530.944
5 Kevin Webster 67 28 527.117
Race 3: Viper V-SPEC “SPECSTOCK” Lexan

The final race of the day! This one was quite the barnburner. Every driver moved into 2nd place during this one, and all set some very high-speed laps.

Home Cook’n clicked off the fastest lap of the race at 4.720 in the White lane, Aaron Castro clicked off the next fastest lap at 4.787 in the Blue lane, and speedster Jerry Pearson clicked off a 4.804 in the White lane. Amazingly, no new track records were set. I’m sure things would have been different if George Peters had been in the mix. Details

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Steve Stewart 80 64 476.556
2 Aaron Castro 78 53 482.049
3 Jerry Pearson 76 48 490.225
4 Eric Lane 68 38 476.035
5 Kevin Webster 67 32 487.768

Eric Lane hung in there against the Experts, finishing just off the podium in 4th against some seriously fast competition. Eric and Expert driver Kevin Webster were duking it out in the final segment for the 4th place position. Eric’s fastest lap was 5.277 to Kevin’s 5.252 fastest lap. Unfortunately, Kevin ran out of fuel, and Eric got enough points and laps to drop Kevin to the bottom of the leaderboard. Eric looks to be the dominate Sportsman driver going into the 2025 racing season.

Overall, it was a great day of racing and just hanging out. Thanks to everyone who brought things to share, especially Fast Lane Racing. The leaded and unleaded egg nog was excellent!

That’s it for the official 2024 racing season at Stewart Raceway. To close out the 2024 season (or open the 2025 season), we hope to open the tracks soon for a casual track day, a Potluck, and an end-of-season awards presentation. Stay tuned for a quick survey on the best Saturday to do it.

2024 Final Points Standings

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
Junior
1 Abe Maddox 726 292 4941.803
2 Matthew Johnson 387 124 2051.404
3 Madeline Johnson 233 113 2139.46
4 Arlo Roland 58 28 534.319
Sportsman
1 Eric Lane 1795 625 11500.96
2 Shaylin Maddox 610 237 3756.218
3 Jared Johnson 440 136 2057.271
4 Olga Rossetta 328 107 2805.608
5 Dave Feber 107 45 808.723
6 William Mansfield 112 42 830.412
7 Pam Ebert 77 32 695.404
Expert
1 Aaron Castro 4109 1868 26048.36
2 George Peters 3345 1581 23406.74
3 Kevin Webster 2778 1184 21778.82
4 Jerry Pearson 2466 1052 15666.05
5 Jordan Walker 1242 415 8073.09
Steve Stewart 4384 2137 27791.13

As always, thank you for supporting our racing program and being such a great group to race with and hang out with.

If I don’t see you again in 2024, Happy Holidays and New Year!

Okay, shut up and drive!

2024 Points Standings Ahead Of Final Official Race Day

With one more race day remaining in the 2024 season, the only contest appears to be in the Expert category. Aaron Castro (Team Forza) is just eight (8) points ahead of George Peters (GP Designs) for top 2024 honors.

In the Junior driver category, Abe Maddox is well ahead in total points with no pressure in the final race due to Team Johnson’s inability to attend the event.

In the Sportsman category, Eric Lane is well ahead of his nearest challenger, Shaylin Maddox of Team Maddox Racing. Team Maddox is registered for Saturday’s final event, and Shaylin will most certainly make a point to pressure Eric for the day’s overall Sportsman win.

In the Expert category, Aaron and George are expected to compete feverishly for the top Expert category honors of the 2024 racing season.

Junior Leaderboard

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Abe Maddox 536 188 3610.752
2 Matthew Johnson 387 124 2051.404
3 Madeline Johnson 233 113 2139.46

Sportsman Leaderboard

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Eric Lane 2014 672 12886.892
2 Shaylin Maddox 436 159 2340.493
3 Jared Johnson 440 136 2057.271
4 Olga Rossetta 328 107 2805.608
5 Martha Elderon 102 36 775.14
6 Pam Ebert 77 32 695.404

Expert Leaderboard

Place Name Laps Points Total Time
1 Aaron Castro 4072 1793 25711.872
2 George Peters 3806 1785 26521.641
3 Kevin Webster 2724 1108 21276.997
4 Jerry Pearson 2206 879 13797.988
5 Jordan Walker 1242 415 8073.09
6 Steve Stewart 4231 1991 26649.881

It should be a fun day for everybody but Aaron and George. They’ll have their hands full trying to best each other while the rest of us enjoy the show.

Okay, shut up and drive!