News – Page 3 – Stewart Raceway

Track Day Goes Race Day: Team Forza Takes Overall; Team Maddox Ends the Day with a Couple of Booms!

Coming off a big win by Shaylin Maddox in the Memorial Day Double-Header, Team Maddox dazzled the field in the final race with back-to-back segment wins by young gun, Abe Maddox, on Stewart Raceway’s SR3 Fast Esses road course Saturday. Abe loves Vipers, and in his last two rotations of the last race of the day, he demonstrated why. Abe didn’t have a shot at the overall win after the first two segments, but he got down to business in his final two segments and won them both. Abe finished fourth overall, just three points off the podium against four Experts. The future of slot car racing looks pretty good!

We tested out our new “Hot Yellow Flag” feature in all three of the day’s races. While we had enough marshals most of the day, we decided to test this new concept out anyway. Basically, “Hot Yellow” means that when a crash occurs, instead of hitting the space bar and shutting off power to all lanes, the new method lowers the lane power, and the slotted cars continue moving, albeit at a slower pace.

We learned two things very quickly: the yellow flag voltage will need to be a variable based on the type of car being raced. The current software sets the voltage to 9vdc, which we found to be a bit too low for most of the cars we ran. The second thing learned was that going green by changing the voltage from 9vdc to the race speed (15v or 18v) was too abrupt, since most of the cars required the driver to squeeze the trigger 100% to keep it moving at 9vdc. Of course, when the power was fully restored to race voltage, the car would often fly off the corner.

About half the drivers thought it was a cool concept; the other half thought it was horrible. We’ll make some changes to the “Hot Yellow” feature and give it another try soon. The biggest issue I see is that some cars roll faster than others during a hot yellow flag situation. I’m not sure this issue can be resolved with software.

Short Story

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Aaron Castro	355	178	3300.945
2	Steve Stewart	354	172	3500.741
3	Jerry Pearson	331	150	3609.024
4	Eric Lane	298	122	3130.574
5	Kevin Webster	293	106	3316.590
6	Abe Maddox	208	86	2402.182
7	Shaylin Maddox	106	32	1216.177

Expert driver Aaron Castro stayed focused and smooth all day, taking close second-place finishes in the first two races and bagging first place in the day’s final race. Hairball Racing’s, Jerry Pearson completed the day’s podium with consistent segment results and good pit stop strategies.

Race 1: MegaG+ 1.7 “Lites”

We ran the “Lites” class because we were curious to see if the new Senna Lotus AFX/Racemasters hardbodies were faster than the previous Alpha F1 body livery. Unfortunately, none of the Lotus entries finished the race, so we still don’t have an answer to that question. Details

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Steve Stewart	119	56	1069.301
2	Aaron Castro	117	56	1050.637
3	Jerry Pearson	116	55	1026.028
4	Kevin Webster	94	36	1052.285
5	Eric Lane	84	32	954.001

Race 2: Fast Lane Racing “Scooby Doo” Vans (IROC)

Aaron’s favorite cars and the results show why. Fast Lane Racing’s Eric Lane loves them too. Nice podium finish for Eric! Details

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Steve Stewart	118	61	1283.580
2	Aaron Castro	118	61	1316.681
3	Eric Lane	105	50	1371.172
4	Jerry Pearson	100	42	1395.727
5	Abe Maddox	91	36	1353.724
6	Kevin Webster	92	32	1357.402

Race 3: Viper V-SPEC “SPEC STOCK” Lexan

Well, long story short: Aaron stayed focused and smooth through his entire rotation, winning three segments and not finishing worse than 2nd place. It was an uphill battle for the rest of us, but Abe Maddox pushed through and won the last two segments against severe pressure from Home Cook’n and Eric Lane. Abe held off a hard-charging Home Cook’n for three laps of green flag racing at the end, besting Home Cook’n by mere inches. Stay tuned for that video clip.

Hairball Racing’s Jerry Pearson took the final spot on the podium with a 1st, two 2nds, and a 3rd place segment finish. Very impressive driving by the 2023 “Most Improved Driver.” Details

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Aaron Castro	120	61	933.627
2	Steve Stewart	117	55	1147.860
3	Jerry Pearson	115	53	1187.269
4	Abe Maddox	117	50	1048.458
5	Eric Lane	109	40	805.401
6	Kevin Webster	107	38	906.903
7	Shaylin Maddox	106	32	1216.177

Current 2025 Season Laps & Points Totals, as of June 7, 2025

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Home Cook’n	2682	1500	21117.682
2	George Peters	1416	881	10229.500
3	Abe Maddox	1228	724	10298.983
4	Aaron Castro	1045	645	8507.542
5	Kevin Webster	1593	642	14620.899
6	Coe Rowland	879	538	78.713
7	Dave Rowland	815	515	NA
8	Shaylin Maddox	982	501	8267.585
9	Arlo Roland	812	479	313.022
10	Dean Donaldson	1038	407	7470.089
11	Jerry Pearson	678	367	6784.699
12	Jared Johnson	434	296	3445.410
13	Eric Lane	575	278	5579.060
14	Lucille Rowland	253	177	1958.340
15	Joe Vargas	300	118	1280.737
16	Matthew Johnson	186	102	2280.138
17	Madeline Johnson	173	84	1979.289
18	Hillbilly Dave	177	79	881.970
19	Vic Peterson	180	69	1082.443
20	Bev Seltzer	228	64	1164.846
21	Jeff Seltzer	116	51	1035.244
22	Oxana Che	197	44	837.067
23	Kathy Stewart	105	34	332.422
24	August Feinstein	159	32	3243.437
25	Cameron Bill	50	32	411.714

I’m available both Friday night and Saturday this coming weekend. Please let me know if you’re available for racing, and we’ll set it up. Online registration is here.

Memorial Day Double-Header: Team Maddox and Webster Motorsports Dominate

The first event on this glorious Memorial Day was a 200-lap road race on SR3’s Fast Esses course. Team Maddox put on a good showing and brought a new Junior driver, August Feinstein, who did exceptionally well in his first appearance at Stewart Raceway.Abe and August at the controls in the 200-lap event.

Event #1 Short Story

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Shaylin Maddox	195	54	3177.202
2	Steve Stewart	199	53	3180.055
3	Abe Maddox	198	49	3182.646
4	August Feinstein	159	32	3243.437

This race was run with just one marshal and the good ole “Track Call” honor system, which always has its share of trickery. Throughout the race, Team Maddox was always within striking distance of the overall victory, but also battled intensely among themselves. Shaylin and Abe had extremely close segment run-times for the first three segments, with Abe taking 2nd-place in the first 50-lap segment and 1st-place in the third segment. Going into the final segment, Shaylin was down five laps but just 4 points behind the race leader, Home Cook’n, and two points ahead of teammate, Abe Maddox.

In the end, both Abe and Shaylin had perfect 50-lap segments, with Shaylin taking the segment and overall race win, just one point ahead of Home Cook’n. Abe would finish in second place, just a bit over 1 second behind the winner, Shaylin Maddox.Race Director is setting things up as Abe and August anxiously await track power.

New Team Maddox driver, August Feinstein, had his best result in Segment 2, finishing one lap ahead of teammate, Abe Maddox, for 3rd place. August also bested the field in Segment 2 with a fastest lap of 4.922 and the fastest median lap time. Team Maddox had a pretty good day. Details

Event 2 Short Story

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Kevin Webster	238	114	2290.899
2	Dean Donaldson	232	94	2411.522
3	Steve Stewart	120	61	1374.996
4	Jeff Seltzer	116	51	1035.244
5	Bev Seltzer	110	28	1062.906

The second round of the double-header race day included two 120-lap fuel races, one IROC and one Builder class. Team Donaldson, Webster Motorsports, and Seltzer Speed/Marine started the event with a 120-lap MegaG+ Modifieds IROC set at 20v.

Race 1

Webster Motorsports Expert driver, Kevin Webster, dominated this first 120-lap fuel race with three segment wins, consistent driving, and a perfect 120-lap total. New Sportsman driver, Jeff Seltzer, appearing for his second time at Stewart Raceway, had a very good run. Jeff won one segment, finished 2nd in two others, and the fastest median lap time of segment 2. Teammate, Bev Seltzer, clicked off the fastest lap of segment in the Orange lane at 6.024 seconds.

Team Donaldson’s, Dean Donaldson, took the final podium spot with two 2nd places, two 3rds places, and 3rd overall. Dean also clicked off the fastest lap of the race with a 5.753 lap in the Orange lane. Dean only lost one lap throughout the race to Expert driver and winner, Kevin Webster.

Team Seltzer Speed & Marine had a pretty good night but had to cut things short before the final 120-lap race. Given their ever-decreasing lap times and success, I know this team is going to be back at Stewart Raceway. In fact, Bev was practicing pit stops during practice, demonstrating she’s serious about getting on the podium soon. Details

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Kevin Webster	120	61	907.637
2	Jeff Seltzer	116	51	1035.244
3	Dean Donaldson	119	48	1022.595
4	Bev Seltzer	110	28	1062.906

Race 2

The second and final race of the night was, of course, the Builder’s Viper V-SPEC Lexan class. Sportsman, Dean Donaldson, was anxious to try out his new Viper and came out swinging in Segment 1 with the fastest lap and a 2nd place finish against two Expert drivers. In fact, Dean’s total runtime was just .01 seconds more than the segment winner. Unfortunately, Dean had Expert driver, Kevin Webster, breathing down his tailpipes on the last lap, and chose to bag the 2nd place segment points instead. Kevin, realizing he could refuel without losing points, wisely did so. The situation would result in Dean starting the second segment with little fuel, while the other to drivers would start with a full tank.

Dean would lose four laps due to pit stop problems in segment 2, while Kevin Webster clicked off a perfect 30 laps. Dean started segment 3 just four laps down, but tied in points with Kevin at 24. Dean needed a win.

Ultimately, Kevin would win segment 3, putting Dean out of contention. Still, Dean fought hard in the last two segments, only losing one more lap, but unable to overtake Kevin for 2nd place overall. Dean was less than a second behind Kevin in the final segment at the finish line. Details

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Steve Stewart	120	61	1374.996
2	Kevin Webster	118	53	1383.262
3	Dean Donaldson	113	46	1388.927

What a great of racing! Thank you all for participating and bringing all the goodies, snacks, dinner, and wine! Congratulations to Jeff Seltzer for his second-place (1st Sportsman) finish in the first 120-lap race. Also, congratulations to Shaylin Maddox for an incredible win in the 200-lap event! Some very fun and competitive racing, for sure.

Okay, shut up and drive!

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!