News – Page 9 – Stewart Raceway

Open Track Day Report: Jan 6, 2024

Wow! We had a total of nine (9) drivers show up for this track day event.

It was quite a mix of all the various skill levels but we decided to do a couple of open races with Experts, Sportsman, and juniors participating.

The big story was awarding Kevin Webster (Webster Motorsports) his 2023 Sportsman Championship trophy. Kevin had five (5) race wins during the season and managed to make an appearance at most of the races, which collected valuable points towards the 2023 championship.

Kevin has yet another plaque on the Stewart Raceway Wall of Fame. With an average placing of 3.5, Kevin is a player in not only the Sportsman class but also a frequent podium finisher against Expert-class drivers. Congrats, Kevin!

So back to the racing. We were supposed to work on some skill-building for Sportsman and Junior drivers but everybody wanted to race. What better way to develop skills than just flat-out racing each other?

The first race was way fun. We utilized Eric “Fast” Lane’s Ford Econoline and Dodge Tradesman IROC Vans with MegaG+ 1.7 chassis’. These cars are fairly quick and very top-heavy, which made for some driving challenges for all of us.

In the end, George Peters won the race with some superb driving against the hard-charging Sportsman driver, Jerry Pearson, and home-track favorite, Home Cook’n. Everybody had a blast driving Eric’s Vans despite a few issues with body retention and a couple of cars that were quite a handful to drive.

The highlight of the first race was Eric Lane and Kevin Webster battling it out in the final segment. Both drivers finished the final segment on the same lap (25) and just an inch or so apart as they crossed the finish line in 1st and 2nd. Amazing!

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	George Peters	143	77	1478.292
2	Steve Stewart	144	74	1447.122
3	Jerry Pearson	137	67	1453.532
4	Eric Lane	132	65	1513.803
5	Kevin Webster	138	64	1538.08
6	Matthew Johnson	121	49	1539.587
7	Madeline Johnson	120	44	1498.206
8	Shaylin Maddox	125	42	1482.958
9	Abe Maddox	123	40	1563.437

Again, we didn’t get much mentoring or skills-building done in between races and went right into the final race of the day. This time, we decided to use a set of house 440-X2 wide-pan chassis’ with late-model sportsman Lexan bodies. These cars have seen a lot of laps with guest and junior drivers this season and were not in the best shape for competitive IROC racing.

Despite a couple of issues, we forged ahead and completed another IROC race. This time it was Home Cook’n who came out on top by just two laps over George Peters in second. As usual, Kevin Webster bagged the last podium step only nine laps down on the top two finishers.

The notable result of this race was Junior driver, Abe Maddox, besting Sportsman driver, Jerry Pearson, by just one point in fourth place. In fact, other than Madeline Johnson spending more time practicing fuel stops instead of racing, the last race was incredibly close with just 10 laps separating the field.

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Steve Stewart	100	64	754.995
2	George Peters	98	61	702.631
3	Kevin Webster	91	48	763.299
4	Abe Maddox	86	45	778.729
5	Jerry Pearson	98	44	839.809
6	Shaylin Maddox	87	44	728.629
7	Eric Lane	90	36	802.219
8	Madeline Johnson	77	34	724.444

What a great day of fun racing and hanging out with a great bunch of slot car racers. We’ll try to do at least one more track day before we kick-off the 2024 racing season. Stay tuned for details.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Final Round of 2023 50/50 Xtreme Series Captured On Video

Yep, we video-recorded all four official races of Round 4. Could be a little boring since we didn’t have enough marshals to pull off a normal race, so there are a lot of yellow flags and other interruptions. However, you can fast forward, rewind, skip, whatever. The bottom line is you can learn a lot about reviewing how you did during a race.

Check out what’s here and let me know what you think. Lots to work out, including better lighting, presentation, and plenty of other improvements.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Track Day Report, October 14, 2023

Well, it was kind of a staggered day with Team Maddox showing up in the AM and doing a bunch of testing laps and one full rotation race. Shaylin Maddox won the only race we did, which I think is her first full race win–Way to go!

Abe Maddox seemed to be a bit distracted but wasn’t too far off. He also won a heat or two. Shaylin and Abe were both running Viper V-SPEC cars while I was running a bone-stock MegaG+ with a “paper” Whelen Modified body.

Normally, a V-SPEC Viper would blow the doors off a stock MegaG+ 1.7 car. However, with the paper body, the chassis is much faster and handles significantly better. Still working on the paper body design for the 1.7 MG+ but I am getting close to a simple and easy-to-install version. I’m focusing on a USAC Whelen Modified style first and will look at other designs once I sort out what works and what doesn’t.

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Shaylin Maddox	174	83	2428.881
2	Steve Stewart	178	81	2443.839
3	Abe Maddox	158	76	2452.908

Later in the day, Aaron Castro showed up to test some MegaG+ cars and got to meet most of Team Maddox as they were getting ready to roll towards home. Webster Motorsports showed up shortly after Aaron’s arrival.

Team Maddox departing was a bummer but they accomplished their goals and had a great track day. The good news was we still had three drivers on the track so we did a bunch of hot lapping and then clicked off one Viper V-SPEC rotation race. The racing was very close with Aaron bagging second place overall and Kevin Webster very, very close.

We decided to tech the cars to show Aaron the process. Both Kevin’s and Aaron’s cars were relatively close in both dyno numbers and downforce, while Home Cookn’s car was substantially better in both categories.

Turns out, both drivers were running out-of-the box V-SPEC chassis’ with only timing adjustments. Kevin’s car was actually running retarded timing, which is good for small home tracks and tight courses. Aaron’s car was running fairly neutral timing. Both cars had stock Razor front ends and stock PST rear tires.

Of course, advancing the end bell timing makes a big difference in off-the-corner and straightaway speeds, installing smaller profile rear tires increases downforce considerably, and an independent front-end improves corner speed.

All this made me realize that most of our Sportsman drivers are probably running bone-stock Viper V-SPEC cars, which can be very competitive but obviously inferior to a properly setup HOPRA SPEC RACER chassis, which are the only V-SPEC rules we run at Stewart Raceway right now.

Maybe we need to revive the HOPRA SPEC STOCK class. Pretty much the same rules as SPEC RACER but is restricted to hardbodies and no adjustable brush barrels. Independent front-ends are still allowed but that is not a big game changer.

Any other ideas out there? I think the SPEC RACER rules are pretty basic but it looks like we need to bring some parity to the Viper V-SPEC class racing.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Prototype “Paper” SK Modified Body

(Right-click and open in a new tab for larger image)

My first iteration of a “super-light” paper body for our MegaG+ Support Class cars. This one is made out of premium glossy photo paper and is mounted on a 1.7 MegaG+ chassis using 8 mil clear double-sided tape I got from George.

Kevin worked up this body using some sort of drafting paper and then laminated it with some other material.

Both bodies are pretty cool. Haven’t tested them on the track yet but I did run a regular paper prototype last Saturday on a Jag DR-1 chassis and it held up pretty well. These bodies are way light and the car feels and handles like it has no body at all.

Design ideas are limitless and very appealing. We’ll see how durable they are. I’m looking forward to coming up with a Midget car design and upgrading my SWB MegaG+ IROC set. Once you get the design set and printed, it takes about the same time to trim and mount as a typical Lexan body. And way, way cheaper than even a clear Lexan body.

Open Track Day Galore

What an amazing day of slot car action!

The plan was to run all day exclusively on the 4-lane SR2 track. We started on SR2’s straight road course and did a bunch of hot laps before the usual suspects wanted to do some racing.

This was the first time in almost two years that we were running anything on the SR2 table. It took quite a few laps to clean the rails and get the cobwebs off the track. Due to a technical issue, we ran both practice and the only race on SR2 using Race Coordinator software, which did the job but had a couple of issues. Regardless, we were able to click off a race of six 25-lap heats using Kevin Webster’s Wizzard Storm Extreme IROC set.

Finish	Seed	Driver	Laps	Score	L1	L2	L3	L 4
1	1	Abe Maddox	87	18	7	11	16	16
2	4	Steve Stewart	94	18	11	16	13	13
3	3	Martha Elderon	91	18	7	7	16	16
4	5	Shaylin Maddox	88	17	11	7	13	16
5	2	Jerry Pearson	94	15	11	11	13	13
6	6	Kevin Webster	86	15	7	7	13	11

Just a fun race but it was very, very competitive. Abe won two heats and Martha Elderon won two heats. Only Kevin and I had experience on SR2 so it was quite impressive to see the new drivers do so well on the different course. Detailed Results

Abe’s Mom, Shaylin, wins the final heat of the Wizzard Storm race on SR2.

As seems to be the trend these days, Abe won on points and Martha bagged the final podium spot just three laps down on Home Cook’n. Not to be outdone by Abe, his Mom, Shaylin won the final heat with a perfect score of 25 laps.

Matthew Johnson didn’t race but he sure did a bunch of laps.

Abe was eager to get back to the SR3 course and let his Viper car rip. After a bunch of laps on SR3 with a whole new slew of drivers, Abe continued his dominance on the day by winning the second race on SR3. It wasn’t exactly a level playing field since Abe was running a Viper V-SPEC rig against mostly less capable cars. But Abe remained focused as ever and managed to edge out his schoolmate, Dax Schwartz, by just two laps. Madeline Johnson was just three laps behind Dax. Dax’s brother, Julian Schwartz, was just one lap behind Madeline. Extremely close racing by our neighborhood junior drivers!

Visiting adult driver, Andrew Noske, from Australia, did very well in his first-ever slot car race posting the second-fastest lap of the race! Thanks for joining us, Andrew! Detailed Results

Place	Name	Laps	Points	Total Time
1	Abe Maddox	40	17	364.271
2	Dax Schwartz	38	13	369.306
3	Madeline Johnson	35	11	370.117
4	Julian Schwartz	34	7	372.34
5	Andrew Noske	32	6	369.146

Okay, there it is. A beautiful day in the mountains, with a fantastic group of slotheads, and some seriously competitive and fun racing.

The juniors picking up their Hot Wheels hardware and medals.

Next weekend is the final round of the 2023 50/50 Series. Sportsman drivers, Jordan Walker and Kevin Webster are just eleven points apart in the series. Round 5 should decide which driver wins the series and moves on to the Expert ranks of our hobby. Best of luck to both drivers! The final round will be run on SR2 and will include at least two fuel races.

Okay, shut up and drive!