The place was called Trackside. They tell me it's been there for awhile now. Used to be a big carpet onroad track back in the day. Fortunately, they covered it all with clay. Now it's a pretty decent looking offroad facility with a dirt oval room tucked in the back.
The track itself was something like a 130 foot run line I would think. The Outside diameter of the track was about 60x40 from what I could tell with wide lanes and about two feet of banking. Traction was unbelievable from what I'm used to. Most guys were running foam tires and fairly hot mod motors (5.5/6.5) in the Open class.
Started the weekend off by deciding that I would stick to 17.5 rubber tire sprint because that's what I'm the most comfortable with. I think it might have been a little too slow though. Felt a little like carpet racing with the throttle pegged all the way around the track looking for the best line. Competition in that class was pretty good. You had to have a perfect line with perfect gearing to make good lap times.
I brought the Intimidator SE with me because I figured that would be the car to race there. I tried and tried and tried, but I couldn't make that thing work so I didn't run it in the mains. That car will be up for sale soon if I don't get it figured out. The Hyperdrive cars did not seem to have that problem. Neither did Butch's old GBX Enforcer late model. He had that thing moving pretty good around the track.
Some of the best dirt oval racers in the country were there. Mark Corns, Nick Rank, Hayes Reeling to name a few. The official count was somewhere around 100 entries with 21 heats.
The race program was well run, the announcing was solid and everyone I saw (except for me when I was trying to get that loser late model car working) was having a good time.
Custom Works came up with some pretty good giveaways. They gave every racer that ran a rubber class a set of Street Trac HB's. Custom Works said that they wanted to make sure that they supported rubber tire racing since a lot of tracks have moved to foam tire only oval racing. Works for me. I needed a new set after that weekend.
I did ok in my class, qualifying third and finishing fifth in the main. A little disappointed, I had a second place car, but made the mistake of changing tires right before the main. The insane grip at Trackside had a price. The right side tires were completely worn off of my car by the end of the third heat. I was still plenty quick in the sprint with my CW Outlaw, but knew I needed a little more to get up front so I swapped tires around. The tires didn't come in until about 2 minutes in, so the first two minutes I managed to swerve around the track aimlessly and got into some contact with some of the other drivers. Not a great way to end it all. Fun nonetheless.
Probably the most exciting thing about the event was watching Hayes Reeling work his way from the F main in Outlaw Open Sprint all the way to the A main, collecting half a dozen plaques along the way for winning each of the lower mains. A lot of the heats came down to last second finishes right at the line. Exciting stuff.
When I got back from the trip, I had to make a trip out to my local "track dealer" to pick up a GBX3. It looks cool and I can't wait to check out. I'm staring at the box right now thinking, when the hell am I going to build this thing? Probably going to run the Outlaw next week anyway, just to be safe unless I get real motivated.
This week is the final points race at BFG for the indoor season. It should be a good race. John has been holding back his Battlefront Bucks for the last six weeks to give them away on St. Patrick's Day in a Pot O' Gold event. For the record, I plan on winning that money :)
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