Winter Is Finally Here!!!

I'll admit it, I was getting kind of used to not shoveling snow this winter and not leaving early for work because the roads are icy.  When you live in Michigan though, you know it's coming and I for one am glad that it's finally here.   My eight year old daughter was getting sick of waiting to go sledding, build snow forts, and go cross country skiing and so was I.  I have no idea what this has to do with dirt oval RC racing, I'm just saying......

I was a game time decision today for BFG, partially because I had been outside most of the day enjoying the snow and partially because I haven't had any time since I got back from Monee to even look at my cars.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I did manage to disassemble most of my Sprint car and found several parts that I need to replace.  Outside of not having the right tires last week, my car seemed to be getting as sloppy as Lindsay Lohan on one of her first day out of jail benders.

Team C Late Model Conversion

Am I the only one that has wear and tear sneak up on them?  My car goes on and on just fine.  Week after week, the car continues to run somewhere up front (until the driver blows it) and then all of a sudden, I look down and I'm putting a battery in a car that's complete junk from top to bottom.  It's not like I ignore maintenance completely.  I do the regular stuff, check shock oil, check for loose screws, make sure everything is spinning freely.

Pee Wee's New Flex Chasis

It's the little stuff that I miss.  It's when the ball cups on my turnbuckles start to get really sloppy, combined with a wheel that's not exactly snug, combined with a hinge pin that has worn a little at the arm.   It's the set screw backing out of the castor blocks just enough to allow some movement. It's a slight wiggle in the top shaft of my transmission.  It's a bearing that is still sort of good but not really.  It's the little hole in the dog bone that holds the pin expanding ever so slightly.  It's the outdrives that widen and even thought they still work, give the car less and less feel.   It's the little things.  The devil is in the details.

Ok, back on track a little.  There was a light turnout at BFG although there was enough for multiple heats of EDM trucks,  a heat of 13.5's, a heat of sprints, and a heat of Street Stocks.   There were no 21.5 Late Models.  It's not that I don't think they're a good idea, I've just only seen them run once.  They tell me that there are a few of them out there and that they are serious about tech.  That class has Butch's name written all over it.  I think he's the kind of driver that can be very good in those spec class, you need to have all your shit working properly classess.

I only ran my Late Model because the sprint was sitting there in pieces and the late model actually handled ok the last time I ran it so I figured I could at least give it a shot.  Competition was pretty good really.  I think Jody, Steve B. and I were pretty close on speed.   It was a matter of having the luck to get through a pretty crowded heat.  We were running some pretty disparate speeds from top to bottom so it made it pretty challenging.    That's the kind of thing that sorts itself out when you have multiple heats running.

Speaking of multiple heats, the Big O only had two classes:  Mod Sprint Cars and 13.5 Blinky Late Models.  My car wasn't going to be competitive with the Dustin Mallicots of the world, but by the third heat, I was running with cars that were within two tenths of a second of mine, which made it a lot of fun.

The track seemed to be a bit off tonight. It was fast, but not consistently fast and seemed to cause quite a bit of tire wear.  I checked the surface and it's not overly hard, but it's almost like it has a crust on the top of it.  Still raceable, but it might be better if a drag went across it to open up the clay and get some of the embedded tiny ashphalt-like pebbles off of the racing surface.  Not a complaint, just an observation and an opinion.  Whatever the track surface is, it's the same for everybody and it wasn't awful by any stretch.

The real action was in the Truck EDM class.  Chuck Lonnergan  has now thrown his hat in the ring, which made for some pretty compelling competition with Roy, Mike Flipse and it looked like Butch had his truck wheeling around there pretty good at points during the night. Mike raced his way into the show and  I think Chuck ended up the winner in the A.  A lot of the heats were entertaining to watch.

I hope to catch Chris H., Mark C.  and a few others at the track one of these days.  Seems like it's been ages since we all raced together.

I"m out next weekend, but should be racing somewhere the following week one  last time before I head to Speedweek.  Maybe Attica or Limeston, but probably BFG.

Later....

Monee 2013

Discussing who likes nitro fumes more

Got back in a little late last night and just got a minute to start looking at the pictures from the weekend.  My performance, well let's just say I had a better time than I did results, so I'm going to focus on the positives.

The Real Slim Brady

Several folks from Michigan made the trip including: Butch Beebe, Steve Bahr, Jody Flipse, Pee Wee, Scott Brady and myself.  I think most of us had a pretty good time regardless of how we finished.  More on that in a minute.

Flag man is too much responsibility for me

Monee is a special race track in the RC world.  It may not be the oldest track in existence, but it's got to be damned close.  They've been running the Big O race now for 23 years.  In the world of Dirt Oval RC racing, that's the equivalent of being one of the pyramids at Giza.  It is said that Roy Moody, the late founder of the race track invented Dirt Oval RC sprint racing.  I have no idea if that's true or not.  I only know that it's a bad ass track with a mind of it's own.

Close racing

The track itself seems gargantuan compared to most of the tracks we run indoors.  The facility was purpose built for RC racing.  You can tell because the cement in the building is poured only on the outside of the track surface.  They tell me it's somewhere between a 220 and a 240 foot run line.  They keep the surface fairly high bite although it only seems to develop a black groove when the eighth scale nitro cars run on it.

Their track prep man Mike Hannah is there at the crack of dawn every day spiking the track and running in the moisture with a Cub Cadet tractor.  They've been doing this stuff for a long time so they've got their methodology right down to having a rolling machine specifically created for painting in the lines of the track.  They tell me that they don't get a great turnout, which is hard to believe given the condition and layout of the track.  If only it were two hours and twenty five minutes closer, I'd be there every week.  I love the place.

Getting it done on the stand

The track is not without it's downsides though.  It's a huge track with huge traction which means insane speeds when we're running mod sprint.  I had a 6.5 motor in and could barely control it.  There were those there with 4.5 and lower motors.  Good stuff to be sure, lot's of opportunities for broken parts too.  Even carbon fiber has a tough time taking an impact at what has to be somewhere around 30 miles an hour.  It's a good thing we had a few of there.  We were trading spare parts like a swap meet at times.

Tell Me a 10 car main isn't badass?

Friday was a practice day.  They mixed the gas cars with electric which made for a foggy, loud day to say the least.  My ears were ringing at dinner after we left and I'm pretty sure I didn't gain any brain cells breathing those fumes all day.  I made some gains in my late model and went backwards in my sprint car the whole weekend.  It didn't help that I got hit by an 8th scale car halfway down the straightaway that sent my car a good 4 to 5 feet in the air.

Steve Bahr was doing his usual mad scientist routine, swapping parts and setups at an alarming rate.  He went through a ton of parts trying to get it going.  In the end, he took his GBX3 sprint car back to the hotel and returned it to box stock.  It turns out that this was a great move because he almost made the show with his under-motored car.

Monee does things their own way.  They've been doing it a long time.  No IFMAR starts.  Per Greg, the race director "This isn't Europe, you don't race a clock, you race cars.  If you want to win, you have to pass somebody.  We've never done IFMAR starts and we never will".  Agree or disagree, you've got to love their moxy.

Late Model B Main had 3 Michiganders in it.

They also do something unique that I haven't seen at any other RC race, but I have seen at every other race I've gone to, be it short track dirt or the Daytona 500.  Monee plays the National Anthem, complete with a pace car and US flag circling the track.

Heats are also waived by one of the marshalls with a green flag and ended with a checkered flag.  It might seem a little hokey to some.  I like it.  We're playing with toy race cars, why not simulate a real race as much as possible?

Clearly giving some sagely advice

The heats were average to say the least for everyone except for Butch.  Butch's old GBX late model was right up there with just about any of the 13.5 blinky cars.  Steve and Jody both had decent qualifying in late model and sprint, but neither were rocket ship fast.  There were some guys there that looked like they were running mod, except that they weren't.  They just had everything dialed in to go fast.

We were all geared to the moon.  I ran out of gear in my late model or I think I could have been a tick faster.  I had my rollout to about 2.15, just didn't have any gear to go any higher.  The 45 tooth pinion gear I used barely allowed me to tighten up the motor mounting screws.

Getting it done in the B Main

Like I said, my mains were less than eventful, so I'll tell the tale of others.

Before the Sprint B main, Bahr noticed that he had out qualified CW sponsored driver, Rob Mulvaney.  I wasn't watching the other qualifiers too closely.  He must have had some trouble getting hooked up.  Steve was pretty happy about that anyway.  I told him to hang on before he started feeling too good.  Sure enough, Rob won his main and bumped to Steve's.

I marshalled for the Sprint B and for the first three and a half minutes, Bahr was locked into second place (and the transfer spot) by half a lap.  All of a sudden, Steve's car shot up the track his run ended.  It looks like he either broke something or a screw came out of his upper controller arm.  Even though he didn't make the show, he had a shot at it and that should make anyone feel good.  All you can ask for is a chance.

Sprint Car Dash

Tough to make the A with this setup

Butch Beebe was the star of the Michigan contingent.  His GBX late model was fast all weekend.  I didn't think it was that fast, but when the heat finishes started rolling in, he came in about 11th out of 30 or so Late Models in the field so he had to have something going.   Jody, Steve, and Butch all ended up in the same feature.  Jody and Steve managed to find a green car that was less than courteous at times or they would have been right there at the finish.  In the end, it was Butch who transferred to the big show.

He ain't done by a long shot

I don't know for sure how old Butch is and I won't say even if I do  I do know that he's getting up there in age, yet doesn't seem to be dropping off at all in his ability to wheel an RC car.  I felt really good about because I've been with Butch at a lot of big races where one thing or another has kept him from the finish he deserved.

Friggin tight racing for how fast they were

In the A main, Butch lined up at the rear of the field.  The rest of the field was set by a two minute dash that was a spectacle to behold.   The top eight cars duked it out nose to nose and the chaos was minimal. There were some serious heavy hitters in the filed including Dustin Mallicot from Hyperdrive/Go Fast.  It was fun just watching the best in the business to see how far off I am from fast.

Double file rolling starts

About ninety seconds in to a five minute main (they do things their own way at Monee), Butch managed to get up to about fifth or sixth out of ten cars.  His luck finally ran out and he got caught up in a little mayhem and ended up finishing near where he started.  All in all, a very respectable showing for one of the all time greats in RC racing.   Ten cars in a heat are badass.  Let me just say that.

Late Model Dash

I will be rebuilding all of my cars before I race again.  I hope to have at least one done for next week since I haven't been out to BFG in a couple.  I may take a break from Sprint Car racing for a bit to focus on my late model.  The Sprint Car is just too far out there at the moment.  If Butch drops a 21.5 back in that Late Model of his, I'm going to be glad I run 13.5.  That thing was on fire!!!!

See y'all at the track soon....

That Just Happened!

35 Entries.  A couple heats of trucks, a dozen Street Stocks, 21.5 LM's, 13.5 LM's, SC LM's and Mod Sprints.  A lot of the fast guys from Late Model and Sprint were not racing for various reasons.    

Street Stocks started with two heats of six, then quickly went to one heat of ten that was interesting to say the least.  There were a couple of newer racers running tonight which is a great thing for the hobby.  Some might argue that 10 is too many in a heat of anything on a 115 ft track.    It probably is if everyone is expecting a perfect run in a breakout class.  It was entertaining to watch, that's for sure.

The 21.5 class ran for the first time.  I don't know what the fast lap time was for them.  The numbers I was hearing were around 4.1-4.2 when they ran a clean line.  I'm not a huge supporter of the class because it waters down Late Model, however, the speeds look like they allow for some great racing. That class is going to be all about getting your car as efficient as possible.  Whoever can get their car set up to hold the throttle down all the way around is going to be the fastest.

In Sprints, we didn't have a huge turnout.  Jody and I ran pretty close in lap times and finishes so it was pretty exciting that way.  The track didn't allow for really fast lap times.  I think we were somewhere around 61 laps in the heats.  I'm not too sure in the mains.  Lenny, Chris, and Steve Bahr were all notably absent which left the class a little thin.

Late model was a riot.  I had the fastest car all night, then I tried some of Zerfas'  Brand X pink dope on my tires and it tightened the car right up for the main.  I hung on for the entire race until Jody got his nose just in front of mine at the start finish line as time expired.  I choked and he triumphed.  A little heartbreaking, still, I would rather lose a few of those and have great racing than win by three laps with no one close.  I've got some ideas on what went wrong that I'm going to try and set about fixing for next weekend. 

Rich was tearing it up in trucks.  EDM truck is starting to be one of the most competitive classes out there now that a couple of the veteran offroad guys are running it.  Those guys are pretty good at adopting to the oval and excellent drivers.  

I may have to jump back into a little offroad next summer to beef up my driving skills.  The thing I think that it helps with is constantly adjusting to different track conditions.  In oval, it's really more of a rhythm thing when you're going fast.  When you get out of rhythm is when you need to be quick in making decisions about where your moving and how you're adjusting your throttle response.

Those guys from Ionia are a class act.  They come in force just about every weekend that I'm there and they are real gentlemen when it comes to racing.  I enjoy racing with them.

What prompts people to travel mile after mile to get to a dirt oval to RC race?  I've asked myself that question many times.  If you are travelling 30, 60, 90 or more miles to race toy cars, there's a good chance that your wife, friends, and family think you're a nutter.  It's hard to explain how I can justify driving an hour each way to race.  We regularly spend more on gas getting to the races than we do actually racing.  It's also  a little strange trying to explain to someone that doesn't race how spending $400 on a toy car is a "good deal" so I don't even try.

Addictions are difficult to rationalize.  At least this one is somewhat healthy for you.  Family friendly entertainment that isn't going to shorten your life (unless you get too worked up about getting wrecked in that third heat) and isn't going to land you in the pokey if you've raced one too many classes some night.  Some folks cash their check at the bar.  Some collect things and buy status symbols.  I'm good with however people justify RC racing as long as they can afford it.

It's early, I'm not fully caffeinated yet. That's all I can think of other than getting some eggs and bacon this morning.  I might do an edit later in the day or a mid week post this week.  

Later.