BFG December 28th, 2013

Well, here it is, the end of 2013 and I haven't been out to race nearly as often as I would have liked.  The good news is that the times I have been out, there's been some great racing.

There were 40ish entries Saturday night which is just about right for a good night of racing.  13.5, 21.5  LM's, Street Stock, and EDM's all had multi-heat classes.  What's not to like about that?

The 21.5 late models had a couple of generational racers with Jody and Pee Wee both brought their eventual replacements with them and both fared extremely well.  I think it was Josh who went toe to toe for the lead and had a shot to take the transfer spot in his race with about 8 laps to go.  Damon won the B main and had a good showing in the A.  I wish I could drive that consistently.  It's only a matter of time before we start getting our asses handed to us by these kids.

Speaking of generational, the old man himself, Butch Beebe dominated 13.5 Late Model for the entire night.  His car was dialed and his driving smooth.  I could turn similar lap times, but couldn't lay them down like he was doing, one lap after another.  I felt pretty good about finishing second to him in the 80 lap main.

Like I said, my car was alright.  I was pretty happy for just throwing it down on the track after another hiatus.  My lack of attention to detail derailed me for much of the practice session as screws came out, shock oil needed to be replaced and camber was all jacked up.   One of these days I'm going to look at my car when I'm not at the track.  It's not likely that it will be any day soon, but one of these days...

Who doesn't like the 80 lap main?  It's only an extra minute or so, but it's pretty badass to race to the finish line rather than a clock.  Whoever thought that one up needs to get some credit.  You don't see that anywhere else and I think it works really well for the kind of racing we do.

The EDM class continues to have some of the heavy hitters of the RC world running in it.  Chuck Lonnergan not surprisingly was the class of the field, but the rest of the A main was pretty close in performance.  The difference ended up being who had the cleanest run.

People move on from our hobby from time to time.  I took a break through the summer and found that it did me some good.  Sometimes, you just need to take a step back and do other things.  The good thing about our hobby is that it really never forgets.  I hadn't been around in ages and it felt like I never left.  If you're sitting on the fence or wondering what to do as we hit these sub zero temperatures, why don't you think about busting out the gear and turning some laps?