RC Racing at HobbyTown, Gilbert

Saturday, March 22nd, 2014

Got in another round of racing down at HobbyTown in Gilbert AZ.  It was a great day, slight breeze for most of the day and a great group of people.  It was another good turnout, and I believe there was about 24 heats of racing.  For this day, I did VTA Oval and Sportsman Road Course.  I had my new VTA body mounted and ready for today's racing.  I still have not painted the new body for the Touring Car, I've had that new body since December, and its been sitting on the shelf daring me to paint it, lol.  Maybe next weekend I break out the paint and whip up a new paint scheme for the touring car.

Pits setup and ready for racing.

New VTA body, don;t have the stickers on it yet, but will for the next outing.

Vintage Road Course

Round 1
After round 1 is was very close racing, I was inline for the A-Main being shown 3rd overall after round 1.

Heat 1                    Heat 2
Driver   Laps   Time      Driver   Laps   Time  
Tony      32   4:03.25    Frank     31   4:05.19
Joe A     32   4:04.36    Freddie   31   4:06.49
Debra     31   4:05.84    Derek     31   4:06.73
Jeff      30   4:00.84    Dhavil    31   4:06.93
Mike J    30   4:01.06    R L       27   4:02.26
Norm      30   4:04.85                          

Round 2
Round 2 had a lot of racers in Heat 1 of round 2 breaking out, but with two other drivers hitting the 32 lap mark, and me only doing another 31 laps, it pushed me back to starting 1st in the B-Main.

Heat 1                    Heat 2
Driver   Laps   Time      Driver   Laps   Time  
Joe A     33   4:01.68    Derek     32   4:07.63
Mike J    33   4:05.13    Dhavil    32   4:07.64
Tony      33   4:05.41    Freddie   31   4:01.67
Jeff      33   4:06.01    Frank     31   4:02.24
Debra     32   4:00.11    R L       27   4:00.97
Norm      29   4:06.39                          

UPDATE! - 03/24/2014
Found the prints outs for the Mains

B-Main
Driver   Laps   Time  
Mike J    33   4:05.40
Jeff      33   4:06.06
Frank     33   4:06.58
Norm      30   4:00.38 - Norm gets the win
R L       27   4:00.99

A-Main
Driver   Laps   Time  
Dehavil   32   4:01.17
Joe A     32   4:01.90
Debra     32   4:02.70
Tony      32   4:03.34
Freddie   31   4:00.28
Derek      0   DNS

TC Sportsman - 17.5

Heat 1
Heat 1 was a blast, it was a very close race.  Once again it was Bill and I battling it out for the lead the entire race.  In the end Bill got me.

Driver   Laps   Time  
Bill      21   4:01.46
Frank     21   4:05.24
Bryan     19   4:06.86
Matt      18   4:01.08
Jerry     14   4:08.02
Riley     13   4:15.26
Mike S     0   DNS    
T J        0   DNS     

Heat 2
This heat, I did not do very good at all, but still managed to pull out a second place finish.

Driver   Laps   Time   
T J       21   4:11.35
Frank     20   4:03.29
Bill      20   4:07.13
Bryan     19   4:08.28
Matt      18   4:09.47
Jerry     15   4:11.22
Riley     13   4:14.22
Mike S     1   0:09.72

A-Main and Cancelled B-Main

The B-Main was cancelled because 3 out of the 4 drivers for the B-Main broke, and could not start the race, so they moved the one driver into the A-Main so there was 5 of us.

UPDATE! - 03/24/2014
Found the prints outs for the Mains

A-Main Results
Driver   Laps   Time   
Bill      21   4:04.14
T J       21   4:10.67
Frank     20   4:01.76
Bryan     19   4:06.43
Matt      19   4:08.12

Final Thoughts

Thanks for all the advice I received from Mike S. and Todd.  Overall it was a great day of racing, and really looking forward to my next outing.  Not sure if it will be next Saturday the 29th but will definitely be there on the 5th of April.

On-Road RC Racing down at HobbyTown, Gilbert, Az

Saturday, March 8th, 2014

It's been awhile since I posted any of my racing results, and I need to get back into the swing of things, lol.  Saturday, March 8th, I got in some racing down at HobbyTown, in Gilbert, Az.  I finally got my second car setup for VTA racing.  I was going to race VTA oval with this car, but my friend Mike S. convinced me to try Vintage Road Course with this car.  Since I had a 17.5 motor in the car, Mike loaned my one of his extra 25.5 motors for I could race in this class.  After getting the car setup with the new motor, it was on to racing.  My other car, I did my normal Sportsman 17.5 Road Course.

All setup in the pits, and ready to race.

It was a good turn out for Saturday Racing, and there I think over 20 heats of racing, great turn-out.  My Vintage Road Course was heat #19, and my Sportsman 17.5 Road Course was heat #21.

On to the results:

Vintage Road Course

Heat 1
My car was wicked loose, and the rear-end was coming around on almost every corner.  The car was setup for more oval, so I figured it wouldn't do very well on the road course, but didn't think it would have been that bad, lol :)

Driver   Laps   Time   
Todd      20   4:03.92 
Mike S.   20   4:04.54 
Bill      19   4:03.20 
Jeff      18   4:00.61
Frank     18   4:07.47

Heat 2
For this round I made a few adjustments, and the car started out a lot better.  But it just shut off on me after about the 12th lap.  My puffy battery finally died, but at least it didn't damage the car any.

Driver   Laps   Time   
Bill      19   4:06.76 
Todd      19   4:07.34 
Jeff      19   4:11.55 
Frank     12   2:51.51 
Mike S     3   0:31.88 

A-Main
For the Main, the car was handling a lot better.  But Todd was too much for me, I think I need to adjust my timing on the motor, and possibly make sore gear changes to match his speed.  Over all I enjoyed racing this class.  I think the next time I go out, I will stick with the VTA Oval until I get my TC4.

Driver   Laps   Time   
Todd      21   4:07.16 
Frank     19   4:06.50 
Bill      18   4:05.32 
Jeff       2   0:23.06 
Mike S         DNS     

TC Sportsman - 17.5

Heat 1
Heat 1 was a blast, it was a very close race.  Me and Bill were battling for the lead the entire race.  I think we both lead about 10 laps each, and Bill on the last lap got me.  Everyone was on the same lap at the end of the race.  Nathan started late about 2 minutes into the heat, or he would have been right up there with us.

Driver   Laps   Time   
Bill      20   4:01.91 
Frank     20   4:03.22 
T J       20   4:11.25 
Jerry     20   4:16.37 
Nathan     8   4:03.97 

Heat 2
Heat 2 did not disappoint, it was a hard battle just like heat 1.  We were all very close to each other. and all finished with seconds of each other.  With a great pass at the second to last lap, I was able to get around Bill and take the lead and TQ for the round.

Driver   Laps   Time   
Frank     21   4:07.72 
Bill      21   4:09.16 
Nathan    21   4:10.39 
Jerry     21   4:12.99 
T J       20   4:04.56 

A-Main
For the A-Main I started out a little rough, and crashed a few times, and I was at the back of the field after about the first 3 laps.  But It was a blast working my way through the field.  I want to apologize to Bill for taking him out, otherwise he would have had 20 laps.  But in the end, I just could not catch Nathan, and finished about 1/2 lap behind him with 21 laps also.

Driver   Laps   Time   
Nathan    21   4:07.93 
Frank     21   4:15.64 
T J       20   4:03.20 
Jerry     20   4:05.63 
Bill      19   4:03.62 

Final Thoughts

Overall it was a great day of racing, and looking forward to my next outing.  I will try to get pictures of the new bodies up this week, and will be racing the weekend of the 22nd at HobbyTown, Gilbert.  I will try and update the blog each week from now on.

Thinking about the blog.....

Well, I have been seriously slacking when it comes to my blog.

For the past month or so, I was even thinking of just removing the blog, and not posting anymore.  But after some more thought, I will keep this blog, and try to post more about my racing hobby.

I have a few posts I will be making this week about the last couple of months racing, then I will try to post at least once a week on current stuff.