On Sat 7/25/15 we had our first experiment in drag racing 1/32 and 1/24 cars. Thanks to Steve, Rich, Kyle, Brett, and David for trying something different! After a smoke-test on Thur we reassembled the scale 1/8mile track (21ft from tree to trap with 4 feet of shutdown) on Sat. Carerra track was mounted on three 8ft sections of shelf-grade MDF, which surprisingly has not warped much and is flexible enough to flatten itself out easily. We had two XLR controller jacks and a Speakon twist-lock connector with a #12awg cord feeding power from a 25a supply that Ma
rty graciously let us borrow. The Christmas tree and timing lights were from SlotCarDragon, but unfortunately one of the starting line electric-eyes was FUBAR and kept starting the race before cars were staged.
Altho we were disappointed that we could not get our ETs, we went into street-racing mode using cell-phone flashes (or hand waves) as tree lights and good ole visuals to determine winners (where are flag girls when you need them!?) Steve had a cool Austin Martin in super-stock with custom made wheelie wheels that slide into tubes in the body! Kyle raced a great looking Scaley charger with a supercharger sticking through the hood and gave it a good effort. He also had a nice looking Scaley Lotus in super-stock.
Dave raced his stock NSR Austin Martin and won very consistently. Brett’s stock Scaley VW Bug was the sleeper of the event, performing much faster than we expected and beating a few competitors. Rich fielded a Parma Mustang in heads-up 1/24 races with Mark’s Pontiac and consistently got the hole-shot at the tree to beat Mark by 1 car length. Brett’s Parma had a Group-12 motor that needed more than the 12v we fed it so we are trying to see if he can get a DeathStar motor to be able to fairly race Rich and Mark in 1/24 Comp Eliminator
In Super-Stock Steve consistently won in heads up racing, except Dave’s A/M had just a little bigger motor and hit the traps about 1-2 cars ahead. Mark entered his Chaparall from the 2015 Can-Am races and it was quick but fell to Dave’s Austin Martin. Speaking of traps – our shutdown area was tripple-padded in foam but some of the cars still hit hard enough to shake body parts off and in Mark’s case bent his Parma’s front axle!
NEXT QUALIFYING ATTEMPT: We have the timing system parts and will try again Sat Aug 8; practice 12p runs start 1pm. If we have enough people we will start bracket races. Next Official date is Sat Aug 29. 12p-practice, 1pm Races. PICTURES: Stev
e and Rich then Kyle and Steve at the starting line. Various car types that we 
raced
Ok, ‘stuff’ happens and on Sat 8/8 I got the timing tree and ET lights setup, but it took much longer than expected, so we did not have the chance to get some qualifying ETs. The good news is that our regular track was open and people were able to tune their cars for the TUDOR and NSR series.
GOOD NEWS – the tree and timing system work and I was able to get some baselines to set expectations for Sat Aug 29. My Orange-end-bell “super stock” cars had ETs in the range of 1.1 to 1.5 seconds for the 1/32 scale 1/8th mile; most ETs were in the 1.2 to 1.3 range. (NOTE: the timing system actually displays up to 3 decimals so the ETs will much more specific allowing us to get accurate handicaps.)
So we are ready for racing on Aug 29 – I will setup the track on Friday 8/28 so that it will be ready at Noon when we start qualifications.