Those of you RACERS out there can move on to another more interesting thread because this is not really about Jairus bashing, Knife fights in a phone booth or trash talking.
Instead, I believed that to build better RTRs I should get some actual racing and prep under my belt. Thus the following short story...
I wanted to go racing.
Depoe Bay Raceway holds three races, one each week, on a rotating basis. Super Trucks, Eurosport, and Flexi Wing cars. I choose the latter because it was easy and cheap... or so I thought.
The night started interestingly enough. Located on the coast less than 100 yards from the pounding Pacific surf is Depoe Bay Raceway. The racers as they showed up were surprised to see two new entries. Jeremy, my son-in-law, myself, and my son, who was really there just to shag cars if the need should arise. Which it really did... but I am getting ahead of myself.
There were only four of them... Jeff with his girlfriend, Carrie, Jim, and Kim with his cardboard slot box. They sized us up fairly quickly as total newbies and therefore little competition... but, just as bugs to be squashed. However, I have to say that we were treated courteously as they introducing themselves and track rules were explained.
All four had been racing at Depoe Bay for quite some time and knew the rules and so with no ceremony... started qualifying with surprisingly NO tech inspection!
Jeremy and I qualified last, lanes were chosen and we began.
Six of us with 2 minute heats, 1 minute between for lane changes. Took less than an hour for one race and I was exhausted after it was over!
You guys think Buena Park has its crash fests? You ain't seen nothing when those four are involved!
They never really RACED with Jeremy and me but only humored us! Although Jeff gave us the Stinkeye most of the time for driving "blocker" cars while he pasted a huge target on Jimmy's car the whole race! There were cars flying all over the freaking place and at least four times someone had to cry that his car was on the floor. It was total chaos!
I cried "Track" one time when nearly every lane was blocked, but with Mark and Ken as the only marshals - there was nobody on the switch. Plus.. the other racers just looked at me like I was stupidly asking where the freaking hell WAS THE TRACK LOCATED!?!?!?
Sigh...
I just tried to get as many laps as possible each heat and that was all. Survive was the goal and I managed to stay out of nearly all the maelstrom of wrecks that cropped up that night.
The rules as they were explained to me were:
Flexi chassis... any type or make.
Some modifications are allowed and they let one guy really modify his chassis for one race but he disappeared after winning.
Motors are Parma Super 16D, Parma Rotor, Pro Slot 2105 (Chinese arm) and Pro Slot 2105. (American arm).
Bodies any and wings/side fences allowed with spoiler and diaplane.
Tires... any.
Guide... any.
Driver... what driver?
As you can figure... there are very few rules and Jeremy and I were handed our asses in a nice pretty pink basket because we ran the race with Parma Super 16s unmodified while all the other contestants ran the ProSlot S16D with the American Arm. Later I learned that Jimmy pulls these motors apart after getting them and blueprints everything and zaps the magnets before reassembly. Those cars ran nearly as fast as any laser cut strap motor equipped wing car with the top lap time of 4 seconds flat!
Talking to Jimmy after the race (the rest of the field left within three minutes of the power going off...) and learned that he was the motor builder for the all the racers. Very little rules regarding sealed tape; none, magnets; zap away, polishing of arms; okay with Jimmy, chassis modifications; he didn't answer... but his car went right into his HUGE slot box that had its own freaking zip code about just as quickly as the rest of the racers found the parking lot!!!
Suffice it to say that this is not just for fun with these guys!
The gloves are now off!
Have I become a racer?
Only time will tell... stay tuned.
PS: YouTube video of one heat here!
