Well, the story is:
PMCC (Pebblestone Model Car Circuit) hosted Round 4 of the Vintage Race Across America (VRAA) for 2010. This is a proxy race series that has been running for 5 years now, and is in its third year of the current rules, which specify hard-body 1.5 liter Formula 1 cars (1961-1965), a spec motor (from BWA), narrow tires, some appearance requirments, etc. It is probably the only 1/32 scale Proxy Series running in the US that encourages scratchbuilt cars.
The entrants this year have put in an enormous effort to make the cars look as detailed and realistic as possible, and in most cases they have succeeded in creating very pretty cars. The entrants themselves are spread around the world, with some cars coming from as far as Australia, Singapore and the UK, to join the American and Canadian cars.
We ran two rounds of racing, with 2 minute heats, so each car got a total of 12 minutes of track time. The drivers were assigned a lane and stayed there whioe the cars changed lanes, so the drivers had to get used to new cars quickly and try to get the best out of them, which I think most guys felt was a nice challenge. These cars are not fast, the motors rev about 15,000rpm on 12V no-load, so laptimes were all in the 7-second range with a very few getting into the high 6-second times.
The drivers were my friend Stan Smith from the Farrout Slot car club (who drove these cars at last year's round as well), Phil Nyland, Gary Donahoe, Barney Poynor, Mill Conroy, Jim Gonsalves and our surprise guest of honor, the GOAT, Tore Anderson. As you can see, he was looking and feeling well, and he had the time of his life. It was his first visit to PMCC, and I guess these were the slowest slotcars he has ever driven, but he did a great job of learning the track and driving the cars, as was to be expected from one of the legends. Thanks for being here, Tore, it was really good to see you in such good health again.
The cars varied in perfomrnace almost as much as in appearance, and particularly there was a lot of variation in the amount of grip that each car had. Some were over-stiff and would slide at the slightest provocation, others had so much traction they would chatter uncontrollably, but they were all fun to drive. There were many great dices during the heats, and the drivers to man enjoyed the experience. The winning car was the #9 Porsche 804 that is half out of the photo on the right hand side. It was a very sweet car, with lively performance and smooth, progressive handling.
Once the Proxy racing was done, those who were still willing for more ran a Round Robin with Slot.it inline cars. This race provided a first-time winner, Gary Donahoe, who put his Ferrari F40 on the top of the podium ahead of Phil and Tore, who ran a loaner Porsche 962KH. The cool weather made for somewhat slippery track conditions, worsened by all the Ortmann dust from the Proxy car tires, and Gary kept his cool the best and did not overdrive the cars like some of us did!
As usual, my wife provided a great lunch that was enjoyed by all (and more than once by some!).
With all the activity at BPR in December, I doubt that I will be hosting another Open Day this year. Thanks to everyone who has supported the races here, I hope you have all enjoyed the events.
Give Phil a good chassis and watch the action, its amazing. Congrats Phil and you drove that Richie A chassis the way it should be done. 
