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[Cheater]

The 25th race of the SERRA™ series was held on Saturday, November 13, at Eddie Cordle's Cordle Model Speedway in Marietta, GA, and we'd be less than honest if we didn't admit that the turn-out was less than expected. Yet we have a pretty clear understanding regarding the factors that contributed to this situation. At least one of them is that our goal of "seeding" or "showcasing" Retro racing in the Southeast has actually worked, maybe too well. There are a number of series surrounding SERRA™ now and it makes sense that guys who used to travel to race with us feel they don't need to do so. That we have just two local tracks in Atlanta without much weekly racing is a factor, for sure. Also, it probably didn't help attendance that we scheduled atop the locally-significant Georgia-Auburn football game...

The long distance award goes to Bobby Robinson, who drove in from Glencoe, AL. He joined Jay Guard (from Anniston, AL, don't forget), and locals Ralph Thorne, Joe McIntosh, and James Merriman. Eddie also raced one class. Folks, that's a tough slate of racers and that's probably a factor in the low turn-out as well.

It was a real treat to have Tim Ferguson, owner of the lamented Ga Hobby Center, join us for Can-Am, racing a loaner. I think he's got the slot racing bug again and it should noted he acquitted himself well. Here's hoping we'll see Tim at future SERRA™ events.

The CMS Hillclimb really needs five marshals, maybe four as a minimum, and we simply didn't have them. After dismissing Bobby's very tempting suggestion that we all go have lunch somewhere and talk slot cars, we did a little outside the box thinking.

What we came up with was SERRA™ Solo, patterned after the SCCA Solo series.

For F1 and Stock Car, here's the scheme. Each racer ran on orange lane for 5 minutes, for laps and sections. After everyone had run, we ranked the winners by laps and sections. Everyone got to do some racing and if there were any tracks calls, they were either the racer's own fault or true track calls (like braid up). And no one complained about having their "rhythm" interrupted. LOL! Results below.

For Can-Am, we came up with SERRA™ Duo: two racers on the track at a time, with each racer racing two 4 minute heats, one on blue and one on green, and arranging the pairings so that each racer raced against two different opponents. Car position was marked at the end of each racer's first heat, and the second heat was re-started from the mark. Again, the podium was determined by distance traveled, laps and sections.

I want first of all to express my appreciation to the racers who were willing to try this bold experiment. I hope some of them will post their impressions of the format to this thread. That very experienced slot racer Jay Guard kept muttering, "I've never heard of anyone doing this before, but it just might work" and he went along with the crazy idea.

I know you slot racing traditionalists are probably gonna scream to high heaven, but I think the format is at least worth adding to the possibilities in low turn-out situations. The racing was close as evidenced by the close lap totals and I do think it's better than crash and burn.


F1

1) Jay Guard - 53 laps + 20 sections, best lap of 5.332 secs
2) James Merriman - 52 + 25, 5.441
3) Joe McIntosh - 51 + 7, 5.457
4) Ralph Thorne - 50 + 25, 5.550
5) Bobby Robinson - 49 + 25, 5.878


Stock Car

1) James Merriman - 49 laps + 3 sections, best lap of 5.879 secs
2) Jay Guard - 48 + 20, 5.815
3) Bobby Robinson - 48 + 10, 6.038
4) Joe McIntosh - 45 + 16, 5.987
5) Ralph Thorne - 44 + 10, 5.929
6) Eddie Cordle - 40 + 19, 6.210


Can-Am

1) James Merriman - 89 laps + 10 sections
2) Jay Guard - 88 + 24
3) Bobby Robinson - 83 + 17
4) Ralph Thorne - 82 + 24
5) Tim Ferguson - 81 + 13
6) Joe McIntosh - 81 + 5

PS: Everyone was so bummed about the turn-out that no one wanted to bother with pictures.