53 replies to this topic

[rvec]

Ahh, Turkey Night at Pelican Park. I remember it well. Back in the dawn of time when I travelled far and wide to OSCAR races throughout Oregon and to the famous Pelican Park in Eugene, I attended at least one Turkey night race. It was great fun. As a guest, one is always disadvantaged. The track is similar in shape to STR, my home track at the time. But, believe me there are nuances that the locals are expert at handling. I read James' summaries regularly and see the same names albeit a few new ones each and every week. From Todd's historical write-up (see the link http://pelicanparksp...om/history.html) It looks like the 1/24 track has been in its current location since the mid to late 1980s.

The Pelican Park concept is simple. Hard body racing with several classes run in a specified rotation from week to week in a realistic setting. Chassis must be in-line configuration. .790 rear (most run O-ring fronts). Min ground clearance .055 inches. Sealed Deathstar motors for most classes. Sealed supers for a few. The founders' vision was to allow creativity in scratch building and not to be motor driven (pardon the pun). Obviously, this concept works - 35+ years tells the story.

Congrats to Tom's team for the win. James - sorry to see your Camaro in pieces, however, plastic welder works quite well and I am sure you can put humpty dumpty together again

[n9949y]

December 2, 2015 Can Am race. After the The Annual Pelican Park Turkey Night Team Endurance

Race the schedule reverted to our weekly race program with this week featuring Can Am cars.

Forgot to bring my camera and without James' photographic memory present to write a  fantastic

race synopsis am relying on my cell phone photo shot of the score sheet showing the results and

a shot of my winning car.

 

 

Resilient Resin McLaren M6B. The M6A was the factory car; the B was the customer car sold in 1968

[James Wendel]

Congratulations on your win, Todd. 

 

Perusing the data sheet, it appears that Leo was a victim of bad "luck of the draw".  He was top qualifier, with a near-sweep of his preliminary heats.  A second place finish in the red lane was his only stumble.  But a red-lane draw in the Semi-Main led to a 3rd place finish and a trip to the Consi.  In the Consi, Leo drew red again where he finished 2nd to Mr. Painter in the yellow lane.  Bummer.

 

Still... I prefer racing head-to-head on slightly unequal lanes to rotating through all lanes and totaling laps, as done in the rest of the slot car racing world. 

 

Good to see Pauly make the main.  Also, I have to wonder... where was Cully?

[n9949y]

Cully was at a location too far away to make it back.

Racing on red lane is not neccessarily bad. I won my first qualifying heat on red. What can make racing on red lane an advantage is that racers sometimes on the inside lanes, blue and white, become the meat in sandwiches-being squeezed on both sides, so they sometimes more often crash, while those on yellow and red sometimes crash less because they have racers on only one side. I prefer racing on the red lane the Monza (open wheel) class.

Certainly luck can be a factor in Pelican Park racing which some slot car organizations try to eliminate in their racing formularies. Yet luck in real car racing as anyone who's done it knows fully well, and we try at PPS to capture in miniature the essence of real car racing. Racing fortunes change week to week. Honestly, luck may have had a roll in my win-got yellow lane-my favorite. but then, "Chicken one week; feathers the next!"