Race Report Fast Track Hobbies 11-19-17
Before starting the report……I have a few individual shout outs….
Kathy Wilbur: The better half of Kathy and John has done a fabulous job of race directing while keeping Big John in line (mostly).
Gary Hooks: One of our best racers has had some intermittent (but pretty significant) health issues this year and we all hope he gets it managed.
Cliffy Gaither: who took a really hard shot to his hand while corner marshalling and basically split his thumb open.
Randy Keil and Richard Matthews: Both of these FTH regulars have been our most dependable traveling racers and have helped greatly in keeping the series going.
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Our final race of this 2017 season was held today at Fast Track Hobbies in Rocklin Ca. On this day, the raceway was very busy with a large drag meet running concurrently with our Retro race and then an even bigger drone event starting up just as we were winding down. It was really nice to see a raceway that was packed with customers all day long.
Today’s race reversed our recent trend of poor turnouts as we had one of our largest of this season. In attendance today were FTH regulars Greg Bishoff, Cliff Gaither, Randy Keil, Jerry Leverenz, Richard and Buddy Matthews, and Justin Colvin. They were joined by the traveling crew of Gary Hooks, Herman James, John and Kathy Wilbur, Kevin Webster and Jim Fowler. In addition, we had two experienced racers giving Nor Cal Retro a go for the first time. Howard Smith of Third Eye controller fame joined us along with Mike Andrews, a Kiwi transplant by way of Denver Co. With most of our faster crew in attendance today, it shaped up to be a tough day at the front of the pack.
We started the day on the Purple Angel speedway track with our Can Am cars with 14 racers in a standard 8 man round robin. In the early going it was looking like a 4 man shootout with Justin, Herman, Gary and Jim all running fast. I started my runs with a two 35s and a 37 while Justin ran a couple of 36s to start along with a 34. As the race went along, Justin and I edged away a bit running mostly 35-36 lap heats while Gary and Herman had some 35-36 lap runs but also a couple of 34’s apiece. Meanwhile, Greg, Randy, Richard, Buddy and Cliff were all running very close in speeds and lap totals.
Kevin, Mike, Howard and Jerry all ran some good heats but also had some bad ones or some pit time to slow them a bit.
Justin and I ran very close most of the race but I was edging away a bit at a time. At one point late in the race, I put down a 37 lap heat while Justin had a 35 on that run and that gave me enough cushion to ease up in my last heat on black and wrap it up with a 4 lap win over Justin. Herman edged Gary at the very end by about 20 feet for third. The 5-9 spots were very tight with Randy grabbing fourth over Greg, Buddy and Richard.
L-R 2nd Justin Colvin (builder-Fowler) 1st Jim Fowler (builder-Fowler) 3rd Herman James (builder-Samson)
We stayed on the Purple Angel to run our fast anglewinder coupes for the next race. For this race we had 10 racers so we ran a center six format with four minute heats. Again, there were several good cars with some fast drivers as well. This turned into a race of two halves as at the start, Jim, Justin, and Herman were just flying and all at the same speed. At one point, all three of us were running together for maybe 20-30 laps and nobody was letting up and nobody could gain ground. At the end of that particular heat we all were saying…..”man I don’t wanna work this hard…..that was tough”
At the end of my fourth heat I had a lead with 49.8 lap average while Herman was at 49.5 and Justin at 49.0. During that heat though, something started to develop. I was on the orange lane which is normally the fastest on the track and Herman was on white. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Herman was gaining on me a bit. White is pretty fast but I thought to myself “hmmmm…….this shouldn’t be happening” I upped my pace a little and managed to pull away but that was just a precursor of things to come.
As I followed Herman to my sitouts, I got the chance to watch the rest of the field battle it out and it was fun to watch. The middle pack group all had fast cars. Justin was in the hunt for the win at that point and was faster than the rest while Cliff was a bit better than everyone else but there was some tooth and nail stuff and some pretty hairy passes going on between Richard, Greg, Buddy and John. It was during these heats that Justin had a mechanical issue with a broken solder joint on a pan hinge. He got it fixed and got back to his fast pace but lost too many laps doing the repairs. During this period, Gary started feeling under the weather with nausea and sweats and pulled out to rest and he eventually left for home.
Herman came back from his sitouts with two heats to go and he immediately just broke the timer with two consecutive heats of 52 laps. I don’t know what happened with his car but he was suddenly a tenth faster than I was no matter how hard I pushed. I came back in with one heat to go and Herman had erased my lead over him and pulled out a lead of his own. By the time I came back on, he was checked out. I tried to race him a little but just had nothing for it and I dropped some additional time in coming off while trying to keep up. Herman pulled away to a 5 lap win while I held on to second with Cliff third. Without his mechanical issue, Justin would have been right there at the end.
Jim Fowler (Fowler) Herman James (Samson) Cliff Gaither (Fowler)
Our final race of the day was Formula 1s on the yellow dragon flat track. We had 14 racers signed up but had some dropouts as Gary had left to go home with his illness, Cliffy was in significant pain from his injured thumb and Kevin was just worn out. Justin and I had fast cars and were putting down some good laps early but I was having a notable number of offs. Richard, Buddy, and Randy were running really well and dicing it up among themselves and they were surprisingly, keeping Herman at bay. John Wilbur has shown considerable growth in his racing this year and was also lapping with Herman. Mike has some pretty good flat track background from down under and he was running better than he did on the fast but tricky Purple Angel.
Around the middle of the race, my car just kept getting worse until the motor eventually fell out (DUH!!!). Guess I coulda’ maybe figured that out a little sooner. I thrashed with that much of the rest of the race and then finally just threw myself under the bus. Justin ran away from the group while Richard edged his son Buddy by a lap for second. Buddy in turn edged Randy by one for third. Herman made the best of an off race finishing fifth just holding off John Wilbur.
Thanks to all that came out this month and welcome to Mike Andrews and Howard Smith on their first foray into Retro in NorCal.
Richard Matthews (Fowler) Justin Colvin (Fowler) Buddy Matthews (Fowler)
Driver’s Meeting
Much of my day was spent in discussion with the drivers in attendance about our plans for next year. We had started some planning last month at Motown but with only a few regulars in attendance. This month, with a lot more attendees, I laid out a potential formula for revamping NorCal Retro in order to try and boost attendance. I will finalize plans this week and then roll them out after I’ve had a chance to personally discuss with the track owners. I’ll have nothing more to report on this for a week or two.
