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Ha! I'll take a "y". Fun night. Thanks to Chris for loaning me his little Ford. Congrats to Rico on the win.

Thanks, Bill. A few others stopped by after you left. Al, Mitch and Dana were all here at the same time so we did a little fender slapping. Al even got one of the coupes under the 5 second mark. We can get together here whenever Dave can make it but I want to get a better power supply first.

I guess the money I slipped Monte under the table was worth it! Great hosts, great day!

We should be there.

I'll be playing "ketch-up" and Dorothy will have something yellow.

Sounds like a reason to come out to the Motorplex!

I didn't see this thread till tonight. We will host at least one race. I would like to think that every track owner in the group would host a race for the fun of it. We have a great group of people here that enjoy getting together and slapping little cars around. Monte, maybe you should check with the other track owners as they may not have seen this either.

John, there is some fuzzy math in your statement.

You said " I also don't like to sit around for 2 hours to race for 9 minutes. My main issue with the monthly weekend events is not "serious racers vs. nonserious racers," it's about how little time is spent actually racing. And if you have 25 people racing on a 3-lane track, there isn't much you can do about that."

If you have two minute heats with a minute in between to switch stations, 10 racers will take 30 minutes to run a race.  That's true no matter how many lanes there are on the track. So on a Thursday night at Bill's you will get to "race" for 6 minutes but on my track you would get 8 minutes if there are 10 people at each race. There have been more people at the Thursday races I've attended then there have been on our weekend races so overall you would get less track time. We got done in about 3 hours and everybody got 20 minutes on the track. I've seen one race at Bill's take nearly two hours. No matter where you race, the more people there are, the longer it takes to run a race.

As for building cars, I love to build and tinker, but I am just not concerned with trying to be the fastest. Got better things to do than spend hours tweaking a little toy car and hours practicing so I can spend a few minutes racing. I don't touch my cars in between races, and I only practice long enough to make sure they can get around the track. In IROC format I've won at pretty much every track we race on, so I know I'm a good driver, I just don't have the c/o disorder that drives some people to have to win at any cost, including cheating.

I love seeing beautifully built slot cars, especially when the builder is willing to race it and risk damage. They are toys.

When I joined this group I let it be known that I was a player, not a racer. I like to play with toys. My toys of preference are slot cars, Legos and Econolines, not necessarily in that order. Like Bill said, a lot of the races were on his HO track using the IROC format. Most of the other races were with the Econo cars, which were supposed to be equal, but were obviously not as some were amazingly faster than others. That is what you will get if you allow racers to build their own cars. Not matter the rules, people will bend them, someone will have to enforce them, and some people won't be happy.

I believe a lot of people don't come to our races because they can't win. They can't cheat by modifying a car since it is an IROC format and they realize that there are a lot of better drivers out there when the cars are truly equal.  As for the Thursday races, I have one car for each class I race, and they are pretty much stock. I don't obsess with bringing 4 or more cars for each class to find the best one for that night and I don't need hours of practice trying to shave a tenth off my lap time. I am there to play.

So, here's what I think. Retire the current format and trophy. 20 good years. Start a new series. Call it the NASTE CUP or whatever. Like Nascar, the racers with deep pockets and the ability to build fast, and most likely illegal, cars will win. I quit going to the digital races because I got tired of seeing people cheat to help their team, whine about corner marshals and complain about who was on their team. I'll continue to host races, maybe just completely separate from the series, and I'll bet they are still some of the best attended, probably because of Dorothy's food.

The soapbox is yours.

Will it do HO tires? Ha Ha Ha Ha

It was fun getting back on the track. Thanks for loaning Dorothy a car, Bill. We should be at the next race with Ruben, our Canadian friend. Don't hold that against him though.