Tom's World Raceway is normally a huge high speed course with lap lengths in excess of one hundred feet. But by utilizing an optional curve the course can be shortened to roughly seventy seven feet. This shorter course was the one chosen for the OSCAR Clubman Class race on Saturday October 9th. The Clubman Class is for 1/24 scale small sports cars.
The racing at OSCAR events starts early and runs through the entire day. Each racer races in a round robin rotation, heat races in each lane of the track for 4 minutes. This rotation is repeated four times for a total of 64 minutes of on track race time for each racer. It is grueling, especially on this short version of Tom's World Raceway!
A lap on this short course requires your full attention! From the start line you accelerate down the straight to the first left hand sweeper. The sweeper is the optional corner in the course and is placed about one third of the way down the normal front straight. Coming out of the sweeper you almost immediately hit the very tight kink to the left. This corner is a killer as it is right at the bottom of the bridge! The bridge is a hump style climb and decent over the top of a section of the track. It is extremely easy to carry too much speed and get too much air over the bridge resulting in a crash in the tight right hander immediately following the bridge! After the tight right hander you proceed down the short straight in front of the driver's stations into a decreasing radius right hander going under the bridge. Now you're on another short but fast straight into another right hander that leads into the tight esses. The esses end in a left hand turn that leads you back onto the the main or front straight. The fast guys complete this in less than 4.9 seconds!
There are always mechanical failures and damaged cars at races at Tom's World. Saturday was no exception! Racers tore up gears, broke chassis, and destroyed bodies! Man was it ever fun!
Here are the race results:
