PASER Open Track Monday! (Page 1 of 3)

After a short practice session the cars were lined up for the Flexi Class race. These races use a round robin format of 4 minute heat races, with one round of racing. The racing was yet again very close with the race ending in a tie between Bob and Doc. Bob was awarded the win by posting the best average lap time of 5.079 seconds over Doc's 5.117 average.

Here are the Flexi Race results:

Bob Nakamura, the newest signature on the PASER WEENER CUP!

Yes, Sir it was another fun day at the track looks like I'm starting to trend my normal finishing spot. thanks once again for sucking all my loose cash and change out me again Bill.

You're welcome Doc, my pleasure! & nice job on the 5.500 flat!

What gear set did you end up with Mitch?

Now if I can do that for 20 laps

The racing at Inslot's Checkered Flag Raceway on Mondays is heating up! The high noon Womp race had 9 entries. We raced the now standard format of three rounds of 20 lap heat races to determine a winner. With points being scored for finish positions in each individual heat race, each 20 lap heat race is important. At only 20 laps they go quick and there's no time to hold back!

This race was to be another extremely close one, with each of the top six racers posting at least one heat race win! After the three rounds of racing Doc and Dave ended up in a tie for first place overall. Using the fastest lap posted to break the tie gave Doc the overall win by just .147 second. Here are the High Noon Womp Race results:

1st Doc 41 points with a fast lap of 5.574
2nd Dave 41 pts. 5.721 fast lap
3rd Rob 37 pts.
4th Bob 36 pts.
5th Bill 35 pts.
6th Brian 24 pts.
7th Gerry 20 pts.
8th John 19 pts.
9th Ryan 17 pts.

Congrats to Doc and yet another Womp win! He's adding a lot of fence posts to that PASER WEENER CUP!

As it turned out we had a good crowd for the evening races as well! The PM Womp race had six cars on the grid. The track had tightened up some as the temperature and humidity had dropped from the earlier races. Half the field was posting lap times in the 5.5 second range, and the others were hitting 5.6 seconds. Doc has been a force to deal with in the Womp races so far this year, and he was on the wheel for this race winning all three rounds of 20 lap heat races! Here are the PM Womp race results:

1st Doc 40 points
2nd Bill 35 pts.
3rd Dave 32 pts.
4th Lee 30 pts.
5th Bart 26 pts.
6th Brian 17 pts.

Here's Doc sporting yet another fence post and some questionable ears!

PASER has always promoted the racing of "Hardbody" cars, model car bodies mounted on scratchbuilt brass chassis. The topic of adding these classes of cars to the Monday racing came up again. The one issue with this class of racing has been how to get new racers up to speed. Many times the newer members have never built anything like the hardbody cars raced in this region. Suggestions that came up in some of the recent discussions included starting off the racing with very simple design chassis. Something similar to the Hanna Econo-Car chassis design. A specification could also be implemented which limits the chassis brass pans to .062" material. The .062" material is much easier to solder than the typical .090" used on the more advanced chassis. Another suggestion was to develop a spec type chassis and motor combination and use Team Bluegroove bodies, which are .030" thick (closer to model car bodies than the typical Lexan bodies). There was also an idea to start the racing as s variation of the IROC style races. For example, the racers that have or build some cars would put there cars out on the track. Four cars could be chosen by random or some other method, to be used in the race. All of the racers participating would race those four cars in an IROC style format.

So, more input would be helpful in getting started down this road. Especially from you newer guys! If you have any ideas or comments, let's here them!

The 2NASTE chassis Zack made up with Team Bluegroove bodies would be a good choice, however the PASER club's roots are embedded in actual scratchbuilt chassis, which in my view are chassis built from wire and brass strip soldered together. There is already a venue for the 2NASTE chassis and that is Northwest True Scale, with races taking place at Howie's Rapid Raceway, Springwater Raceway, and here at Inslot's Checkered Flag. I'm not saying "no", I'm just saying that doesn't meet the current criteria.

Also to note, I am NOT doing a true IROC format where I supply four cars for IROC racing. I did that for years and have NO desire to start doing it again! If we run any kind of IROC style races, the racers will be also contributing cars to race.

As far as the Scaleauto chassis, they're ok for motors softer than S16Ds in my opinion.

That's a good idea Doc! Awhile back Stuart offered to help us with a class. Next time I see him I'll talk to him about it.

We had a good turn out on February 7th with eleven entries in the high noon Womp race. Ron came up from Woodburn with Dave and Brian to take a run at racing some slightly bigger cars than what will fit on his Viper HO track. It was great to see Terry and Lee make it out, and Mitch also finally made it back to the track for some Womp and Flexi action.

We raced the now standard 3 rounds of 20 lap heat races for the Womps. Each heat race is scored individually with points for first through fourth, so each heat race counts. There is no holding back in these short sprints! The better you finish in each individual race, the higher your total score. After three rounds of racing there was a tie for first place. In this scenario the racer with the quickest lap time through all three rounds, breaks the tie and is awarded the win. In this case Doc's best lap was a 5.501 second lap, which by the way is only .001 second from breaking out (losing a lap)! His fastest lap time was .010 quicker than second place!

Round 1 results:

Round 2 results:

Round 3 results:

By the time evening had rolled around some people had left and others had arrived. We gridded eight cars for the 6 PM Womp race. This time the goal was to keep Doc off the podium. It was not an easy feat! This time around Doc was edged out by just one point! The Womp races are very close, all the way up to the finish of the last heat race!

This Womp race was shortened to just two rounds due to a late start. Here are the results from Round 1:

Round 2 results:

6 PM Womp Race final results:
1st Bill 31 points
2nd Doc 30 pts.
3rd Dave 27 pts.
4th Bart 22 pts.
5th Brian 15 pts.
6th Rico 14 pts.
7th Ron 12 pts.
8th Hersch 9 pts.