2025's 10th Annual Tacoma 24h

I may be open to this if someone needs an additional racer on their team

Chris— As always, I will be there. I was wondering if you'd heard about this already!

Bumping this back up the forum...

It's a month or so out, and it's currently Stan, Jake, and me on the roster.  If you're at all interested, please drop a line.  It's a fun event with people from all over, with a great set of tracks on which to race.  You won't regret it!

If you're interested but not necessarily wanting to race, we would appreciate marshalling help as well.

Entry is paid for...  Who's in?

I'll be there Thursday afternoon-ish. I'll be bringing my Scuderia Kouba shirt from the soap box derby, as it seems like the "Oregon Donors" don't really exist any more, save for you and me. Hopefully, we'll find some folks who want to join the Scuderia.

Stan, Jake, Marty, and I made it to the 2025 Tacoma 24H BRM Festival, where a fun time was had with some excellent cars.  We ended up in 6th place for the first 12 hours and an 8th place for the second, and after the 24 hours were up, our combined total put us 8th overall in a field of 10 teams.

Cars were fantastic and ran reliably.  We had the new Group C cars this year, as they are migrating to a new metal chassis and rolling them out.  There is a new model as well, the remote wing 962, which has the body clipped just aft of the rear wheel well and the wing mounted on a pedestal like on the Jags, Merc's, and Toyotas.

We had selected the Merc C9 and the Porsche 962C for the event, with the 962 getting the light kit for the night running.  Both were assembled and tuned fairly simply, making sure we had all the clearances and float that is designed into it and then adjusting our float and tightness.  They were very fun cars to run, with the ability to run faster than we were able to drive them.

I know it's not a popular event for those on the forum here but it'd be great to have more people on the team for next year- even if it's just for marshalling.  You don't need to run a whole 51 minute heat, you don't need to stay up all night....  It's a slot racing event and we are slot racers- if you're interested, we will find a way to work you into the rotation.

The before shot for the full field:

The after shot for the C9 (car for 1st 12h):

The Scuderia Kouba team:

After shot of the 962:

More pics in this album if you're interested:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/g7kxxauDpC56VzHL7

Let me know if you're interested in attending for 2026.  I intend to be there!

Chris

The Tacoma race is always fun; there's a bunch of great guys who are slotheads and fun to be around. This was the 10th annual; I've been to 8 or 9 of them and always enjoyed it. It would be great to have some of you hot hand controller guys on a team—we'd like to finish further up the pack.

And I neglected to actually introduce Marty.  He was an import from Texas with the https://austinslotcarclub.com/ whom I met at the very first Tacoma 24 in 2014 (the year of the McLaren), I believe.  It was a great gang of racers and they were pretty fast, and he ended up coming back for a couple more recent 24's as well, during one of which we swapped contact info.  For this year, he was having trouble putting together a team and asked if I was looking for anyone to join.  Since getting you guys to go is like pulling teeth, I jumped at the opportunity!!

He was a great add and fit in well with the group dynamic and philosophy, not to mention was the fastest among us in the sprint races and far and away the most prepared slot car racer I've run across.  It was an pleasure and privilege to have him on the team and he's welcome back around my campfire anytime!

Marty in "Lap Machine" mode, wearing the official race jersey:

Come join the party next year!

We could have totally gotten you some laps as it was 4 days of track time, including the 24.  That would at least have gotten you a feel for the tracks and the event.

In the past, there had been multiple variables for car set up- spur/pinion choices, spring stiffness, ride height, etc...  The big variables have been dialed out of the event at this point, as the furnished parts this year had a single ratio gearset, metal gears, spec'd foam tires, etc... leaving the tuning basically to appropriate float and screw tightness (in the past we've had many options).  The inherent stability of the cars and their handling characteristics lend themselves to quite a reasonable and enjoyable 24h platform.

Where I'm going with this is that most teams were able to set their cars up quite well and run them quickly around the track without events which would send them into the pits.  The challenge is always to drive it within the envelope you set and not be tempted to race the whole table- just your lane!  Aside from changing braids, the teams which spent time in the pits were there based on events of their own doing.

As I was typing this, did remember there was a team who swapped to a composite pinion gear which had subsequently started to fail and was spinning on its brass hub.  That is the only mechanical issue of which I am aware- even the light kits survived well this year.