Scaleracing National Final in Tacoma

Here's a link to more information:

http://www.slotcarillustrated.com/porta … hp?t=78351

An excellent time was there for the taking as a healthy number of Oregonians made a respectable showing this past weekend in Tacoma.  There were 4 official races, two Fri night and two on Sat, with an informal IROC race held as a closer event.  NASTE attendees for Fri were Stan, John and me, with Bill, Monte, Tracy and Mike joining in on Sat.

Most of Saturday's attendees:

L to R: Joe, me, Darren, Scott, Victor(?, obscured), Blair, John, Bruce, Brett, Quim, Wyatt, Stan

First up was a Slot.It Group C race, running any Group C offering from Slot.It riding on Scaleauto foams.  Tuning was allowed with weight and screw adjustments, but it was a fairly controlled class beyond that.  At the head of the pack it was a local, Scott, running away with the race using a #3 1990 Le Mans winner Jag XJR-12.  It was spectacularly tuned and an absolute rocket.  One of the BC boys, Darren, gave Scott a bit of a challenge with his super-smooth 956, but it wasn't enough.  For the first race of the weekend with little to no prior experience on the track for the group, NASTE was represented with an 8th, 14th and 15th place finish.

Slot.It Group C Challenge Finishing Order:

Next up was effectively an open class LMP race, the only three requirements being a scale GT or LMP body, a wing which stays in place or is repaired under green, and spec'd Scaleauto foam tires.  There was a wide variety of hardware on the track for this event, with Darren's Scaleauto Radical taking top honors, followed by a Slot.It Lola, Scaley(!) Lister LMP, SCX Pro Audi, and NSR Mosler.  The NASTE contigent fared slightly better with this event, getting two racers in the top 10 with Stan 9th and John 10th, both with Slot.It Lola's, and I managed as 12th with my NSR Audi R18.  Very tough competition and good racing all around.

LMP Challenge Finishing Order:

Racing on Fri eve concluded in the wee hours of Saturday morning, and the track opened again for practice 8 hours later at 9am on Sat.

With the large number of attendees, the main races on Sat were run as teams of two.  There were 8 teams for the 2 hour BRM race and 10 for the 80 minute Scaleauto race.  Each one was set up with qualifying, teams were made combining top and bottom of the bracket and worked out pretty well and giving anyone a shot at the podium.

For the BRM race, Stan was teamed with a fast local, Pat (my partner from last year), Bill got to run with very skilled Bruce, Tracy teamed with Canadian Wyatt, Mike got hooked up with a very fast racer, Brett, NASTE veteran Monte matched up with NASTE newby John, and I ended up with a local, Blair.

Racing got underway with Darren and Tony clearly displaying exceptional prowess on the track.  Through some stroke of randomness, I somehow managed to run very strongly, trading leads back and forth through the heat.  Pat and Stan also got off to a strong start, playing with the lead mob as well- I remember trying to catch them as they pulled a lead from time to time.  I can't really remember much additional detail through much of the 2 hours, with the exception of my pitiful performance on the black (most techincal) lane, where I tried racing instead of just driving the lane.  I ended up crashing hard into the wall, dislodging the body and gear, and now suddenly I was worried simply about finishing as the rear axle was screaming loud.  Leaders Darren and Tony lost their gear terminally and repaired it under green at a cost of about 20 laps.

Meanwhile Blair and I continued to consistently run our race, tippy-toeing on our gear and trying just to make it to the finish.  Darren and Tony were on the recovery warpath but Blair and I were on the money lanes, they were on black and purple- the two most technical lanes.  Pushing hard, Darren kept trying, occasionally getting back onto the lead lap, but overdriving or having incidents where he'd lose time.  With ~90 seconds left in the whole race, he came out of the slot giving us a 2-3 lap lead which they couldn't claw back, letting Blair and me cruise to finish in FIRST PLACE!  It was a hard fought battle and my most enjoyable memory of the weekend.

In the end, NASTE was well-represented on the podium and in the results.  After two hours, I finished first with Blair, Stan finished 3rd with Pat, Bill was 4th with Bruce, all-NASTE Monte and John grabbed 5th and Tracy finished 7th with Wyatt.

The sharp end of the BRM finishing order:

For the Scaleauto race, heat duration was bumped to 10 minutes due to have 2 extra teams in the rotation.  NASTE was well-represented again with Mike pulling down 2nd place driving with Bruce, I grabbed 5th with Joe, all-NASTE Bill and Stan worked their way down to a 7th place after being the early heats pace-setters, Tracy and Pat got 7th, while Monte and John had a forgetable experience losing a wheel (not once, but TWICE) and with the ensuing repairs, were lucky to actually finish the event.

I don't have the IROC results but it got off to an interesting start.  It was 2 one minute heats per lane, crash and burn style.  Cars ran the first minute until they deslotted.  If they deslotted, they were put back in the slot at at the point of departure when the first minute was up and then the second minute for that driver in that lane was completed.  Crash again, you're done til the next lane.

All in all, there was some very intense racing on a big track to be had with good people.  I look forward to building more interstate competition and having more regional events to attend.

Chris

That's all you have to say???  How was your experience?  Alan is looking for feedback.  What did you think?

It also seemed there might have been a better dispersal of teams.  Any time two of our folks were teamed together it was a definite disadvantage as one of us would have to run the more difficult lanes where anyone teamed with one of their locals could always get a break and run the easy lanes while the pro ran the harder ones.  John and I were teamed together for BOTH events.  Seems a little strange to me.  You would have thought they would have spread the 6 of us around.  We did well as we could in the first race finishing fifth but if either of us could have run the two inner lanes with any precision we would have been third.  The car was quite good among the group.  The drivers, not so good but we gave it our all.

The time trial format - LUDICROUS!  Never have I seen a time trial format for an enduro ever provide meaningful results.  You want a real time trial?  Drop a c-note on the track and let the winner put it in his pocket and take it home.  I guarantee the results will be entirely different.

And then running a backward time trial but not racing that way because of the fear of too much damage.  AREYOUFREAKINGKIDDINGME!  That would have been the fairest shot we would have gotten.  Extremely disappointed with that maneuver.

Only being there for Saturday I agree it was a little chaotic and could suffer some better organization.  I also would have been disappointed to drop a bunch of money into a car for a specific race only to have it sit in the box.

You may have noticed that I did not marshal a single car.  Last time I was there one of the racers commented that my marshaling had cost him the race.  Seemed unnecessary and really hurt my feelings.  Not gonna marshal there again.

I was also a little puzzled by this:

"All entrants in the BRM race get a Special gift from www.scaleracing.com after the race."

I guess my special gift was half of the parts that John got for his car.  ;-)

I had a great time whenever I was racing and I enjoyed visiting with everybody.  I wished I could have conversed with the gent from Europe.  He was a polite racer.

You're welcome Chris, and yes, Tracy uses the "biglog" address.

We have a NASTE race coming up at Howie's 1/24 Rapid Raceway. We should get together with Dave Smith and Bryan Trachsel to discuss what cars we would like to race there. Dave Smith has the 1/24 Parma FCR chassis cars we raced at Edgewater in Salem, and of course we have the NASTE '55 Chevys. I know the BRMs would run well there if we could swing it. I could put the pink motor back into my Bud car, so I could supply two cars to race.