What a fine day for high speeds! Sunny, not much wind and temps in the low 60's...couldn’t ask for much better weather.
Ten racers showed up with 13 speed entries, ranging from a stone stock Slash to a 6s buggy (more on that one later) and several spectators who had visited the Ground Pounder/ISC booth at the Petaluma Hobby Show last weekend.
There were nearly equal numbers of 2wd pan cars and... 4wd sedan based cars. Jake Rosen and Red Jensen returned looking for that magic 100 mph again and Ryan Schellerup brought his Viper bodied 4wd to try out speed running with it. On the 2wd side, Greg Cassel and Peter Kalogiannis were back with their 2s cars trying to figure out the trick set up and Bruce Haskell, who’s been a spectator before, showed up with his new funny car looking very fast.
Jake quickly set the bar in the low 90's with several runs at similar speeds before topping out with the fast speed of the day at 95.29 on both clocks. The road was a bit dusty and made grabbing the surface tough. Red was back with his red rocket but unfortunately, like a rocket, it tended to fly through the traps. He eventually ended the day at 86.22 with an 86.09 backup after switching to Jake’s body but he still flew. During the day Red brought out his GeeBee rc plane and flew it around the area to the delight of onlookers (myself included...he’s a VERY good pilot!) Ryan was experimenting with motors and cells and gearing and appeared happy with his top speed of 60.63 and his car in one piece, unscathed.
2wd is always a challenge and Greg had more than his share of challenges. Although the car appeared to be running well he was seriously hampered by very limited radio range, having only a couple hundred feet of run up before the traps. He tried several combinations to no avail but still managed a best speed of 79.65...pretty good considering. Bruce had teething problems with a new car and eventually smacked a drop inlet ( could’ve been much worse!!!!) getting one timed run at 55.93 /54.96. That car has a lot of potential. Jake also ran a 2wd car for a single 71.06 run. The 2wd winner was Peter whose ‘41 Willys clicked off an 83.71 run...pretty good for a very un-aero car. Peter had a lot of problems last meet but seemed to have them ironed out, ending up “20 mph faster than I was last time!”
Gary O had the only nitro entries, a twin engined NTC3 and a small block Grand Motorsports dragster. The twin handled well and broke nothing, including records so that’s just a matter of tuning. The dragster had been nearly undriveable last outing but ditching the high sidewall slicks for a set of standard pan car tires along with a small rear wing made the car very stable. The gearing topped out at close to 70 but the potential is there. Gary’s ‘Quest for 200' car had traction problems and that’s all we’ll say about that!
Richard Lewis brought his stock Slash out and was able to raise his initial outing speed of 23.37 to a final of 27.05 mph...a pretty good increase considering the limited power and aero available!
Greg Hurtado (Uncle Frankenstein’s Hobbies, Oakland) again made the drive up to see if he could break a record or burn something to the ground. Last year his ESC was literally in flames after several back to back runs. This year he brought a 1/5 scale and a 1/8 scale open wheel car. The 1/5 scale car topped out with four runs of 42.64/42.65, 42.45/42.57, 42.64/42.76 and finally 42.39/42.44....I’d say 43 just wasn’t gonna happen! He then dragged out his open wheel car, wanting to get some of that 100 mph magic. After several mid 60's runs he dropped in an extra few cells ending up at six. After a couple aborted runs, spinning just before the lights, he finally left his foot in it despite the car being out of shape. He caught the edge of the driveway across the street, did a few endos through the sage before hitting the concrete base of a sign....HARD. Hard enough to break a ROAR approved case and once again Greg finished his day in smoke!!!!
Many thanks to all who came out. I know most headed home with new ideas to try and new fixes to old problems. Hopefully we can do it again in a couple months. Til then, fulfill the need for speed!
Gary O
JPH Note: A big thanks to Gary for hosting the event and for the awesome write-up! Thanks to Bruce for the photos!
| |||||
copyright © 2024