TSRF 1/24 Scale races, June 14th, 2005

Buena Park, CA

Buena Park TV Races, without TV!

Apparently there must have been a freeway chase or something that critical because the Channel 9 crew never showed up and did not even bother to have the courtesy to call Chris and Lenore to let them know and cancel the show...
Well that's just fine and dandy because lots of people showed from all sorts of racing and we had a great Tuesday night with really fun races. The raceway was packed and it was hard to move without getting real friendly! I am not sure of what happened on the King track as we were busy running our 1/24 TSRF race simultaneously on the Hillclimb, so I never had a chance to figure out who won the wing-car race but there was a lot of crashing from the screaming and thunk noises we could hear from our more silent side of the raceway where de-slotting meant losing the race.

All chassis were TSRF24 "USRA" with spec tires and motors, with GTP, LMP, GT1 or Group-C bodies. Only TSRF-approved modifications are allowed.

The entrants ready to bite the dust.

The field shows a definite improvement in body decoration. The almost-invisible black car was reserved for the blind man, Dokk P "hisself"... a poor choice that will cause him trouble.

A breather between intense heat action.

Former hot-thumb Mike Steube servicing his car between heats (meaning lifting it from lane X and placing it in lane XX...)

Dennis Hill had the fastest car, the two fastest heats, and still managed to get over his head. Some day he WILL get it right, when reason will triumph over emotions...

Scott's BMW sported a new aggressive and very visible paint, well in the spirit of what the full-size cars would have looked like. Now for a driver and decals... :)

And the winners are... Duran Trujillo, center, with Jim Waterman, left, and Scott Jarrett. Congrats to all for a fine effort. Yo Duran, did you wake up at any time during the race?

Duran Trujillo (the Iceman) borrowed a TSRF Lancia and just ran away with the race, not getting off ONCE. And in TSRF racing, you get off ONCE and you are pretty much out of first, it is THAT competitive. I did so in the first heat, lost 45-seconds under the C&B format, never got off again and drove as fast as I could and ended... 5th, about 15 feet behind Paul Sterrett. Indeed the perennial TSRF winner with one of the fastest cars in the race was also having an off day, getting a couple of times over his head. He finished a disappointing 4th, his lowest finish ever in a TSRF race!

More people needed new cars as the class is quickly growing , and since we did not have any RTR chassis available at our shop, I had to spend my day to personally built a few "USRA Legal" RTR chassis from stock bits with the authorized mods: reinforcing brass tube across the front axle brackets, the nylon chassis bolted to the steel body mount and the steel guide pin fitted. All these mods designed for strength, but not performance-enhancing.
Geezers Scott Jarrett and Jim Waterman bought theirs over the counter less than an hour before the race and fitted their own pre-painted bodies, then proceeded to get 2nd and 3rd with the cars. May be I should have sold one of those to myself!

Dennis Hill set the fastest lap with a brilliant 6.63" but tried too hard as usual and ended way down the listing. Paul Sterrett and Sam Brown had second and third fastest times at 6.80" and 6.81". Dennis had the best prepared car under the rules and it handled near perfectly. Now it's just a question of finger management, because one has to DRIVE these things, and if you over-drive them, they let you know... just like a real race car, they need the ultimate smoothness, which ace-driver Duran displayed as he often does in Flexi races where he has been quite dominant.

Slot car racing half-god Mike Steube did a very creditable job for someone who had hardly touched a controller for the past 32 years, save for a brief try 15 years ago attempt at a return. And he had a ball, talking of a possible come-back. He was also able to drive a Group-7 car loaned by all-time good guy Gil Gundersen, and he was quite impressed by the awesome speed and the adrenalin rush!

The standard of presentation of the cars is getting better and better, in a class where a body DOES last beyond a single race, more like the whole season indeed. Mark Halliday ran the only injected body in the race, a hefty Carrera BMW. But this gained him a 10-lap bonus at the end, gaining him 2 spots on the final placing. Newcomer Rick Salvino, a real-life Ferrari aficionado who drives a pair of F360 as regular transportation, improves with each outing and while being the caboose in this race, did a lot better than at his previous effort, which had been his first.

** denotes injected body, with a 10-lap bonus applied.
*** denotes Concours winner

TSRF races are run regularly every Saturday at 4PM if not conflicting with championship USRA events.
Both 1/24 and 1/32 scale races are being run in either IROC or standard format.

Dokk P
(Occasional Moving Chicane)
 

Return to the Race Reports Page