Race Four - Shootout at Sequoia

Two races in one week is tough, especially when you have cars explode and have to be rebuilt. There was a lot of local testing at Sequoia Friday night, between Pete and myself we both switched arms several times trying to find the set up. When 7PM on Saturday came around all of that effort would, in the words of Yoda; "Matter, or matter not". Pete and I spent the day playing softball, eating BBQ and consuming mass quantities of sodas while doing so at a family reunion. We got home a couple of hours before the race, showered and each got a short nap to be fresh. It didn't really help. The cars were ready but the drivers were still laid out.

Champion was TQ, followed by the 7-11 car driven by Ray. Third was Mears still driving Sarah's car, and 4th was Ron Campbell, who hadn't made much of a showing this series. Pete qualified 6th, I qualified 7th. In the heats for the very first time ever recorded nobody won all of their heats, Pete and Champion could not remember in 25 years of racing that ever happening. But both of them won 2 of 3 and were placed in the A Main. I made the B Main as did Mears. Jose, Ray, Ron and Dan made up the C Main.

Ron and Ray advanced in the C to the B, I finished last in the B because of controller issues, Ray did a good job but only managed 3rd, leaving Ron and Mears to go Make The Show. The A Main had Pete picking his lane last, and at the end that's where he would wind up, in 4th place. He dropped out after 5 of the 25 laps with motor problems. Champion got first lane choice but managed to only finish 3rd also with motor problems. It would seem that neither driver was able to get their armature woes solved in such a short time. With the two major contenders out it was left to Mears and Campbell to sort out top honors for the night. And it was close, but the major horsepower that Pete built into Sarah's #10R was the deciding factor and John won handily.

Points at the end of the day:

1. #10 - 74 points
2. #67 - 64 points
3. #11 - 53 points
4. #10R - 39 points
5. #2m - 37 points
6. #27 - 32 points
7. #69 - 28 points
8. #23s - 13 points

The last 2 races will be double points and will be our version of NASCAR's "The Chase". The top 5 cars will be considered contenders and we will switch to 3 lanes instead of 4 and one car Main transfers.

WOOHOO!!!! The 10R moved up! SWEETNESS! Thanks Mears for piloting the 10R up the ranks! Sounds like a usual day at the races where ANYTHING is possible! Man I wish I had a trip out to the West coast sometime soon - I'd love to swing by and race with you guys. I was scheduled to go to Vancouver, but that got canned last week due to lack of registrations for a class - lots of people cutting back on training dollars, as you can imagine. Any way.......

Awesome racing guys! Is the next track Yoshi's or Mr. Champion's?

Thanks for the race report!!
PD2

The next race will be at Yoshi's.

This series wraps up on July 18th unless there is another rain date involved. It will unfortunately be the last series that the Bakersfield Gang will participate in at Sequoia Speedway due to travel restrictions. I have been paying appearance money to help cover the gas for them, and will continue to do so for the rest of the series. But those funds have exceeded the entre fee's each week at my track by nearly 100%, and the trophy fund is almost depleted as well. With gas in the area now hovering near $2.50 a gallon I simply can't do it for the upcoming summer series. Invitations will be extended, but compensation cannot be.

I will be posting news on the summer T-Jet series, those local racers who will continue to race will be in the decision making process but expect to see 3R wheels and tires under selected DASH bodies.

July 25th is the last race; no race on July 4th.

It's not a slap to Pete or his program, we have completely enjoyed ourselves in all of the series thus far. But driving a round trip of 166 miles when either Pete or Yoshi hosts is tough, and they're hosting 2 out of 3 races, is hard on us. My guys, we all car pool but even then gas in my Fusion still takes just over half a tank up there and back, and that's 12 gallons at $2.60 a gallon. The appearance money helps a great deal but it's still a lot of miles each week.

My shop isn't doing that great either. For the first time in 16 years we've been in the red. And not by just a little, almost into 5 figures. Online and mail order is killing us, we can't compete with the prices from our over the road distributors. The only thing really selling, no lie, are Pete's HO bodies and cars we build up from them. I've already close my Tehachapi store in February, and I'm in the market for a smaller store front now.

I can't say enough for the hospitality we've gotten, but it is a matter of the economics of fun. We're going to finish this series, we owe it to Pete since he did all the bodies and Yoshi built his track, but unless gas prices get back to $1.66 a gallon like they were in January, we simply cannot haul up to Fresno two weekends out of 3 for racing.

I will, however, be building two proxy cars to Pete's Saturday Night T-Jet series for him to use as he chooses, My drivers will be "Bill Dawsonville" and "Rusty Pipes", both Ford drivers. Bill will drive the #21 red Falcon, and Rusty will drive a black #2 Galaxy. When possible I'll show up to check on my "drivers" progress.

I'm really sorry to hear that gas is putting a crimp on the travel to race. For whatever goofy reason, everytime we get to this time of the year (just before Summer) the oil companies feel the need to crank up the barrell of oil on the *thought* (not even proof or fact) of things such as more people will be driving, hence more demand for gas. Or, hurricane season is here and the Gulf is gonna be hit bad, so we better increase the prices. It's unfounded, garbage speculation and the sad part is that it only hurts the consumers - us.

I'm sorry to hear about your store Mr. Champion. The local 1/32 track just recently had to increase the race fees and move to a different location too in order to keep the program going. They too are encouraging everyone to buy everything through the store as much as possible to insure they transition finanically. I can fully totally empathize with what you are going through.

I wish there was something I can do to help all of you out. Just keep the faith and keep believing that we will come out of this soon. I know we will...just a matter of time.

Peace guys.
PD2

Paul I sold my big 1/32nd scale track in November for $15,000, we raced on it twice a year and it was continually needing to be realigned. My 1/24th scale oval is way over due for surfacing, and both my HO tracks haven't seen the action I anticipated before spending the money on them. Plastic model sales are down, but the costs for them are up. Even a Skill Level 1 snap together is $15 now, what parent is going to want to pay for that for their 7-10 year old? R/C sales have been junk for 2 years, and high powered rocketry isn't worth the permits necessary to stock and sell the higher powered motors.

What we have that does great are the 1/18th scale electric carpet racers, the HO scale Outlaws and Late Models and amazingly enough the airsoft stuff. Our carpet track is one of the nicest in the area, we get guys from LA come up to race at some of the events. And of course the HO Outlaws always draw a crowd, especially when cars meet a smokey doom. We just can't keep going like this or in a year we will be done for sure.

^ What he said. It's hard when you have guys all spread out all over the state wanting to race. Man I really want to race this DASH class but I just don't know when I can get both time off and a car done. I priced it out so the expense isn't so much the problem, it's just getting up there man.

Mr. Champion wrote:Paul I sold my big 1/32nd scale track in November for $15,000, we raced on it twice a year and it was continually needing to be realigned. My 1/24th scale oval is way over due for surfacing, and both my HO tracks haven't seen the action I anticipated before spending the money on them. Plastic model sales are down, but the costs for them are up. Even a Skill Level 1 snap together is $15 now, what parent is going to want to pay for that for their 7-10 year old? R/C sales have been junk for 2 years, and high powered rocketry isn't worth the permits necessary to stock and sell the higher powered motors.

What we have that does great are the 1/18th scale electric carpet racers, the HO scale Outlaws and Late Models and amazingly enough the airsoft stuff. Our carpet track is one of the nicest in the area, we get guys from LA come up to race at some of the events. And of course the HO Outlaws always draw a crowd, especially when cars meet a smokey doom. We just can't keep going like this or in a year we will be done for sure.

Man! I remember doing plastic models and you are right - the snap togethers where NEVER that expensive! My parents would grab me two of them to do because I'd get them done too quickly and there is no way they would have spent that much! They used to be no more than $5 or something like that. That is rough Mr. Champion!

Yeah, I came out of R/C - got into it because I remember when I was a kid my family could not afford it. Then it seemed to be more affordable and you are right, within the last 2-4 years it became unaffordable, unless you went to the mini-scales...1/28th or 1/18th. I tried to do that but back when I was trying to get it going here no one was really interested.....even today, it still has a small following. The majority of the Houston racers jump straight into 1/8 buggy and there is no way in hell I'm justifying over $1000 per car hobby! OUCH!

We just need to get out of this funk with the recession or whatever everyone seems to be affraid of and move on. As soon as confidence can return that people know they can spend their cash without the looming fear of loosing their jobs or money we'll be headed back into the right direction. I guess the focus for you, Mr. Champion, is to highlight the less expensive hobbies. People are staying close to home and not doing much for entertainment outside of their home area so they maybe looking for inexpensive hobbies.

The best of luck to you sir!
PD2