Recap: West Coast Touring Car King's Race @ Marin R/C 9/27-28

The Marin R/C West Coast Touring Car King's Race turned out to be an awesome 2-day event and thanks go out to all who set it up, and a big congratulations to those who placed in all classes!!

Recap provided by club member Justin "Catalyst" Bowden (Who placed 2nd in a stacked 17.5 class!! Congrats!):

"Thanks again to Jesse and crew who put on a really unique race format that was the most fun and best competition for any race I've personally been involved with! Those that missed the race really missed out. Competition was thick in all classes and even with money on the line, and talent in the entire field - there were no problems whatsoever. It was well organized, and everyone in attendance appeared to be having a great time!

Time Trials were a great idea and hopefully this becomes something done on the club level more often. It raised the bar for events to come and despite the competitive spirit of the racers, it actually seemed to build some comraderie between racers as we all stood and cheered each driver on.

Cash prizes were thought by some to possibly bring out the worst in racers but this wasn't even an issue. All those in attendance were serious but there were no issues in tech, no problems with attitudes on the track, clean racing, and even with a couple early computer glitches - people just rolled with it and kept in the spirit of having a good time!

Track records were shattered - and for me personally, I broke into laptimes I've never ran. Track conditions were excellent on Sunday and Jesse is a master of knowing how to get the right balance for fast lap times. Even in practice - seeing some of California's best put in insanely fast laps was quite the spectacle!

The apple crisp changed lives! It was great to see the racers being shown appreciation for supporting the local venue.

Congratulations to all those who made the podium! Jeremy was the man to beat all weekend in 17.5 and never fell of his pace. Lex had a seriously hooked up car and his line amazes me. He showed up with the crown and is a local King! EJ - wow what a main in 10.5...seeing you KJ and Jesse start with inches between you all for a few laps blew my mind! MiniMod ran strong all weekend and gave everyone serious competition and placed in both 10.5 and 13.5 to back up his TQ from the Time Trials.

Thanks again for offering such a great event with Special thanks to Jesse Stark, Christian and Marin R/C, Joe Nolasco with live webcam, sound, organization and all, Blake and 707paint.net for donating the awesome bodies, ABR for hooking up the baker to serve us up apple crisp, and a quick shout to Mendoza for being cool and watching his significant other fill in for the no show trophy girl!"

Videos of the A-Mains (courtesy of "ZoomZoomer" - www.rcracing.com boards):

10.5 Qualifier featuring KevinJ, EJ Evan and Lex Tyler

10.5 A-Main

17.5 A-Main

For more photos, check out this thread on the RCRacing message boards.

New Product: Traxxas Slash Todd LeDuc (Rockstar) "wrap".

Upgrade RC (the makers of our BAP-RC Club decals) recently released a new Todd LeDuc (Rockstar) replica "wrap" for the Traxxas Slash. This is yet another option for Slash owners looking to give their ride a custom look, and something that will set them apart from all the other's running the stock red/blue bodies.

West Coast Touring Car King's Race @ Marin R/C 9/27-28

Marin R/C in San Rafael California is hosting their 2 day event the weekend of September 27th and 28th. This is a Touring Car only onroad racing event that is really going to be the premier race for this facility this year. Track Director Jesse Stark has been cooking up some new, never seen format options and fellow R/C enthusiast Joe Nolasco is working on entertainment with music and a earth shaking sound system.

What's new in this format? Well here's a statement from Jesse regarding how this race will be run over the two day weekend:

"When I starting thinking about the idea of putting this race together, my first thought was we need a 2 day race at Marin at some point this year because we need some sort of signature race. For the most part, the Marin track has really established itself and has had a steady amount of entries through out the whole year and I'm very thankful for all the racers who have been so supportive and I know I'm speaking for the guys at the shop also who appreciate the good racing we've been having too. I just wanted to do something different than the same old format I've been seeing for the past 15 years. I kicked around some ideas about having quarterfinals, semi-finals and mains like BMX or Motocross does and taking the top 4 of each heat instead of the usual "race against the 5 minute clock" we all use in RC now. Probably a little to much for me to handle something like that right now, but maybe down the road I will develop that idea into something. So until then I came up with this. We all have raced for trophies before, so I wanted to step it up to a money race. We all have done 3 quals and a main before, so I wanted to step it up to individual time trails."

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Here is the format:

Classes:
Stock 17.5 Sedan (Sportsman)
Super Stock 13.5 Sedan (Expert)
Spec Mod 10.5 Sedan

Saturday:
Open practice from 9:00am-11:30am

Individual Time Trials 12:00pm

First round of individual time trials will start at noon beginning with 17.5. Each driver will hit the track solo for 8-10 laps. We will take your single best lap time out of those laps. There will be a total of 2 rounds of Individual Time Trials for the 3 classes followed by 1 Round of Qualifying on Saturday

(i.e. - Let's say you are racing 13.5 and your single best lap time in the trials is a 12.7. That 12.7 might be 3rd fastest overall out of let's say 20 drivers on Saturday. You earned yourself a "3 seed". You will start 3rd on the grid in the first 2 rounds of qualifying. There will be 2 rounds of individual time trials. If you don't improve your lap time in the 2nd round, your single best lap time is what is seeded regardless of which round of trials it's from)

Whoever TQ's the Saturday Time Trials in each class will win a free painted sedan body donated by a premier painter on the West Coast - Blake Cannon from 707paint.net!!!

Sunday:
Open practice 8:30-9:50

3 total Rounds of Qualfying 10:00

The racers who show up on Sunday only will be seeded to the back for that 1st Round of Qualifying on Sunday mourning. There will be a re-sort after that round to update the Qualifying Heats.

After Qualifying is completed the Mains will be run based on those results.

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This will truly be a do not miss event in the bay area for 1:10 scale onroad Touring Car racing. Not only is the format unique but there is an added bonus...Ca$h Prizes to be paid to top 3 places in each class. Yes that's correct - Cash Prizes!!!

In addition there are some Sponsors for this race including the host Marin R/C, Schumacher U.S.A, 707Paint.net and NorCalRC.com.

For more information you can follow the thread on RCRacing.com or call the Marin R/C shop at (415) 454-0122‎.

Hope to see everyone out there!

-Catalyst

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Slash 2 Hour Enduro Race: Sat. Sep. 20, 3:00PM @NorCal Hobbies

If you haven't heard by now, this Saturday afternoon, there will be an event like none other in the Bay Area taking place at NorCal Hobbies in Union City. The event will be a 2 hour Traxxas Slash Enduro Race that will consist of (at least) 3 man teams. You can check out the rules in the flier below. Be sure to come down and be a part of the fun - whether you wish to join in, or just check out the non-stop action - it's sure to be a blast!! Team BAPRC will be fielding a team for this race, so root us on!! There will also be a raffle for a brand new Traxxas Slash that anyone can purchase tickets for.


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Off-Road Racing Report: NorCal Hobbies 09/13/08

Hey there all, we had a great time at norcal Saturday! I pitted with Pigiron (thanks for letting me have a table PI!) and Fabrc brought his air compressor by (totally useful, thanks man!) Darksoul was also there (great chatting with you and frank!). There were A LOT of people there yesterday, I left a little after 5pm and they still had mains to run!



The new addition to the track, called the "rythm section", is a series of 6 mini jumps right after the hairpin that leads into the step down jump. This was pretty painful in every class. Things got really shaken up and we saw what usually are the fastest cars on the track (4wd mods) lose out to the 2wd 13.5 drivers - I think those bumps really changed everyone's game.

The slashes actually handled it well since they had some good ground clearance. The 4wd mod class had it pretty bad since you could get stuck on the apex of the mini jump and be stuck there spinning your wheels! The jumps were hard to master but at some point everyone KNEW what to do, doing it consistently was the difficult part.

Double-double-double was the easiest way to tackle it, but if you missed that first double, you were either on your lid or singling the next 4 or 5 little jumps. It was pretty brutal. some of the pros were triple-tripling it, but even they could not do it every lap so a lot of time was lost there.

Slash
Darksoul, Pigiron and I all raced slash. This was fun as usual! They combined the mains into one big 10-car main, which I think is still too many slashes on the track at once. With a handful of really good pro-level drivers and so much traffic to contend with, it's just a lot of big trucks to have to deal with. I am not sure how the other guys placed, but I managed to come from dead last and finish 5th.

The guy to beat in slash was James Arluck. He's definitely a seasoned expert on the track, but his slash was really fast! he was running the 23t pinion, but the power was there to really take him over the jumps, and far! I actually had a 19t pinion (from the 23t) for the added torque and Arluck's looked like it had even more! This seems to substantiate the claims I have read in other forums that the quality of the titan motors can vary greatly. This was only my 4th outing with the slash and my motor is feeling way sluggish.

Work had me super slammed all week so I didn't get to do the overhaul I wanted on my cars (again!) but i burned the midnight oil to completely clean out out the slash, re-lube the transmission and rebuild all the shocks with new o-rings. I made some minor tweaks to the front suspension (heavier oil) and I loved the way it handled. I just need more speed out of that titan motor!

My suggestion for the slash: break in a few motors (use the water break in) and test which is faster. I'm going to break in my spare motor and maybe get another, break that in and test before I race slash again - I dont have a lot of runs on my current motor, I broke it in and i clean and lube it before every race, but it's feeling slow - hopefully the other motor works better.

Rookie
PigIron rocked it in rookie with his Losi XXX-CR - he did great! He didn't get much practice time because he broke a caster block. Super prepared with some spares, he made the fix and did fairly well in the qualifiers. He really turned up the heat in the main with some solid and steady driving that sealed him a 2nd place finish! Congrats PigIron!

We had been discussing earlier in the day about how rookie is actually pretty difficult as there are some seasoned rookies in there as well as the really novice drivers. some on road folks start out in rookie even though they have excellent driving skills and some rookies have been in there for a while. The difficult thing is there isn't an easy graduation point from rookie. For example, any rookie with a 4wd automatically goes to 4wd mod, one of the more competitive classes at the track (hence me being thrown into the fray ) - it would be great if there was a middle stage, some sort of sportsman level for 2wd and 4wd, where you are better than rookie, but not having to battle it out with the pro level drivers right from the start.

PigIron also took a few laps with the Golden Fox (his TC4) on the on-road course in preparation for the Sunday Marin event, his setup looked solid!

4WD Mod
4WD Mod was fun, but hard! I hadn't had any practice time from my rookie race a few weekends ago and I was anticipating being pretty slow - and I was! I started to feel a bit battered by the time the mains came as I just couldn't break out of rookie driving habits. slow-n-steady doesn't win races in 4wd mod

I ended up in the C-Main and had decided that I would just drive as aggressively as possible (for me) - not try and fly off the track or anything, but really push harder than I have in past races. this mental shift really paid off! I was clearing the front triples consistently and I was finally going full throttle on the back straight. I ended up in a battle for first with Brice Arnold- lot's of lead changes and really aggressive driving by both of us. It was really fun and totally exhilarating. I actually felt some freedom to push it once I started to clear the triples and not worry about breaking. I managed to hang on to the lead and it really made my day - I had thoughts in qualifying that I didnt belong in 4wd mod but this race really was fun! I wish I had driven as hard during qualifying, and certainly will push it harder now that I've broken through that mental barrier.

Another great day at the track. Thanks again Pigiron for the awesome pit area, we had a few guys out there representing the club (Fabrc, Darksoul, Pigiron)! I cant wait for the next one!
-Michelangelo "Hopbot"

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Recap: Slash Bash @ Mother's Raceway - 9/10/08

Thanks to everyone for coming out! It was nice to see some newer faces and other Club members (Marco "PigIron", Jessie "Wharthog", Steve "Badboy", & Armand "faboulousRC") Turnout was a little low due to a few regulars being busy - in addition to a few others having to cancel last minute -We missed you guys!! It was still a great time out.
If we continue to see a strong Slash presence, we'll have to try and incorporate some new jumps designed for that size vehicle - the tabletop we were using was from our 1/18 scale Spec Class - so it got a little more abuse than it was designed for.
We'll also need to bring out an additional set of lights since the days are definitely getting shorter now.

Hope to see you all at the next one! You can find more pictures here.

Racing Report: GroundPounders Club Event - September 7th, 2008

The GroundPounders event on September 7th was a blast! I headed out very, very early on Sunday morning and met fellow club member Justin (aka: Catalyst) at his place to carpool up to Windsor CA, where the GP Club holds their monthly races. They put on quite a good event. Apparently, the turnout was one of the best in recent times with 118 entries! There were 21 different races with various on-road electric and nitro cars including: oval, touring cars and pan cars just to name a few - and of course, the featured Traxxas Slash race. There were three different jumps and roughly 16 slashes bumbling around the track! It made for fantastic entertainment for the crowd of people that had gathered throughout the day to watch the racing. The winner received an enormous trophy!The BAPRC Club had a strong showing. Marco (PigIron) took the win in Novice Oval, while I (Bryan aka "B-Dog") and Catalyst won the Novice Electric Touring Car and Slash B-Main (which bumped him into the A-Main) respectively. Everyone at the event was very friendly and helpful, which provided a great atmoshpere. All in all it was an awesome day of racing and we are all looking forward to the next one! Thanks again to everyone involved.

While there aren't a ton, you can check out the rest of the pictures here.

Meet Up Tomorrow Evening, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 7:00PM

Hey All,

We will be meeting up tomorrow evening at Mother's Raceway in Foster City at 7:00PM. The track will be open for general driving and we will have a good group of Slashes out there as well.

To find out more information, check the boards here.

As always, please feel free to come down and either participate or just check out the fun!

New Product: Pro-Line Desert Rat for Traxxas Slash

Here comes the flood! This is the second body option Pro-line has thrown out there for avid Slash owners in less than a month. Slash races are going to start looking just like the real thing soon.Straight from the Pro-Line site:

"The Desert Rat reaps in that bold, off-road desert look. It’s extremely pronounced fenders give it an attack-like stance, low profile styling make for fast straight-line speed, and it’s equipped with simulated side mirrors just like the full-scale Trophy trucks. Exceptional detail throughout including bed shrouding, radiator and extreme shock detail including reservoirs just behind the cab. And not too worry it’s made from genuine GE .040 thick lexan, so it’s as durable as the punishment you throw at it."


Price: $35.00Thanks to Knytemare for the heads up.

Off-Road Racing Report: NorCal Hobbies 08/30/08

This last race day at Norcal Hobbies was absolutely awesome! I pitted with B-dog, which was a blast! Lots of people are recognizing the shirts now. We pitted just across the table from some nice guys who have seen the BAPRCC shirts up at Marin RC and had some great things to say about our on-road racer Catalyst - who is building quite a name for himself on the asphalt, go Cat!

The day was just phenomenal! Definitely the best race day I have ever had! I didn't get a chance to do my normal tear downs of the B44 and Slash during the week, so I wasn't feeling too confident when we arrived. I hit the track as soon as possible to practice and get the B44 and slash dialed - I raced Rookie and Slash classes again.

Rookie Class
With the B44, I managed to pull 1st place in the first rookie qualifier, and 2nd place in the second one. I ended up taking 1st in the rookie a main - a lap and a half up on second place! Man, that is the best I have ever done! Still not amazing lap times, but during the qualifiers John Hicks (the announcer) told me it was time to move out of rookie and race with the big boys, so I will be in 4wd mod the next time I race there. Wow, I am stoked! While my lap times are good for rookie, I need to shave off at least 5 seconds to even have a chance at the top 5 spots in 4wd mod, so I got a lot of learning to do! I'm just so totally happy, it's ridiculous

Here's a video B-Dog took of the Rookie A-Main race:


Slash Class
With the Slash, I was feeling way better on the track compared to the last few times out - I'm finally learning to adjust my style and not drive it like the B44 all the time Before the weekend and inspired by club member Badger, I took a lot of cans of Tamiya paint and painted over the stock Slash body - this grabbed a lot of attention on the track as it stood out and actually ended up feeling sort of CORR-style. thanks for the idea Badger!



I managed a 3rd place finish with the Slash in the second qualifier, which felt great. That put me in the pole position for the B-main (we had lots of Slashes as usual, so we ended up with A and B mains) - I was totally happy with this as I usually have a pretty poor showing with the Slash.

B-Dog pulled in a second place finish in qualifying after making some suspension changes - he's really taken to the Slash class and has progressed quickly over the last few races. While some house transponder issues plagued him, he solidified a spot in the Slash A-Main! Congrats B-Dog!


The 1st and 2nd finishers from the B-Main would get bumped into the A-Main so that put the pressure on a bit as I really wanted to get bumped up. I tried to drive clean and stay away from any tangles on the track and it paid off - I finished 1st and got bumped into the A main! Man, i would have never imagined it, especially not with the Slash. Lot's of awesome drivers to contend with in the A-main, including B-Dog! I managed a 5th place finish with B-Dog coming close after me in 7th. I am stoked about this considering the talent in that race - watch out for Team BAPRC!

All in all, an amazing day! Once again, it was awesome pitting with B-dog. Club member fabulousRC was also on the track that day and Fullmetalgrave and Nacho2oo2 made it out to watch. We also added a new member, Darksoul, who races in the Slash class as well and is the guy to chat with if you are into large scale RC (1/8 scale and bigger)!

Watch out 4wd mod class, I'll be tearing it up from last place for a while