We retired the last DNA3 body per Art Carbonell’s suggestion. For the upcoming Homestead race, we will change to Stratus 3.1; 61R/59F, 42 shore all around. We added a degree of camber to the rear; 16/21 pinion; 55/60 spur; red clutch shoe; stock Kyosho clutch bell with .03mm end play for the smoothest engagement possible. Art also pointed out something was wrong with the Nova S12. The old S12 is now retired. We broke out the 353 Race 3CT.

Saturday, March 21 2009 was a practice day at Homestead RC Raceway. With a state series race coming up in two weeks, lots of racers showed up either to work on their cars, break in new engines, or just enjoy driving on the track. Meanwhile, Johnny Wong with the help of lots of friends were busily getting everything ready for the upcoming race.

Clicking on the link below will start up a "Flash" slide show gallery of the weekend's fun. There isn't much to say in way of a race report, but if any of the people running their cars that day care to send me anything, I'll gladly print it here.

Driving up to the track on Saturday, we saw signs directing traffic and some cones past where we turn to go into the track. It looked as if there was something going on at the Speedway today. That brought the excitement level up, even though we were only there to practice.

While practicing at the Homestead track the weekend before the race, we were informed by Doug McNeely (race announcer extraordinaire) that the track would be open Friday afternoon for early practice. Hint. We needed early practice.

Luckily, we had a "doctor’s appointment", so we were able to make two hours of good lap time practice. We expected a good crowd, but did not think so many competitors would be there on Friday. Doug had said rooms were going to be cheap, and he was right. At the end of the day traction was fierce! We had Exceed Brand - 42 rears and 40 fronts. For our Kyosho 1/10th scale, anything softer than 40s would have produced Giovanni’s favorite - the Traction Barrel Roll. He once reported a 10-in-a-row-landed-on-the-tires barrel roll! "Sooo coooool!" was all he could say.

Getting Giovanni's car ready for the Final

It's been ages since I last attended a State Race in Florida. I used to go all the time, to race after race, but back then it was to compete. Taking photos and doing a write-up became more and more a part of what I was doing, but I always managed to do everything including race. Then I got involved in covering a lot of big races, mostly overseas, and I got into the habit of leaving my car at home, just traveling with my camera and laptop.

Having just covered the Florida Winternats, I found myself with a free weekend in early March. Art Carbonell was driving up to Kissimmee to compete in the State Race, and I ended up driving up there with him.

The trip up became mostly a test session checking out two modern GPS units in Art's car. Many years back I had been one of the first people to purchase a Garmin Street Pilot, which put color maps up on a large display, and showed where my car was at any moment in time. It didn't plan routes, read the street names out loud or anything - it was just a basic "street map", but it did what I needed. On this trip we were testing out a Garmin Nuvi 350 and a Navigon 5100. They're nothing like my old unit - but in many ways are far more useful. For navigation, you just enter the address where you want to go, and the GPS acts like a "back street driver" telling you where you are, when to turn, and so on. One of the first things I noticed is that while the GPS "knows" how to get someplace, Art often had his own way of doing things. The GPS would say to turn at the next street, but Art would turn sooner or later, based on past experience. I'm sure both ways would have gotten us where we were going, but the Garmin GPS kept announcing "recalculating" as Art ignored the suggestions and did things his way. The Navigon was quiet about this, only displaying a message on the screen that it was recalculating a new route. My impressions after four hours of use is that both the Garmin and the Navigon are a great tool if you're going someplace you don't already know how to get to. The Garmin has a louder voice, and is easier to use while driving, as there isn't much information on the screen and what is there is quite large. The Navigon shows far more detail, but you don't have enough time to read it while also driving the car. It's great if you have a co-pilot sitting with you. Both are available at discounted prices for not much more than $100 or so, so anyone can afford to buy one nowadays - in the past, the discounted price was $600, and all you really got was an electronic map that also showed where you were.

We arrived in Kissimmee in early afternoon. There were quite a few people out practicing. As the day neared the end, temperatures dropped, traction went up, and everyone wanted to take advantage of the great track conditions at the same time. With about twenty racers there, it got quite busy for a while, but then the sun fell off the horizon, the temperature nosedived, and it soon started getting dark. Time to put away all the toys, head out for dinner, and sleep.

The Racers

Doug McNeely, announcing

Part of the pit area

The Track

My name is Giovanni Woodall, and I am a R/C racecar driver. We were looking for pocket bikes one day, and walked into this one shop where they had some rc buggies and monster trucks. My dad checked that out with the owner, and we bought those instead. My mom was happy since the R/C cars are a lot more safe than the pocket bikes!

We played with the dirt tracks for a while. My dad really liked it. Not so much my mom or sister, and we like to do stuff all together as a family. So we thought we would try some electric on road cars.

Giovanni and his family

Giovanni on the track

With the US economy in the dumps, and the Northern half of the country still dealing with ice, snow, and winter temperatures, one bright spot in the country appeared once again in Ft. Myers, Florida. This was the thirty-third running of the Winternats, and racers and other interested people showed up from all over the world.

Unfortunately, the poor economic conditions did prevent many people from participating this year. Still, 39 racers showed up for the Sedan Class, 28 racers for Master's Class, and 47 racers for the 1/8 Open Class. With two days for practice, three days for qualifying, and the final two days for the main events, the smaller field resulted in a very relaxing schedule, far more enjoyable than the usual crowded conditions where almost two hundred racers try to fit themselves into the program. Most of the racers who participated have been doing this for years, and have lots and lots of experience. Lou Przybyla and Art Carbonell returned to Ft. Myers once again - they both have been racing in 1/8 scale gas ever since the very first cars were produced, back in the late 1960's. The youngest racer at the event was eleven year old Giovainni Woodall, racing in Sedan Class.

Ralph Burch finishing the fastest lap ever at Ft. Myers, while airborne

Start of the 1/8 Open A-Main

Team Red Cup Racing, the guys who put on the race

The IFMAR 1/10th scale electric on-road World Championships were held at Radio Control Speedway (RCS), in Bangkok, Thailand, starting November 13. The 1/12th scale Worlds had just completed two days before, and the track was completely revised for the larger 1/10th scale cars.

Built in 1995, RCS is a wonderful facility, with lots of room for pit tables, race control, and a large, well-stocked hobby shop. Between events, there was a "free day" to change over the track to the new layout. The track people were busy at work, but many racers took advantage of the day to get in some sightseeing or shopping.

The track design allows for easy changes to the layout. The outside track size is sixty meters long by twenty meters wide, which usually provides approximately a 220 meter driving line. The new layout allowed the larger 1/10th scale cars to use t he full length of the straightaway.

The World Championship Track

World Champions enjoying computer racing before the Sedan Worlds started

The Pits

The IFMAR 1/12th scale electric on-road World Championships were held at Radio Control Speedway (RCS), one of the finest on-road R/C tracks in Bangkok, Thailand. Built in 1995, this is a wonderful facility, with a huge indoor area for pits, race control, and a large, well-stocked hobby shop. There are two tracks at the facility. Alongside the building is a large permanent asphalt track. Normally there's also an indoor track, but that area was turned into additional pit space for the teams competing at the Worlds.

The outdoor on-road track is built alongside the facility, just opposite a row of apartment houses. Track size is sixty meters long by twenty meters wide, with a 220 meter driving line. There are 39 racers competing for the 1/12th scale World Championship, from all over the world. IFMAR's President Dallas Mathiesen is here to oversee the event, along with Trevor Reid, the FEMCA President.

Naoto Matukura, 1/12 World Champion

The RCS Track

Atsushi was running a Hot Bodies car, four of which made it into the Final, mixed in with the usual "big names" of the brands of cars most people expected to see win this event. The Final was a great display of racing skill and ability.

Here's a brief summary of the race, as posted on www.neobuggy.net. The full report, along with lots of photos, tech data, and so on can be found there as well. RC Car Magazine (and many others) will certainly have big reports on the event in upcoming issues.

"Starting out Maifield Cavalieri and Truhe were freight training around the track, swapping positions as fuel stops ensued. At the 15min mark Tebo assumed the third spot and continued his run to lead briefly only for Cavalieri to flame out due to overcooked brakes. 20 Minutes in it was AE vs Losi vs OD... the top three of Maifield, True and Tebo fighting to lead and open a tiny gap, only for it to be slammed shut immediately. A few drops of rain fell, but we were fortunate that this didn't develop and dampen the racing, as on track, Hara suddenly came alive as he moved into 3rd. 30-35 mins Savoya was in 3rd but not able to run with Truhe & Maifield due to their pace. With half of the final gone, Truhe had the lead, followed by Maifield, Savoya, Hara & Tebo.

Pit stops funneled through and Hara and Maifield start battling crazy on track, inside outside passes, jumping past, fantastic to watch! 30-40mins in the trio of leaders continually swap positions for the next 15mins. Now with 10mins to go, the crowd are on their feet, fog horns bellowing around the track, a amphiteatre of excitement! Hara Maifield and Truhe are still matching each other, that is until Maifield flames on lap 72 of 79 and puts him out of contention, this gifts 3rd place to Savoya who has fought hard to establish himself in front of the chasing pack. 4 mins to go and Hara starts to take it easy, he has a 12.3 sec lead from Truhe, but Truhe slices through this but it wasn't enough to catch Atsushi 'Maximum Best' Hara who claims the 2008 IFMAR World Championship @ the Farm II."

Again, for the full report, go to www.neobuggy.net!

Also, check out Item #199 in the Backtalk Off-Road Conference here at Starting Grid, which is now up to almost 5000 responses discussing this event!

Click on image for larger view!

Dave Masler from Buku Performance Products showed me a new exhaust pipe he has been developing. Since it has no "moving" parts (the parts don't move when the car is being driven) it should be legal for most forms of competition, but since it's a two-chamber pipe, it is more suited to racing in the USA than abroad. The following is a summary of Dave's explanation of how the pipe works, and how it can be fine tuned for any application.

A prototype on-road BuKu pipe, complete

The following four videos were taken at 301 Raceway during the recent National Championships in September, 2008. They show the start and some action during the Final when Chris Whitney was racing himself. All of them were taken with a Canon Pro1 digital camera, mostly to create a video copy of the event to go along with all the still photos I was taking.

I plan to do this more in the future, but will use a real video camera next time. I used to post these videos in the past, but could only do so by uploading a huge file to the server, which took people forever to download so they could view the video. With Youtube it's much easier, and faster for people to see the videos. I need to find out how to post higher resolution videos, so people can see more detail when playing them back. In the meantime, here are the four videos; they're short, as when I filmed them, I didn't want people to have to wait forever while downloading a huge file. As it turns out, doing this with Youtube this isn't a problem. I'll keep that in mind for the next time I do this. (If anyone has posted videos of this race on Youtube, and would like to see them included below, just send me the information on how to find your video, and I'll add it below.)

While at the Final Showdown in Boulder, between taking notes and taking photos, I put everything down for a few minutes to make a quick video of the track action during the Finals. It's short, but it's long enough to show what the racing was like.

My name is Michael Palazzola, I have been around RC since I can remember (since I was about five years old). My dad used to race, and I would go out to the track with him and run around flipping over his car and filling it up with gas. He stopped for a while, and then a few years later he got back in to R/C cars. He got me an electric dual sport from Team Associated that I would play with in front of my house. When I was about eight or nine my dad got us a Nitro Dual Sport that we would take to the track and drive around together. We made a game between us, that when one of us would crash, he would have to hand the transmitter over and let the other person drive till they crashed. We tried to drive as fast as the car would let us.

We then took a break for a few years. We decided to start racing again. When I was eleven, I started racing off-road. I ran off-road for about five years. I did pretty well at some big races like the Hot Rod Hobbies Shoot Out. I won the Sportsman Gas Truck Class when I was eleven. I must have run 1000 laps practicing on that layout!

Michael with his Pitman (dad!)