On Friday night the HRW DIRT SERIES got under way with race #2 at the Heller Motorsports Complex. Taking to the track were 4 divisions totaling 22 cars. The break down by class was Late Model 6, Sprint car 6, Vintage Modified 6, Asphalt Modified 4,The use of the old DOS version of Trakmate was a good choose as it made score keeping a bit easier than last years’ event. This years’ event saw 2 new throttle jockeys in the form of Kevin and Dana. A good choice on the part of HMC COO Chuck Heller as both Kevin and Dana have wicked quick reactions.

The Nitro Express entry

Came across this in one of the slot car forums. Pretty neat car.

USAC stock car.

Brion.

Checking links today and found ;
Big poppas garage shut down, The Vintage Racer is changing it’s name to American Racing History, Race Fan Radio now offers a PODCAST.

The links page at SCORE has been updated and added a couple of new links. If your into dirt Modifieds from the 60’s and 70’s check out Slot Car Fever’s selection of decals. They have a lot of variety.

Brion.

Hey KM the server you emailed from is blocking my response email. So here goes.

Glad to here others are racing 1:24 Sprint Cars and Late Models. I’ve run on a track very similar to what you described. It is a fun track and can be flat out depending on the cars and voltage. A track that is flat will generally be tougher to drive, each have their pluses and minuses. What does the rest of your group want to do with the track? Don’t forget to consider what the group has to say. If your looking for more even competitive competition you might consider changing the voltage to the track or knocking down the voltage to the fast lanes, try to get all the lanes so a single car will do about the same time in each lane. Or you could Round Robin style races, that way everyone has to deal with the same track conditions through the course of a race. Hope this answers your question.

Brion.

IT’S ALIVE!!!!!! (think Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein). Pit Road Raceway came to life Tuesday night as the taping of the lanes was finished up and the large blade switch was engaged sending 12volts of raw, pulsating power coursing through it’s veins. All the regulars showed up to help move this project forward. I thank everyone for their help to complete the track in time for the SCORE season opener and Chuck and Joanne for hosting the track and also a thank you to Dana for rescuing the track the dumpster. It’s been a bit of a long haul so far but the finish line is just up ahead. I hope a Bug Day can be scheduled before the race season opener to season the new surface a bit and get our cars and fingers in shape for the upcoming season.

Hope to see you all soon,

Brion.

BRING CARS!!!!!!……..Ha-Ha fooled ya. Mike and Kate stopped by and helped for awhile, thank you. We stripped the bad paint, sanded the surface and cleaned it in prep for the new paint. The new paint went on quick and showed signs of drying in the first 15 – 20 minutes. One coat would probably have done it but my lousy painting skill will need to be fixed and a second coat should hide..er, straighten it out. Chuck will put on a second coat Sunday night or sometime Monday and hopefully Tuesday night we will be taping, so if all goes well you may want to bring cars just in case. The Switch Circuit still needs to be put in and that will also be on the schedule Tuesday.

Monday I will try to stop by Roads’ shop and pick up the power supplies, one of which will power the switches. Chuck will be shooting me an email at some point with an update on how the paint is doing. Never thought paint drying would be so interesting. Hope to see you all Tuesday.

Brion.

09/03/2007 From Dirt Country

O.K. First blog, here goes.
Update on the Pit Road Raceway V rebuild. The final name still is up in the air. I choose Pit Road V as a working title simply because there was no talk of a official track name and I didn’t know what to refer to it as. The track dimension are 10’ x 20’, with an approximate average length of 41’per lane, the biggest track currently on the SCORE schedule. The scale 1/5 mile truly does qualify it as a Bull Ring but it looks deceivingly big for the 1/25th scale 1/5th mile designation. . To date the frame has been built and the track surface attached. Quite a bit of work had to be done to align the slots as the original track had the slots on the straights cut using a 16’ long piece of 2”x6” lumber as a cutting guide. This gave the straights a slight curve.
The straights originate from the Stony Creek rebuild in 1993 with the overall dimensions of the track ending up about 28’ x 12’. Rebuild is kind of a misnomer as only the 4’ x 10’ plywood turns were retained from the previous version of the track named Jiff Lube Speedway that was located in Birdsboro, Pa. This meant building a new track around the rather unique turns that resemble the turns of the Indianapolis Speedway and were cut with eye to try to slow down the inner lanes, as the inner lanes usually have the advantage of less distance to cover in the course of lap. It was hoped the tight inner radius of the lane 1 and 2 would cut down on the run away wins in these lanes, It worked as most of the wins came from lanes 3 and 4 followed by 2. 5, 1, than 6. A couple of drivers did bag segment wins from lane 6 but it was usually only the Wiley veterans who could pull it off. Lane 6 at Pit Road Raceway when the track was located at either Stony Creek or Mount Penn was a hairy ride on the edge that was often a coin toss weather it end in a spectacular crash or a decent segment finish. A win from lane six often pointed to the “man to beat” on any particular night.
Well enough for today. More work is to be done on the track tomorrow night. I’ll try to post some pictures.