Our Man Fast Dan, Showing his colors!

 

 

Tuesday Bracket races 5-1-12

We had 39 entries and another good night for Fast Dan Sullivan as he won and took a second car to the semis. I managed a runner-up and Doug Jones had the other entry that bowed out in the semis. We had a lot or racers testing for the Nats coming up this weekend. It looks like we will have a good turnout with two days of racing. Doors open at 10 and racing at one. We will be taking a quick break on Sunday morning to go to the model car show in Puyallup. Hey you can never have too many model kits on the shelf! See you this Saturday

Fester

 

 

 

Tuesday Drag Races 4-24-12

 Well I have to say last night was the poorest turnout since the middle of last summer. We had 34 cars entered. I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come. I would hate to hear “Oh to bad we don’t have slot car races around here any more”. If you want the hobby to survive you have to support it! You need to show up and bring some friends or just let us know we are wasting our time. I can race at home and I am sure Jimmy can save money by renting a smaller space. I don’t want to be negative, but we will make or break as a group.

The racers that were at the track had a good time and we had some close racing. Dale Schmidt took the win. He says he has won before, but none of us could remember it. Could he just be dreaming? We had Dale right where we wanted him. I had loaned him a controller and he was red lighting his way to defeat. Then Fast Dan loans him another controller and he goes on a tear. Can you day "dumb shit" Dan? He did a great job at any rate and beat Brandon Colson in the finals. That means Brandon pulled ahead of me in the points. Damn! Fast Dan managed to lose in both rounds of the semis, but maintains the points lead. Larry Altmayer has been under the weather from our reports and has missed the last couple of weeks and is slipping down the point’s sheet. We have just a week and a half until the Popeyes. We hope to see you there.

 

Fester

 

 

Tuesday Drag races 4-17-12

We had forty entries, as a couple of our racers called in sick. All went well and Tim Walker took the win. Brandon was runner up and managed to move up in the points to catch me. Pete and I made it to the semis, so I took a bite out of Fast Dan and Larry’s point lead. Dale was thrilled to make it to the fourth round and is showing signs of life.

We realized that we had added the sealed FX 16-D to the funny car class to make our racers happy and now they are unattainable. Well I guess we will see if we can find another fix.

See you next week. I hope you are all getting ready for the Chicken race in just over two weeks.

Fester

 

    

 

Tuesday Drag Races PSCR 4-10-12

We had a good turnout with 47 entries. Larry Altmayer managed to get back in the hunt by taking a win over Doug Jones. Brandon and Charlie made it to the semis to get back into the points race. We had Roy and Steve come out for the first time in this series as there work schedule finally allowed some free time. So all in all it was a good night of racing.  We are getting ready for the Popeye Nats and we saw some testing for the big event. Hope to see you all next week.

Fester

 

 

 

Saturday Drag Racing 4-7-12

We had a good day of drag racing. I got there in time to listen to the Retro racers while they raced the Can am cars after a birthday party concluded on the Hill Climb. It was a little crowded between the drag racers getting ready and the back section corner marshals but all worked out in the end.

Larry was the big winner taking three of the five heads-up classes. With tug and Roy getting one win each. Fast Dan had the three top cars in the brackets when he beat Dale in the first of the semis and had the other two cars for the second semi. Turned into a pain in the ass hasn’t he.

We decided to add the sealed FX 16-D to the motors legal for our funny car class. Hopefully this will help to even them up.

See you at the Popeye Nats.

Fester

 

  

Tuesday 4-3-12 Drag Night

We had a good turnout with 47 entries as most of the regulars were there. Tug Bowman, our man from Tugco, showed up with some killer new nostalgia cars. Tug had built a front motor dragster, a fuel coupe and a Crosley altered. He built these cars taking advantage of the JDS line of chassis and bodies and a lot of talent and some neat parts and paint. Doug Jones has been working on a Pinto Funny Car for about a month now and the results are proving to be a work of art. It should be finished soon and we will run some pictures. Well Fast Dan managed to be our first two time winner for this series and for the second time, he not only took the win, but the runner up money as well. By doing this he passed Larry for the lead in the points and stretched his margin on me. Can you say “Butt head show off”? Hey, I am not bitter. Dave Collins and I did make it to the Semis but just couldn’t stop Dan. I have to mention that our boy Brandon had three of nine cars going into the fourth round and just could keep it together. Now it was good for an old mans ego to beat the kid. Better luck next time Brandon and I say that like I almost mean it!

Just about all the racers plan on attending this Saturday’s event starting at 5pm. We are expecting a good turnout and some close racing, so get your act together and come race with us.

Fester

 

 

 

 

Tuesday 3-27-12

Hey I was in charge again. They trusted me with the keys to the kingdom. The action started early as Jeff Sweeney and Fast Dan were at the track testing before three. Now for Dan this is unheard of territory as he is usually the last racer to drag his butt into the shop on any race day. Well Jeff and Dan worked on fast cars for the Chicken and Biscuit Nats and seemed to smoke a lot of parts but they were laughing so I guess all went well. I was going to bring some Jagar but realized by coming in early I had to drive myself home, so I was good, this time. Really I just was trying to get Jimmy’s attention.

The racing was good with 41 entries. It seems that we have found a level playing field for we had our fourth winner for four races. Timmy Terrill took the win and the big buck this week with Pete Yamamoto runner up. The practice must have helped Jeff and Dan as they made it to the semis. Now this is nothing new for Fast Dan, but you must realize this is rare air for our professional technician, Mr. “Cupcake” Sweeney. Actually Jeff is a good racer. It is just he would rather be fast then consistent.

The point’s battle is the closest we have had up to this series. Admittedly it is still very early but the wins have been spread and it looks like everyone is ready to fight it out to the end. “Are you feeling lucky punk?” Well let’s see what you got.

Well I get to run the Kid’s races tomorrow night. Then we will do NASCAR on Friday. Hey what could possible go wrong. Oh I can’t get the computer to work on the Twister as Jimmy left the system set up for the King and can not tell me how to change it over the phone. But what else could go wrong? Really!

Fester

 

 

 

 

Tuesday 3/20/12

 It was drag race night at PSCR and we had a good turnout of 43 cars. Jeff had the day off with nothing to do, so getting to the track early, he clean the whole thing. No one had taken the time to so this in a couple of weeks so it was needed. Only problem was all the cars ran faster and there was a rash of break outs. Al least that is the story I am sticking with as to why I didn’t make it out of the second round. But then neither did Jeff (Cupcake).

I loaned my 64 Dodge to Tyler Backus (a new racer) and he takes it to the 4^th round on his first try. He would have made it to the finals except for the clean track. It ran a 1.025 on a 1.050 dial. The fastest it has ever run with a Chinese S-16D motor. Well maybe next week Tyler.

We had another week of being overpowered by one racer as Larry Altmayer took the win and the R/U money with Doug Jones and Jim Hamilton making it to the semis. This is three separate winners in the first three weeks of racing. The spring series is shaping up to be a barn burner.

Doug brought out his new Pinto funny car. It isn’t done yet but the paint is unbelievable. This should be another killer car. Doug has a problem though as he thinks each of his cars should be nicer then the previous one. He is really making it tough on himself as each is a jewel in it self.

I am writing this for my Site www.slotcarbs.com but will also post it on www.pacificslotcarraceways.com and send the results to Drag racing on a smaller scale on Facebook.

Don’t forget I have to run the shop at PSCR next week, so come by and keep me company.

Fester

 

 

 

Tuesday Drag Racing 3/13/12

Now latest nights racing was about as good as it gets. We had 41 entries from about a dozen racers. We gave out the track bucks for the last bracket series, so everyone was checking out the parts counter. Well the really great news last night was I won and had a second car in the semi’s. I went red to Larry by .005 in the semi’s and he repaid the favor in the finals by going red against my other car. It was just one of those nights everything went right. I did well when I needed to and got luck when I screwed up.  There is nothing like luck to make up for a general lack of skill. Well as I said Larry Altmayer was runner-up and Brandon was the second car that got to the semi’s. The big secret of the evening was Doug Jones was trying to hide the fact it was his birthday. We also forgot to call Jeff “Cupcake” (that won’t happen again).

 Jim had got in a large supply of Dremel type tools from Germany and they were trick. Check them out if you get a chance. Jim has got in to the CNC micro machining and has been getting some really neat stuff lately. To bad he doesn’t have time to use any of them. Oh well business being to good isn’t a bad problem to have.  

We were taking T-shirt orders for the Popeye Chicken and Biscuit national. Make sure you get on the list to avoid disappointment. If you can’t get into the shop give Jimmy a call. Get you cars ready as the big race is sneaking up on us.

Well I had better update the points and take a nap. Lots of pressure being Fester.

Don’t forget life is short, pull the trigger!

Uncle Fester

 

 

2011 Taco Nationals

 

The Tacos return! What a great event. It took five plus years and thousands of hours of effort by several individuals to bring back major slot car drag racing to the Puget Sound area. I think the fact we had 279 entries over two days showed it was a success. Was the race perfect? No. Was the race fun? You bet it was. Was it a lot of work? No one would believe me.

 I want to thank all the people that helped make it happen. First and foremost the late Rob McCuiston for having the courage to step up and put his money where is mouth was. He was what allowed us to build a first class facility to race our toy cars. Thanks to Diane McCuistion, Rob’s widow, for helping us continue the dream after we lost Rob. Thanks to Jim Radford for all the untold hours of work that keeps the doors open. He almost lives at the track to make improvements and support the racers just for the love of the hobby (he is more then capable of many things that would actually make him money). Sarah Parris for taking over the running of eliminations along with help from Charrie Sullivan and Kelli Stubb (124 bracket cars in six hours without a staging clock). Dianne, Maurine and Lauren for the great Taco feed. I want to thank the group that traveled to our race and made it so much better by them being there. Thanks to Pro Track, Art Morrison and D&L Chassis for door prizes. Thanks to Jeff and Roy for being available for whatever was needed to make it happen. These and many others are what make it all happen and I love them all.

 We learned some things that will make the next event better. I am not a slot car expert and never told anyone I was. This made for a couple of issues that upset some of our racers. For this you know I am sorry and will do everything in my power to do a better job next time. But for all the racing and personalities it went really well and the high points more then made up for the frustrations for me. We had a couple of winners with a tear or two when receiving their awards. This was the best as you know you help provide these moments. We had a young racer who got the job done with borrowed cars not once but twice by winning in two classes. But most of all we had a lot of laughter. We will do this again and hope the next time it will be even better.

 We had ten different race categories and I will list the winners a little farther on in this report. We gave out eleven trophies, almost $700 in track bucks, participation stickers, a Taco feed and a bunch of door prizes. Our ladies ran a great race with only one or two very minor hick-ups. We had more laughs and smiles then should be legal and made some memories I will never forget. Thanks to all who participated and my sympathy to those who missed it. See you at our next big race in the spring.

DP  

    

Bracket  (124 entries)

   Win    Brandon Colson

   R/U    Steven Ennis

   Semi   Timmy Terrill

   Semi    Phil James 

1.200 Index

    Bob Jones 

1.090 Index

    Charlie Harnes

.990 Index

    Pete Yamamoto

MM/PS

    Brandon Colson

Pro Edge

     Kevin Kosir

Spec

     Don Strong

Funny Car

     Bob Jones

Top Fuel

      Jim Radford

Quick 8

      Roy Dredge

Quick time

      Roy Dredge    .662  

Here is the schedule for the Taco Nationals

  Our weekly race had an excellent turnout with 55 entries. I thought it was an outstanding race as I kind of backed into a win and took the series points lead. I don’t want to have this sound like I am bragging but I don’t get to write this type of report very often so I am taking full advantage of it. Larry Altmayer and I ran off for the win and we did it in style with a double red light. Luck for me he had the slower dial and the first chance to screw up. As we were both racing cars we had bought back in it was all a bonus. Dale Schmidt once again made it to the later rounds along with new comer Crash Lund in a VW bus of all things. It was a fun night with a lot of laughing and talk of the upcoming Taco Nationals. There is a lot of car and motor building going on, as everyone preps for the big race. See you soon!

  We can definitely say the season is in full swing as we had 67 entries in the two classes we ran. Fast Dan Sullivan won both of these classes in a show of power (and a little dumb luck if you ask me) I don’t sound bitter do I. We had Donny Scott come out for the first time in this series and manage a runner-up finish. You know both of these racers are strong. Kevin Kosir and I managed to make it to the semis, with a true showing of ability and sportsmanship, I might add. Oh well there is always next week or should I say about ten more weeks. We ran the 1.090 index race after the Brackets. With and eight car field and a pro two tenths light it was a battle. It just seemed to be Mr. Sullivans night when he took this class also. We had a great time, even if I did have to run the race with Kelli’s help, as the regular crew decided to take the evening off (what could two adult women find to do that’s more fun then drag racing slot cars?). It all went smooth as silk, even if Kelli did have to threaten a few of us for not paying attention.

  It was decided by the group to change the Heads-up racing schedule. We will run the heads-up classes on the first Saturday and third Thursday of the month. This should allow time to get the cars prepped, and help avoid potential burn out. We also changed the Tuesday night start time to 6:30pm to help get people home earlier.

  Hope to see even more of you this Tuesday for our next series installment. Life is short pull the trigger!

Uncle Fester