The Sport/motorsport of remote control auto racing

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I just started working on the race report last night and I am almost finished with it. I will keep you posted

I have finished the race report. I will try to post this on teamxray.com. In this report there are racers that run my brand of car, Xray. I will be reporting on those racers as well. Anyway here it is, the race report of the Montonica Grand Prix.


Montonica Grand Prix;

Race report by Lee Passehl.

The Greater Los Angeles Radio Control Racing Club (GLARCRC) gladly hosted the 2011 Montonica Grand Prix at the Artesia Transit Center, in Gardena, California, of the United States of America on May 13-15 2011. Racers attending were from Las Vegas, Northern California, Southern California, and Hawaii which team driver Mike Swauger, would be representing. People from different walks of life, young and old, came out to watch the races or just get a curious glance of the weekend’s events. There was even was a family from Baja Mexico that came out to watch the mains and kicked around a soccer ball between heats. There were numerous classes such 1/8th scale on road and 1/10th scale sedan which offered a Sportsman division, for racers starting out in nitro powered racing or amateurs trying to gain more experience. There also was and expert division for racers gradating from sportsman, as well as factory racers. There was also a 1/5th scale class offered at the event. The track was setup on Thursday the 12th of May to get ready for the weekends competition.

Practice: (May 13)

A few weekends ago my father (Don Passehl) and I were having difficulties with the clutch and getting it to shift properly, however my dad and I got some help from to the local racers and we were able to get the car to shift well down the backstretch on the first practice run. After that we worked on tires and setup. The car was understeering on throttle which we kept dial more and more out. At the end of the day the Xray NT1 still had an understeering problem, however my Father and I got the car to steer to a point where it was much more tolerable than in previous weeks.

Mike Swauger with his RX8 was the fast man in practice and of all the classes from the very start all day long. He drove with power and grace and weaved his way through slower (and bigger) cars and traffic while tuning and tweaking his ride between runs. Scott Fischer (nicknamed “Johnny Bravo” by his fellow racers) was also fast in practice and his Xray NT1 was hooked up as well.

Qualifying: (May 14)

1/10th Sedan expert.


In the first Qualifier Scott Fischer was struggling to keep up with the leader, he did get close at some points however he still struggled a bit to forge ahead of the front runner. The top qualifier decided to sit out the last round of Qualifying for the day and Scotty had a chance to pull ahead however he ended up more than a second behind TQ. Throughout my 3 qualifying rounds of the day, my first qualifier I got held up a bit in slow traffic and ended up 4th. The next round I had a loose shock during my warm up run, that wasn’t screwed on that caused my car to not turn on left-handers. It took my pit crew 4 minutes to run back to the pits and get the right shim for the shock hole and I did not get out onto the track until 46 seconds after the race started. I made up ground but I ended up with the 5th fastest time and still 4th overall. The last qualifier was the best. With a minute and a half into the race I was being held up by two slower racers but when I got by them two laps later, I turned on the heat and ran 18 second laps for the remainder of the qualifier and qualified 3rd overall.

1/8th On road

Mike had some trouble in his first run. Swauger was on a TQ run and was driving his usual best. There was a piece of paper that was floating around on the backstretch and a man ran out onto the track to pick it up. He did not see Mike coming down the straight and Mike hit the man in the ankle at 60 MPH causing his car skid upside down 40 feet down the backstretch. However, everyone else was more concerned about the person who was hit by Mike’s car and the qualifier was stopped and the man had to be carried of the track ever so slowly, the heat was later moved to the end of the round. At the end of the day, Mike Swauger would end up qualifying 2nd overall coming into the main event.

A main finals (May 15)

It rained early in the morning so racing was postponed a few hours and racing did not start until around noon. Once the mains started the track had dried off and there were no car sliding around uncontrollably which made me feel much better about competing in the A main event,

1/10th Sedan Expert.

Scott Fischer and I got off to a great start with the front 3 cars (The leader, Scott Fischer, and me) breaking away from the pack. With ten minutes into the race the top three racers were pretty much spread out. With 20 minutes into the race the leader was having trouble with his car shifting down the backstretch causing one of his gears to strip. This gave Scott Fisher the lead and me second. With 10 minutes to go, my car for some reason shut down coming onto the straightaway and my crew had to rush onto the track to get my car fired up again, which I ended up losing my 2nd place position but I was still feeling pretty happy with how well I was doing. As the race ended, Scott Fischer would end up taking the win with me finishing in 3rd.

My dad and I had also signed a form for the Byron’s Fuel Contingency Program where I would end up coming in 3rd wining some money, so I felt pretty good about my finish.

1/8th On Road.

Mike took the lead on the very first lap and looked like he would go on to take home the championship. Mike was driving his hardest and most consistent and getting through traffic well and there were no signs of him slowing down. With 30 minutes into the race, Mike’s car shut down and his team was not able to get it running again.

Mike Strack, who ran an Xray RX8 as well, started in the D main and worked his way up to earn spot in the A main final while driving patiently and consistent. A lot of racers were proud of him at the end of the day.

The Montonica Grand Prix was an awesome event, even though it was very windy and there were a few dust devils that went by. (I was caught up in one, LOL!) It still was a successful event and our fellow Xray racers did well and I hope to see many of them in the near future and race with them again.

My next race is going to be in San Jose,CA for round one of the California State Nitro Series this June 4-5th I will keep you posted, on race updates.

Update, round 1 of the California state series has been canceled due to bad weather, the race will be rescheduled for July 16-17. Thank you.

my hope for you is that one day you get to drive a ferrari formula one car around the monaco grand prix circuit.
keep racing.

Thanks danandlouie.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's ever going to happen. They look for racers as young as 9 for that type of racing while they move up the rankings (Go kart, GP3, GP2, F1), i'm 26 and I think that's way past me now.

Besides i have no desire to race a full scale car today, I did when i was younger because that's all i every wanted to do, but now since I race RC cars this is all I want to do.I want the help the sport grow, and I would like the sport to to become as big one day as full scale racing (like NASCAR, F1, WRC) because you don't need a license to drive (maybe in some countries when racing in the higher rankings like in gran turismo) and all you need is a car and an open space (for off road cars-your backyard, and for on road cars a parking lot will do). It can get pretty expensive at some times but compared to full scale racing it's a lot more accessible, and i would like to help make it more accessible to other people.

My next big goal is for me is to try to become a 100% sponsored racer, this can happen but my dad and I would have to learn to setup our car much better and do very well in some of the bigger races, we would also have to spend more on engines and parts.

Louis Hamilton raced RC cars before he started running go karts and then after that, Formula 1. Kyle Busch ( a racer in the NASCAR Nextel Sprint Cup) ran RC cars before he started running real cars. So it can be a training tool for real car racing.

There are 56 countries that race Radio Control cars and there are 2,000,000 racers around the world according to a Japanese RC Magazine. So I think that's pretty cool and I'm proud to be part of.

-Lee

My next race is the FG supply 1/5th scale race. FG is the manfacture of these cars and is sponsoring the race. These cars are 5 times as big as the cars that I am running now. They run chainsaw engines, and run real gasoline with a mixture of oil. Someone has offered me to drive one of these cars in this race, i do not own one of these cars. More details about this race is to come soon.

I will take some time to explain the FG Supply Grand Prix. This race will be held in the Greater Los Angeles area on June 24th-25th, These are cars that are four feet long and are much bigger than what I am racing right now, which is 1/10th scale sedan. Which is the size of a shoebox. These type of cars run on a mixture of regular Gasoline and oil and run a modified version of a chainsaw engine. The car I am running is Rear Wheel Drive, opposed to my smaller car which is Four Wheel Drive. These cars travel much slower than my 1/10th scale nitro sedan but are much harder to control, they are similar to driving a full scale car. If you get too aggressive on the throttle, you will spin out. The races are 30 minutes in length with no pit stops because these cars can go thirty minutes without refueling. Here is a picture of what the cars look like



Here is a Picture of what a 1/5th Scale looks like next to an ordinary man. (note. I will not be racing Formula 1, I will be racing touring car sedan)

mine, though i mostly drift it.

(hah!)

hah?
anyhow this was my old shell

Is that an HPI Nitro RS4? That's awesome because I had one when I was 12 years old. I used to play with it in my front driveway and I ran a race with it once. It had a Porsche GT1 body shell and it was pretty fast for it's day. I love the BMW shell!

Update. The first round of the California state nitro series has been rescheduled to July 9-10. After that race will be the tamiya America 6 hour mini enduro. I will get into details about these races soon. Thank you

Yesterday I competed in the FG Supply Grand Prix, I was top qualifier and I won! I will get to work on the race report as soon as possible. Thank you.

Congrats!

Thanks MXH! I have just finished my rough draft of the FG Supply Grand Prix race report. I will work on editing it tomorrow.