December 21, 2025 | Jim Kostinden December 20, 2025 “The Lenjet All Star Race” The 4th race of the ECO 2025-2026 race season was also the last race for 2025. While it was the last race for 2025, we also had the first inaugural ECO TFX race. TFX is a new class that was voted in earlier this year during the annual ECO club meeting. In recognition of the first TFX race and with Christmas just around the corner, following is a TFX race song as sung to Jingle Bells… Dashing down the straight, With my TFX on race day. Through the esses we go, Handling all the way. Listen to that TFX arm ring, Making lap times so fast. Oh what fun it is to race and sing, “I will not finish LAST!” T-F-X, T-F-X, TFX on race day. Oh what fun it is to race, I’ll never have to buy a used part off eBay. T-F-X, T-F-X, TFX all the way. Oh no! My car’s in a spin Oh $#it, not another broken guide pin! HO-HO-HO! With 17 racers in attendance, we would all race as a single group for all 3 races. The first race run in the morning would be Hobby Stock on the fast and flowy Champion. After lunch we would move over to the Shamrock Glen to try our luck (get it – Shamrock, luck) running the Grand National cars. The final race would be the inaugural TFX race, held on the grappling Bear track. With the annual body swap being held before the drivers meeting, and the fact that we were running as a single group made for a looong day. But as always, it was a fun day with a great group of racers. We had 10 racers participate in this year’s body swap. Lots of good bodies that could be used in the ECO race classes. Thank you to everyone who participated. Drivers Meeting With the body swap done and practice, tech and sign-in completed, Dave Lockwood headed up the drivers meeting. Dave began by mentioning some upcoming enhancements to the TFX class rules. Paul Ryer took over from here to mention the TFX rule enhancements: TFX Muscle Car bodies must have the stock front and rear glass. Side glass can be removed. OS3 has released additional size crown gears since the ECO TFX class rules were published. ECO rules will require that only the crown gears that came in the original TFX kits, which included the 15 and 19 tooth crown gears, will be the only crown gears that can be used. Paul will be updating these rules in the coming weeks so please check the ECO website for the official rules updates. Paul also mentioned that the rear post on some of the Auto World bodies may not match up with the rear of the TFX chassis. Paul suggested to use the bigger body mount screw that comes with the AW bodies. Paul announced that he would be combining the ECO and MARC websites into a single location. There would be a single “landing” page that would then allow you to select the ECO webpages or MARC webpages. The benefits of combing these two club websites into a single location would: 1) reduce web services cost since both sites are now hosted in a single location, and 2) allow easier maintenance going forward. Joe Escalante, who was in attendance, will talk to Paul about adding a link to the Springfield Slot Heads portal. Paul then provided an update on the magnet car racing world (MARC). The MARC January race will be held in NH on sectional Aurora track. Thus, the slower classes will be run at this event. This might be a good opportunity for ECO racers to dip their toes in the water and try some magnet car racing with these slower classes. Reach out to Paul if you are interested so that he can provide cars if you wish to go. Finally, Paul talked about the upcoming East Coast Championship that will be held at Lenjet, January 30 thru February 1, 2026. This is a magnet car event with the slower classes (SS and Spec racer) being run on Saturday. Again, another opportunity for ECO racers to try magnet car racing. Reach out to Paul if you would like to attend so he can prepare cars. Also check the MARC website for further details. Our club treasurer, Jimmy Colligan, provided the club’s financial update. A balance of $1299 was reported. Tom Gray, our local HOPRA representative, mentioned that this year’s (2026) HOPRA Nationals will be held at Lucky Bob’s from June 20 thru June 27. Best Appearing Best appearing award went to Joe Escalante for his beautiful ‘59 Chevy #7 Jim Reed Grand National car. Congratulations Joe! Below is a picture of Joe’s car and Joe receiving the best appearing award from Dave Lockwood. Joe’s beautiful ’59 Chevy Grand National car. Joe receiving the best appearing award from Dave Lockwood. On to the races… Hobby Stock on the Champion Hobby Stock is considered the slowest class of the ECO. However, it is also the most challenging class to drive. With skinny tires, minimal braking, and a high center of gravity due to limited lowering of the body, these cars can be a handful to drive. Racing on a high speed, flowy course like the Champion, the racers had their hands full keeping these skinny tire cars in the slot. With that said, the racing was very close with only 20 laps separating the entire 17 racer field. Many racers finished on the same laps with lap sections determining their final finishing position. Taking the win was Flash with 86 laps. Less than a full lap behind in second was Dave L. with 85 laps. Of note, Flash and Dave were the only racers to turn sub-8 second lap times. Rounding out the podium in 3rd place was Paul R. who traveled around the track 79 times. Rounding out the top half of the field, positions 4th thru 9th were: 4th Jim K. 78 laps/51 sections, just beating Matt G. by ONE section with Matt finishing 5th with 78 laps/50 sections. In 6th, also finishing on the same lap as Jim and Matt was Joe E. 78 laps/10 sections. Three racers battling for 7th, 8th and 9th positions all finished in the same lap, with 76 laps. In 7th, Chief 76 laps/50 sections, 8th JoeRinn 76 laps/ 41 sections, and 9th Terry A. 76 laps/34 sections. One other note about lap times (best laps) that I like to look at is consistency across all 4 lanes. Jim K. (4th) had only 32 thousandths (0.032) of a second difference between his best lap times in all 4 lanes. Great racing by everyone! Below are the official results (lap counts and finish positions) for the drivers along with best lap times. Race Results Lap Times Here are pictures of the podium finishers and their cars. Hobby Stock Podium Finishers (left to right): Dave L. 2nd, Flash 1st, Paul R. 3rd Hobby Stock Podium Cars (left to right): Daytona Cobra 1st, Porsche 904 2nd, Herbie 3rd Grand National on the Shamrock Glen The L-shape of the Shamrock Glen provides some challenges to racers as the driver stations are located along either side of the L, providing different perspectives of the track. Along with its big sweeping esses some tight 180 degree turns in the infield section, the track is a challenge for the skinny tired GN cars. While the lap separation of 25 laps across the field of 16 racers was not as tight as the Hobby Stock race, there were some close battles for a number of finishing positions. When the race was over, it was Flash, once again, taking 1st place with 77 trips around the track. Only a couple of laps off the pace for 2nd place was Dave L. with 75 laps. Rounding out the podium in 3rd was Paul R. with 73 laps. Rounding out the top half of the field, positions 4th through 8th: the battle for 4th position continued between Matt G. and Jim K. with Matt taking 4th position by sections over Jim K. Matt G. 4th 71 laps/38 sections, Jim K. 5th 71 laps/26 sections. 6th and 7th was another battle between Terry A. and Jimmy C., again determined by sections. Terry A. 6th 70 laps/61 sections, Jimmy C. 7th 70 laps/ 45 sections. Completing the top half of the field in 8th was JoeRinn with 69 laps. Again, great racing everyone. Once again, Flash and Dave turned best lap times and were the only racers to record sub-9 second lap times. Great racing gentlemen! Below are the official results (lap counts and finish positions) for the drivers along with best lap times. Race Results Lap Times Here are pictures of the podium finishers. Sorry I did not get a picture of their cars. Grand National Podium Racers (left to right): Dave L. 2nd, Flash 1st, Paul R. 3rd TFX w/ Trans Am Bodies on the Bear And now for the big event of the day: the inaugural race for the newest ECO race class, TFX. After 3 years of trying, the new TFX class was voted in by the ECO members last July at the annual ECO members meeting. The intent of the TFX class is to offer a low-cost, entry-level race class that will hopefully attract new members to the club. The TFX chassis is basically a 21st century T-Jet. Using the same basic design of a T-Jet (pancake motor, top triple gear plate) but with updates such as a lower center of gravity, removable rear axle, plastic drive gears and pop-in guide pin). In general the TFX is a competitive car right out of the box, offering performance similar to the original (non-magnetic) Aurora AFX chassis of the late 1960’s – early 1970’s. In my opinion, the Achilles heel of the TFX design is the guide pin, that tends to break off easily when compared to the screw in guide pins of a traditional T-Jet chassis. More on this later. Being the first race for this class, there were to be expected issues and we had our fair share from a motor brush getting stuck and pushing the motor spring (electrics) of the chassis into the track bottoming out the car, to a spun gear on a top plate, and a couple of broken guide pins. Once these issues were sorted (during the race), I believe all-in-all the TFX race was a success, resulting in a close race among the 15 participants. Looking at the best lap times, except for a couple of outliers, the differences in lap times from fastest to slowest was about 1.5 seconds. This is about one second closer than the other classes run today that had almost a 2.5 second difference between fastest and slowest laps. While racing was close, the results, bear out the fact that the cars were evenly matched and that it would come down to driving skills. When the dust settled, Flash completed his trifecta of the day by taking 1st place turning 89 laps/50 sections. About half a lap behind, in 2nd place was Dave L. with 89 laps/18 sections. Rounding out the podium in 3rd place was Matt G., who continues to race well in his breakout season, by completing 88 laps Rounding out the top half of the field, positions 4th thru 8th were: 4th Paul R. (87 laps), 5th Jim K. (86 laps), 6th Hal P. (83 laps), and a close race for 7th and 8th with JoeRinn taking the 6th spot by 2 sections over Terry A.: 7th JoeRinn (82 laps/37 sections), and 8th Terry A. (82 laps/35 sections). Great racing everyone and congratulations for participating in the inaugural ECO TFX class race. Below are the official results (lap counts and finish positions) and best lap times. Race Results Lap Times Here are pictures of the podium finishers and their cars. TFX Podium Racers (left to right): Dave L. 2nd, Flash 1st, Matt G. 3rd TFX Podium Cars: Sam Posey’s Challenger 1st, Camaro 2nd, Camaro (Dash) 3rd Checkered Flag Congratulations to Flash on his trifecta! As mentioned during the TFX race we had a couple of the guide pins break, resulting in race delays while the pins were replaced and trimmed to the proper length. As I previously said, the one weak area of the TFX chassis is the guide pin and its tendency to break off. I am in a Wednesday night race group where we will also run TFX cars on occasion and we have experienced the same issue with broken guide pins. While I have heard that slightly wiggling the end of the guide pin with the tip of your finger once the guide pin is mounted in the chassis may help reduce the stress on the plastic at the base of the guide pin providing a little more flexibility to the guide pin and minimizing breakage, I cannot confirm that this is a solution. I have also heard, but not confirmed, that OS3 newest guide pins are more robust. So without any definite long term solution in place, I would like to recommend that every racer prepare extra (spare) guide pins (i.e. cut them to proper length) prior to a TFX race. Thus, when we are racing TFX cars, in the event a guide pin breaks, it can be easily replaced, and the race can continue with minimal delay since the new (spare) guide pin has already been trimmed to proper length. Dave L., perhaps there is a business opportunity for your friend, Mr. Bob Beers, to produce TFX guide pins using the same indestructible plastic he uses for his T-Jet guide pins? Just a thought. Okay, enough about guide pins. And so ends the last race of the 2025 calendar year. Looking back over the 2025 year, from the second half of the ECO 2024-2025 season, the summer series, the Havoc, and of course the first part of this season, there are several exciting, positive things that have happened: The attendance at ECO races has been solid. We have picked up several new racers. It was great to see Peter back racing with us! As I have mentioned in numerous race reports, the racing is getting tighter as the racers improve their building and driving skills. This was most apparent at the Havoc where half of the top 20 positions went to ECO racers! Barring the few initial issues at the first TFX race, I believe the addition of the TFX class is a nice addition to the ECO race classes and will provide even closer competition. Let’s keep this momentum going in the new year! Our next race is less than 2 weeks away on January 3rd. We’ll be hosting two races next month, thus the quick turnaround for the next race. For our first race of 2026 we’ll be at LenJet for The New Year Challenge on January 3, 2026. We’ll be racing Hobby Stock on the Python, E-Fray on the Bear, and Jalopies on the Shamrock Glen. That’s a wrap. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!