February 16, 2025 | Jim Kostinden February 15, 2025 “The Freezer” The Feezer lived up to its name, as temperatures never got above freezing outside the Lenjet Raceway and the threat of a significant snow storm played into the racing action on this day. This race marks the start of the second half of the ECO 2024-2025 race season as race number 6 out of the 10 race ECO season. With a solid turnout of 16 racers in attendance, we would be racing: 1) Hobby Stock on the historic Aurora tub track, 2) Super Stock on the Brad Bowman Champion track, and 3) Magnatraction with IMSA bodies on the Viper Boomerang track. With 16 racers in attendance, we would break the racers up into two groups so that the Hobby Stock and Super Stock races could be run simultaneously in the morning. As mentioned earlier, an impending snow storm for the New England area was forecast for the day with snow starting in the early afternoon in the south west area of Connecticut moving eastward as the afternoon wore on. With this weather concern, the Hobby Stock and Sup er Stock races started early, so they would be completed before noon time, allowing those racers who were travelling back to Connecticut and points further south to skip the final afternoon race and leave early to hopefully beat out the worst of the snow storm. Drivers Meeting Practice, tech and sign-in were completed early, allowing Dave Lockwood to kick off the drivers meeting early. Dave touched on several topics: Dave has a sign up sheet for the new T-shirts with the new ECO logo. For ECO members there is no cost for a shirt. When signing up for a T-shirt you must enter your size, color of shirt, color of logo, long-sleeve or short-sleeve, front pocket or not. I do not have a list of the shirt or logo colors (they are listed on the sign up sheet). If you did not sign up please do so at the next race in March. Dave will order extra shirts so that non-members can purchase a shirt. Price is TBD. Again ECO members get a shirt for free. A brief mention about the successful East Coast Championship race that was held the first weekend in February. A number of ECO racers showed up for this event. There were 34 racers at the event. Peter Lentros made an appearance and is looking better every time we see him. Dave briefly mentioned the Bob Beers Super Bowl slot car show last weekend. Said it was “spectacular” and a lot of fun. Due to a schedule conflict with an event at Modelville, the last ECO race of the season in May will be rescheduled. Check the ECO website for the update when it becomes available. Our club treasurer, Jimmy Colligan, provided the club’s financial update. A balance of $1755 was reported. Pete Halgren gave a ski racing update on his son Patrick. Last week, Patrick placed 12th in the slalom and 14th in the giant slalom at the world championships. Patrick is racing against the best skiers in the world, so a big congratulations and round of applause was given to Patrick by the ECO racers. Finally, two of our ECO racers, our fearless leader Dave, and Lil’ Greg will be heading out to the Fray race next week. Good luck to Dave and Greg as they try to improve on their second place team finish from last year’s Fray. Best Appearing Best appearing award went to Terry Ayer for his beautifully finished Datsun 240Z Magnatraction car. The car is painted in the BRE livery using a unique perry winkle color across the hood and roof. The ECO racers decided to call this color “Terry winkle”. Also, this car achieved a rare combination, taking best appearing and finishing on the podium in the Magnatraction race. Pretty and FAST! Really nice work Terry. Congratulations! On to the races… Hobby Stock on the Aurora Tub This was the third, and final Hobby Stock class race of the season. The Tub track is the perfect track for Hobby Stock races as this is what the Tub track was originally built for, racing Aurora T-Jets. Unlike the original Tub tracks that used Aurora sectional track, creating a six lane race track, the Tub at Modelville has a custom Brad Bowman inlaid routed track that is 5 lanes wide. Keeping the track to 5-lanes allows for wider track spacing so that other classes running wider chassis can run on this track. For today’s race, we would only be using 4 lanes, leaving the blue gutter lane unused. This was done to help speed up the race so that the morning races could be completed early. With that said, the racing was very tight with one group of racers, almost a third of the group, being separated by a single lap to determine positions 7th thru 11th. Dave “Skinny Tires” L. had dominated the Hobby Stock class this year, taking the win in the first 2 races. Dave completed his domination by winning the third and final Hobby Stock race with 104 laps. In taking the win, Dave also had the lowest lap times for all 4-lanes. An impressive performance. Will someone be able to take the “Skinny Tires” title away from Dave next year? Flash may have a chance of doing this as once again Flash took second place with 101 laps. Rounding out the podium in third place was Pitstop, with 100 laps. It was great so see Pitstop at the race! Rounding out the top half of the field, positions 4th thru 8th were: 4th Steve N. 96 laps (Steve has had some very impressive races in Hobby Stock this year. His car is fast and handles well. Nice work Steve!), 5th JoeRinn 94 laps, 6th Chief 93 laps (Chief has also had a very impressive season racing Hobby Stock. Nice racing Chief!), 7th Jim K. with 92 laps/47 sections and 8th Greg W. also with 92 laps/ 2 sections. Congrats to all! Below are the official results (lap counts and finish positions) for the drivers along with best lap times. Race Results Lap Times Please note that the laps times are shown in 2 separate screen shots as this race was run in 2 groups. The fastest laps highlighted in green are for each group. You can compare the 2 screen shots for overall fastest laps. Super Stock on the Champion Champion, the rhythm track, is the perfect track to run the Super Stock class on. With its fast straights and esses and a couple of tight technical sections (scorpion tail and cork screw like down hill tight turn) this track rewards fast, good handling cars, and a driver who can feel the rhythm of the track. Racing was very close on this track with 15 of the 16 racers turning at least 100 laps. With only 17 laps separating 1st place from 15th place, there was very close racing for podium finishes to mid-pack positions. Taking 1st place with 117 laps was Greg W. A little more than a lap behind was Flash with 115 laps/50 sections in 2nd. On the same lap but some sections behind was PitStop in 3rd with 115 laps/9 sections. Greg’s car was fast and he did a great job of driving it. Perhaps we can convince Greg to give the ECO club a clinic on building Fray cars?? Rounding out the top half of the field was: 4th Dave l. 113 laps, 5th JoeRinn 108 laps, 6th Terry A. 107 laps/7 sections, 7th Steve N. only 5 sections behind Terry at 107 laps/2 sections, and, 8th Jim K. 106 laps. Again, great racing everyone. Below are the official results (lap counts and finish positions) for the drivers along with best lap times. Race Results Lap Times Please note that I was only able to get the lap times for one group, As soon as I get the second group’s lap times, I will update the report. Magnatraction on the Viper Boomerang As mentioned at the beginning of this report, with the pending snow storm, 6 of the ECO racers that lived in Connecticut and points further south and west, decided to leave after the second race to get a head start and hopefully make it home before the storm arrived. The remaining 10 racers had lunch and then headed over to the Boomerang track for the final race of the day. The Boomerang track is typically used every other season by the ECO. Being a track more specifically designed for magnet cars, the opportunity for ECO to use this track with their Magnatraction class is limited. For today’s Magnatraction class, we would be using IMSA bodies on the Magnatraction chassis. There were a number of “firsts” that occurred during this race. First, about half the racers had never run on this track before. Add this factor in and that some of the racers had just raced the ECO slowest class, Hobby Stock, and were now going to race the ECO fastest class, mayhem was about to break out. Actually, it was not that bad. When the dust settled, Jim K took his first “first place” ECO podium finish, turning 75 laps. This was also the first time Jim K. raced on this track. In 2nd was Terry A, with 72 laps driving his best appearing 240Z. Rounding out the podium in 3rd was Matt G. with 70 laps. Yet another first as this was Matt’s first podium finish in an ECO race. Congratulations Matt! Rounding out the top half of the field, positions 4th and 5th were: 4th Chief (69 laps) just missing his first ECO podium finish, but I believe his highest ECO finish, and in 5th “rookie” Brian W. (68 laps). Congrats to all of the “firsts”! Great racing all! Below are the official results (lap counts and finish positions) and best lap times. Race Results Lap Times Checkered Flag As we start the second half of the season, as noted in last month’s report, the racing continues to get very tight with some really close racing taking place for just about all of the positions. Congratulations again goes out to Matt G. for his first ECO podium finish. I know Matt puts in a lot of time tuning and practicing at Lenjet and it seems to be paying off. Nice work Matt! Pitstop, it was great to see you! Hopefully you can make it to more of the races in the second half of the season. Hard luck award goes to Jimmy Mac who stuck around for the Magnatraction race. Unfortunately, his car was not cooperating and he had to withdraw from his last 2 heats. Jimmy hopefully you can resolve your car’s problem and have it ready for next month’s Magnatraction race. Next month’s ECO race on March 15th, March Madness, we’ll be back at Lenjet running Indy on the Shamrock Glen, Super Stock on the Python, and Magnatraction with Sports Prototype bodies on the Nuvolari. One final note, Modelville Hobby will be hosting a slot car swap meet on Sunday March 16th from 11am to 3pm. I’ve attended this the past couple of years and while last year’s event coincided with Bob Beer’s show in NY, the prior year had a good amount of HO stuff for sale. Definitely worth a trip if you are looking to buy or sell and also a good way to show your support for one of the only slot racing venues in the area. Please contact Richard Payne at 508-881-7616 – rpayne9313@gmail.com if you would like space to sell. I’m told vendor/sell tables are $10. Free admission if you are only coming to buy.