March 15, 2025 | Jim Kostinden March 15, 2025 “March Madness” Wow, what a difference 4-weeks makes. At the ECO race in February there was a threat of a snowstorm resulting in a number of racers leaving early to beat the storm on the way home. Today, temperatures reached into the mid-60’s, with a strong turnout of 18 drivers sticking it out to race in all 3 races. As the seventh race of the ECO 2024-2025 race season, we would be racing: 1) Indy on the Shamrock Glen, 2) Super Stock on the Max Trax Viper track, and 3) Magnatraction with Sports Prototype bodies on the Bowman Nuvolari track. With 18 racers in attendance, we would break the racers up into two groups so that the Indy and Super Stock races could be run simultaneously in the morning. After lunch all 18 racers would race on the 6-lane Nuvolari track with their Magnatraction sports prototype bodies. Drivers Meeting After practice, tech and sign-in were completed, Dave Lockwood kicked off the drivers meeting. Dave touched on several topics: Dave provided a brief update on the Fray at Ferndale race, mentioning the Wizzard team, which Dave and Lil’ Greg were team members on finished 2nd. Once again, the St. Louis team took 1st place. Congratulations to Dave, Lil’ Greg and the rest of the Wizzard team for their podium finish. More information about the race can be found on the “Fray at Ferndale” Facebook page. DBL Racing has developed a new Riveting tool for pancake chassis electrics. Dave brought 30 of these out to the Fray and sold 27. Wizzard should have some available on their website in the coming weeks or reach out to Dave if you are interested. New ECO T-shirts – Please sign up if you have not done so. The ECO club officers will be getting together and sending out emails to those ECO members who have not signed up for a T-shirt yet. The intent is to place one order for the T-shirts. There is no cost for current ECO members, so please contact Dave if you have not signed up for your shirt yet. As was mentioned last month, the date of the May ECO race will be changed due to a conflict with racing events taking place at Modelville that weekend (May 17th). As soon as the new date is determined, the schedule will be updated on the ECO website. Richard Payne from Modelville mentioned that the local Red Roof Inn hotel is offering a 25% discount to racers if they mention they are attending a race at Modelville/Lenjet. This offer is good through the end of 2025. So for those of you who plan to participate in the 2025 Halloween Havoc, you can save some coin by contacting the Red Roof Inn and making your reservations. Also, Modelville is hosting its annual slot car flea market on Sunday March 16th. Doors open at 11am. Tables are still available if you have stuff to sell. Contact Richard Payne at Modelville. Paul Ryer provided a brief update of the magnetic racing world. Paul also presented a 4th place ribbon to Dave for his fourth place finish in Super Stock at the East Coast Championship last month. The next MARC race will be next week at Rob Hayes. If you are interested in attending and need cars, please reach out to Paul. Our club treasurer, Jimmy Colligan, provided the club’s financial update. A balance of $1872 was reported. Finally, Paul Ryer mentioned that he has possession of the Rolling ‘O layout at his home. If anyone is interested in using it for an event, please reach out to Paul. We may see this track at the last ECO race of the season. Best Appearing For the second month in a row, the Best Appearing award went to Terry Ayer for his beautifully finished Indy Turbine car. Terry makes his own decals and that is what he did to make the honeybee hive image on the back end of the car. Terry mentioned how he made one of the hexagonal shapes and then replicated this many times to create the beehive decal. Really nice work Terry. Congratulations! On to the races… Indy on the Shamrock Glen With Saint Patrick’s day only a few days away, it was only appropriate to host a race on the Shamrock Glen track. With only 14 laps separating the field finishing order, the racing was very close, with no time for shenanigans or malarkey amongst the 18 racers. If anything did get out of hand, our sergeant of arms, Mr. Paul Ryer, was ready to break out the shillelagh to keep things in order. In what turned out to be a very close race for 1st place, Flash edged out Paul Ryer for the win by only 13 sections, completing 77 laps/51 sections to 2nd place Paul’s 77 laps/38 sections. In the group of 9 racers that Paul was in, he had the fastest lap time in 3 of the 4 lanes. Congratulations Flash on a well deserved win. Taking the final podium position, third place, was Dave L. with 75 laps. Rounding out the top half of the field, positions 4th thru 9th were: 4th Donny H. 74 laps, 5th Greg W. 73 laps, 6th Tom G. 72 laps/59 sections, 7th Hal P. with 72 laps/40 sections, 8th Jimmy C. 72 laps/ 35 sections, and 9th Rick H. 72 laps/30 sections. For the record, 10th place finisher Brian W. also had 72 laps and 10 sections, resulting in 5 of the 18 racers finishing on the same lap. Very close racing! Congrats to all! Below are the official results (lap counts and finish positions) for the drivers. Due to technical difficulties, best lap times were not recorded. Race Results Super Stock on the Python While Saint Patrick may have driven the snakes out of Ireland, the Python track is still alive and well here at Lenjet, waiting to bite those racers who are unprepared for the slithering esses at either end of the track and the coil-like infield section. While the racing was not quite as close as the Indy race, 10 racers were able to finish with 100 laps or more, while the remaining group of racers finished with 90 to 99 laps. Taking 1st place with 113 laps was Dave L. A couple of laps behind was Flash with 111 laps. Rounding out the podium in 3rd was Greg W. with 108 laps. Rounding out the top half of the field was: 4th JoeRinn with 108 laps, just missing the podium by sections, 5th Paul R. 106 laps, 6th Don H. 104 laps, 7th Jimmy C. 102 laps/26 sections, 8th Matt 102 laps/16 sections, and 9th Jimmy Mac 100 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 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. Magnatraction on the Nuvolari The Nuvolari is a large high-speed track with a big 180-degree banked turn at one end that can be taken at full throttle for most of the 6-lanes on this track. For this Magnatraction race we were using the Sports Prototype bodies, which seem to be appropriate for the high-speed theme of this race The afternoon race was run as one group of 18 races. Using all 6-lanes on this track did help to move along the race. With that said, there was a lot of close racing among the group. When the dust settled, Paul “Mr. Magnatraction” R. took his second 1st place finish of the day completing a dominating 172 laps for the win. While 9 laps behind, Terry A. drove a great race to take 2nd place with 163 laps. Not too far behind in 3rd was Flash with 162 laps Rounding out the top half of the field, positions 4th thru 9th were: 4th Jimmy C drove a great race finishing with 158 laps/28 sections, in 5th only 13 sections behind Jimmy was Dave L. with 158 laps/15 sections, 6th Jim K 156 laps/6 sections, 7th only 3 sections behind Jim K was Greg W. with 156 laps/3 sections, 8th was Rick H. 152 laps, and 9th was rookie Brian W. who drove a solid race completing 149 laps. Tough luck award goes to Pete H. who smoked his car at the start of his third heat, and had to drop out of the race for his last three heats. Pete, perhaps kissing the Blarney Stone will bring you better luck next time. 😊 Great racing all! Below are the official results (lap counts and finish positions) and best lap times. Race Results Lap Times Checkered Flag A congratulations to Paul R. for his first win of the ECO 2024-2025 season with a crushing win in Magnatraction. Racing continues to get very tight amongst the racers where one or two mistakes can cost you several positions in a race. It is great to see this type of close racing and it only helps to raise the level of racing for the entire club. Great driving everyone! Next month, April, will be our double race month where the ECO will host 2 races. After racing the last 4 ECO race events at Lenjet, we’ll be “on the road” to members’ homes in April for the 2 ECO races. Our next race on April 5th will be hosted by Terry A. at the Ralph Spoilsport Speedway for the ECO New Hampshire Dreamin’ event. We’ll be running Jalopies on the oval, Super Stock on the road course, and an IROC race (rumor has it these will be Magnatraction cars) also on the road course. This next race is only 3 weeks away, so begin prepping your cars now! The second race in April will be on April 26th at Paul R.’s South Shore Speedway for the ECO Up in Smoke event. We’ll have more information about this race in the next race report. Finally, a nice round of applause for Matt who got into Lenjet early today to set up the race tracks for today’s races. Thank you Matt! Everyone, great racing today. Enjoy your Saint Patrick’s day and pour yourself a tall glass of Guiness in celebration of your racing achievements. Until next month.. Cheers!!