In a state, far-far away (i.e.Star Wars Prelude), the hardiest of the East Coast HO Outlaws went onward up to do battle against the evil Empire known as the Maine HO Slotcar Racing Club members. And they returned Victorious as usual!!!!

The 2017 Grill’n-N-Chill’n , best known as the Dark Side led by Lord Eats-A-Lot Hoar, was a great event if you liked being from Ct. and having some awesome weapons in your arsenal like Greg W.and Flash had on this weekend. But because of their human weakness of compassion towards others, they loaned out a few lethal race cars to the Maine’iac bunch to see if they would hurt themselves.  No Northerners were hurt in the G-N-C battle.

Starting out the great day with a Best Appearing Award was the Flash’anater with a sweet ECHORR Indy Roadster #23.  Not overly glossy but well laid out paint and decals made it a winner.

After a announcement that next years Grill’n-N-Chill’n will return to it’s origins of being a open invitation yearly event similar to Slotfest, the 11 racers, 5 from Outlaws Club and 6 from Maine-NH, we began the day by risking life,limb and pretty painted cars with the ECHORR Indy class race cars. The drivers helmet of Flashes car took the most damage as a few open-wheeled rockets went at him like a X-Winged Starfighter aiming for the Death Star.  Hans Greg W’ski gets the win by running 273 laps, just 3 laps ahead of Flashes nearly headless rocket. 3rd place was Rudy “C3PO Version 2.0”  ran a great race with 264 laps. Top Mainer was Lord Largeness Hoar with 258 for 4th and Rex “O-B-Juan” with 253 for 5th place. 6th:Glenn P-237. 7th: Ron D-207.8th:Vern B-203. 9th: Butch-201. 10th was Dan “Chewfritta” with 184 and 11th was Brian with 150 laps.

Skipping over to the Road Course with the SS cars for something different, cuz we usually run them last and see if we can destroy something before the days over, became a lesson in cooperation vs competition as Greg W.loaned a nice runner to Glenn P.as his was gonna leave the room in a bag of loose parts. Karma ruled has Greg W. and Flash dueled  to the very end and Flash got the W by 1/2 a lap over his pal. Flash had 117 barely and Greg was almost at the timing lights. Third place was Rudy’s Gray Ghost BMW that ran 115 laps just a tad ahead of Dan’s Rent-A-Racer II with 114 laps. 5th was Jim with 106. 6th: Ron-105laps. 7th and 8th was real close also with Rex taking a bit more track lengths during his 102 lap run then Glenn did. 9th:Brian with 102. Tenth was Butch with 93 laps followed by Vern’s ill running racer that did 86 laps.

The end of the Star Wars Battle in the state, far-far away, was the Magna-Traction chassis based Fairgrounds cars on the oval this month. Fast little buggers,kindof like those little Land Speeder Bikes, and Greg’s RRR #67 destroyed the rest of the Empires fleet mercilessly by running 368 laps. Flash had Second Place with 332 and Third was Glenn P. with 311 laps. 4th-11th were: Rudy,Rex,Jim,Brian,Vern,Dan,Butch and Ron.

Surprise IROC event of the day was a Trial Run of some new DASH powered, custom resin made Bandit Series Semi rigs provided by Greg W. Nifty style rigs that sit even lower and more aerodynamically correct to the ones Rick M. did at Slotfest 2016. Heck of some neat racing and most often just a mudflaps distance between them the whole time. The Top 6 racers finished with 3 laps of each other during the 2 mins.per lane event. Finishing order was: Flash,Greg W,Jim,Rex,Rudy,Glenn,Dan,Brian and Vern.

Hope more people participate in our next club event in Nov. Be sure to be there for the guys who put on these events to share their dedication to this areas hobbyists. Enjoyed having those that came up here this year and I look forward to seeing more folks at next years Open Grill’n-N-Chill’n.