October 19, 2024                    “The LenJet 500”

The second race event of the East Coast Outlaws 2024-2025 season took place on October 19th at Modelville/LenJet Raceway in Ashland,MA. It was a typical beautiful fall New England day with many of the racers heading out in the early morning with temperatures in the low to mid 30-degree range but were blessed with 70-degree temperatures for the ride home in the late afternoon.

This second race event of the year was scheduled to have 3 races: 1) Indy on the rythmatic and fast Champion track, 2) SS Fray on the multi-faceted Shamrock Glen track, and 3) an IROC race on the historic Car Model track.

Turnout was strong with 19 racers arriving in Ashland. With this many racers, the racers were broken up into 2 groups so that the Indy and SS Fray races could be run simultaneously and completed before lunch and then all of the racers would race as a single group in the afternoon for the IROC race.

Drivers Meeting

Once practice, tech and sign-in were complete, Dave Lockwood conducted the drivers meeting. Dave started the meeting by providing an update on the Halloween Havoc. As of the date of this report, there are 53 racers signed up for the Havoc. Dave mentioned that there will be “lots of prizes”, with the individual SWAG bags containing more cool stuff than last year. If you haven’t signed up yet, put down that pumpkin spice latte, coffee, or beer and SIGN UP! Dave said that Peter is still planning to show up, and hopefully race. We are all hoping Peter can make it and look forward to seeing him. Dave also recognized some of the Havoc sponsors who were in attendance for today’s race: Joe Escalante, JoeRinn, Tom Gray, and Brian Wotton.

The last announcement Dave made was that Bob Beers would be hosting his Stonington,  CT show on 11/17. Admission is free. This is the Sunday following our November race on 11/16. Sounds like a great weekend for HO slot car racers and collectors.

Our club treasurer, Jimmy Colligan, provided the club’s financial update. Paul Ryer then gave a brief update on the HO magnet car racing events for MARC.

The driver’s meeting was closed out with a special announcement by Steve Nilsen who heads the “Tjets for Vets” effort. Steve mentioned an upcoming auction in November(?)with proceeds going to our military veterans. Steve is looking for donations (tjets, etc.) for the auctions and hopes to get 40-50 items. You can go to Random.com for more info about donations and the auction or reach out to Steve.

Best Appearing

Best appearing award went to Terry for his beautifully painted Indy Turbine car. Congratulations Terry on a nice job! Below is a picture of Terry’s car.

On to the races…

Indy on the Champion

The Brad Bowman designed Champion track is a fast flowy track with several tight corners. The tight 180 degree plus turn at the top of the overpass that drops down to the flowy esses stretch requires good timing and precise entry speed, a challenge given the lack of powerful braking with the Indy cars. At the other end of the esses stretch is the scorpion tail section that leads onto the main straight. Again timing and entry speed are critical here. This track definitely rewards cars with good speed and great handling, as well as a driver that can find the right rhythm to get in sync with the flow of this exciting layout.

With 19 racers lining up to put their best effort forward, there were many close races for several positions. First and Second place were determined by sections! Taking the top podium position was Dave L. with 95 laps 38 sections. Following closely behind in 2nd place was Greg B. also with 95 laps 22 sections. Very close! In the final podium position was Flash with 93 laps.

Rounding out the top half of the field, positions 4th thru 10th were: 4th Paul R. with 91 laps, another close race for 5th and 6th positions with Donnie H. taking 5th (90 laps 55 sections) and JoeRinn close behind in 6th (90 laps 48 sections). 7th place went to Jim K. with 88 laps 59 sections, 8th went to Greg W. also with 88 laps 10 sections (another close race), 9th was Hal P. with 86 laps, and in 10th was Jimmy C. with 85 laps.

Great racing by everyone!

Below are the official results (lap counts and finish positions) for the drivers along with pictures of the podium cars.

Race Results

Podium Cars

Indy Podium (L to R): 1st Dave L. Indy Turbin, 2nd Greg B. Indy Turbine, 3rd Flash Indy Turbine

SS Fray on The Shamrock Glen

The Shamrock Glen track is an L-shaped layout with drivers stations on either side of the “L”. This provides a unique driving perspective as you move through the driving station positions in a race. Running SS Fray cars on this track makes for a very fast racetrack with a properly set up Fray car capable of handling some of the larger radius turns at full throttle.

Once again a lot of close racing with a number of positions determined by sections. When the controllers were put down, Greg B. turned 103 laps to take the win. In 2nd position was Dave L. only 1 lap back with 102 laps. The final podium position was a battle between Greg W. and Donnie H. with Greg coming out on top with 97 laps 52 sections to Donnie’s 97 laps 20 sections. Great racing gentlemen!

Rounding out the top half of the field was Flash (95 laps) in 5th, JoeRinn(93 laps 57 sections) in 6th just nipping Paul R. (93 laps 51 section) in 7th, Jim K. (91 laps 55 sections) in 8th, and Matt G. (91 laps 8 sections) in 9th.

Below are the official results (lap counts and finish positions) for the drivers along with pictures of the podium cars.

Race Results

Podium Cars

SS Fray Podium (L to R): Greg B. Ferrari, Dave L. Lamborghini, Greg W. Ferrari(?)

IROC on the Car Model Raceway

After lunch, the ECO racers were ready for the third and final race of the day.

The historic Car Model raceway is a fiberglass tub that was offered by Car Model magazine in the 1960’s. The bright orange fiberglass tub contrasts sharply with the black 6-lane in-laid routed track. With a large 180 degree steeply banked turn at one end, the track tests a drivers ability to hold the throttle wide open as you go through this turn, especially with a tight 180 degree flat turn coming up quickly. Hit the brakes hard!

For the IROC race only the inside 4-lanes were used. Also, with several racers having to depart early, there were 16 racers participating in this race.

As with the previous races, this group of 16 racers was a very tight bunch with only 15 laps separating 1st and 16th place

When the dust settled, Flash took 1st place, completing 114 laps. 2nd place went to Greg B with 112 laps. In the final podium position, 3rd, was the “Great Pumpkin” Spice guy, Paul R. with 111 laps.

Just missing the podium in 4th was Greg W. with 110 laps, in 5th was Jim K. with 108 laps, Steve N. took 6th with 107 laps 13 sections (Nice race Steve!), in 7th was Dave L with 107 laps 9 sections and rounding out the top half of the field in 8th was Joe E with 106 laps.

Below are the official results (lap counts and finish positions).

Race Results

Checkered Flag

After the driver’s meeting and prior to the start of the races. The club recognized Paul Crosby and Richard Payne for their efforts in supporting the LenJet raceway by updating the stock of HO parts in the LenJet store and getting up early on Saturday mornings to open the doors for the ECO race events. Gift certificates from the ECO club were handed to both Paul and Richard in recognition of their efforts. Thank you, Paul and Richard, for keeping the amazing LenJet raceway operating smoothly!

Also, of note, we had a new racer attending this race, John Esposito. John participated in both the Indy and SS Fray races. We hope to see John attend more of the ECO races! It was also great to see Greg B. make the trip up to LenJet.

Finally, I do apologize for not capturing the lap times for each race. I plan to include this in all race reports going forward.

Next month we’ll be at Rick Morrissette’s house for the Skidmark 500, racing Indy with Roadster bodies on the Oval, Super Stock on the Pat Dube track, and Coupes on the Oval.

Hope to see you at the Halloween Havoc! Happy Halloween!