Siberia Racing

Beware the Bear

Race Report

2011-2012 Season Race 3, February 2012, Naperville, Illinois

It was a relatively warm February day when eight racers set out to Siberia to take on “The Bear”.  This was MSRA’s second race on Steve’s TKO track.  Up first was the MAHOR Stock Class Cars.  These are Fray T-Jets with skinny slip on silicones, resin bodies and a 1.085” maximum wheel width.  Travis, Steve and Jim looked fast.  When the power came on Steve and Travis set the pace and it was clear that the race was between these two.  When the power went off first and second place was tied on the counter with 89 laps.  Travis took the win by two seconds over Steve after 12 minutes of racing.  Jim was four laps back in third with Mike in fourth. 

MAHOR Stock Race Results

Next up was the T-Jet Fray class.  This was essentially the second Fray warmup race for Travis, Jim and Mike who are Fray bound.  Qualifying showed these three turning  67, 66 and 63 laps respectively.  The surprise was that Bill had turned 69 laps to take the pole followed by Steve with a 68 lap run.  The top four (Bill, Steve, Travis and Jim) lined up for the A-Main.  The B-Main was led by Mike followed by Galen, Doug and Rob.  In the qualifying race Rob’s car was fast in a straight line but the rear tires were gone and the car was a handful.  After a quick tire change thanks to Jim Keen and some tweaking by Travis Rob’s car was looking good.  The qualifying race was two minutes per lane.  The main would be two and one-half times as long at five minutes per lane.  A lot can happen in twenty minutes and could Bill hang on to the top spot?

Fray Qualifying Race #1 Results                Fray Qualifying Race #2 Results

In the B-Main, Mike took the lead at the start and ran away from Doug, Galen and Rob to take the win.  In MSRA everyone gets the same track time and you can win from any main.  Could Mike break into the top four? 

When the power went on in the A-Main Travis and Steve quickly demoted Bill to take the top two spots.  Travis has a one lap lead over Steve after one.  Bill was looking good in the tricky red lane and was only two laps off the lead.   After the third heat only one sub-seven second lap separated the top two.  In the last segment Steve extended that one lap lead to win by three over Travis.  Bill took third four laps back from Travis and one lap up on Jim.  Mike’s B-Main charge came up just a bit short and Jim managed to hold off Mike for fourth by a lap. 

After lunch the IROC Indy-Car G-Jets were up.  The Indy-Cars are a ceramic magnet version of the BSRT 915F car.  They have G3-R chassis, ceramic magnets, 9-Ohm armatures, brass traction weights, the F1 front top weight, slip on silicone rear tires, F1 front tires and hard plastic Indy Car bodies.  No practice made this a tough act. Rob had to leave and as a result the field was reduced to seven.  Slottrack was set for three minutes a lane and the field was let loose.  As with any G-Jet race, tire management was key.  In the first segment Travis and Steve showed the way with 29 laps.  Jim was holding third one lap back with 28.  As the race progressed everyone got faster and it became clear that 30 laps per segment was required to get the job done.  Jim, Mike, Travis and Steve were all members of the 30 lap club.  In the sixth segment Steve dropped a bomb with a 34 lap run to pull away from Travis, Jim and the rest.

After practice the G-Jets were up.  In the qualifying race Steve was four laps clear of the field.  Travis and Jim were three laps apart but well ahead of Bill and Mike who were tied with 89 laps. 

In the main Steve’s MaDD Skunk Works Nissan NPT-91b bodied G-Jet took the win over Travis, Jim and Mike.  Over a single lap there wasn’t much to spare between any two cars and care was required as passing could not be taken for granted.  However over the distance it was a different story.  The win was the end result of learning to dial the controller back as far as possible.  A lesson first experineced with the T-Jets, refined in the IROC cars and put to use with the Lexan bodied G-Jets. 

March 24th, 2012 MSRA will battle on John Parker’s sectional track.  The MAHOR stockers and Fray cars will be there as will the G-Jets.  The G-Jets will be running Lexan Vintage Le-Mans bodies and either the GT-40 IROCs or the Indy-Car IROCs will take to the track for the support race.  

Slottrak’s “Race to the Line” mode was used for the entire day.  It’s a great feature as you don’t have to worry about where your car finished at the end of each segment.  You just put the cars back on the starting line and turn the power on!  The field is bunched up for the start of each segment and each segment feels like its own race.  This may become the norm as it’s exciting and easy.  The race reports were automatically developed by Slottrak.  Itmakes a race directors day easy!

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