Hobbytown Crystal Lake Negotiating Details for New Indoor Track

As mentioned on the WI/IL racing forum of rctech,  Hobbytown Crystal Lake IL will be moving to a new retail facility and in that move there are intentions of creating  new indoor and outdoor off road dirt tracks. Employees at the store have given details that the indoor track would be an aprox. 50 foot by 40 foot dirt track. No details have been given as to the outdoor venue. The indoor facility would open in the next few months.

All of the plans are still not in stone yet and legal details are  be worked on.

Hobbytown CL has had an outdoor parking lot racing program for quite some time now and we generally don't hear much about it because they've actively chosen not to create and maintain a thread in the rctech racing forums. Employees of the HT say they really want their racing program to be about the fun factor of racing and reach out to many very new racers and they don't really have intentions of wanting to attract the area's more serious racers.  More power too them!

The Track at Harbor Hobby Announces 2009/2010 Indoor Season Schedule

The Track, in Winthrop Harbor IL has just announced their carpet racing schedule to begin the second week in October 2009. They'll now be racing on road electric on Saturday evenings. This is a change from previous years schedules, that many area racers have asked for.

First scheduled Saturday on road club race is October 10th, practice begins at 9am, with racing to begin at 4pm. Three qualifiers and one main race. Practice time is free all day  on Saturday's for anyone racing in the evening. Cost is $15.00 for first class, $10.00 for the second class, and $7.00 for a third class.

The off road carpet racing schedule will remain the same for this year, with The Track racing 1/10th scale off road vehicles on Friday evenings. Track is open for practice at 4pm with racing at 7pm. 

Rules for the popular short course truck class are:

10.5 Brushless motor limit, use any 7.4volt LiPo battery or up to 7 cells of NiMh batteries. You can run any tire intended for SCT vehicles.

Also for the month of October The Track is offering a Racer's Special 

Discount. Bring your receipt from any other local track you raced at in the month of September or show your results from those races and receive a 50% discount on your first class of racing.

If you have any other questions or suggestions please call Eric at The Track. 847-246-1762

Photo Coverage of August 23rd Asphalt Assault

Outback RC Announces Special Electric Short Course Truck Race Day

SCT Showdown at Outback RC Raceway
September 27, 2009

Along with normal club racing, a special feature class will be held for Short Course Trucks (SCT). Trophies/Prize will be awarded to the top 3 positions in this class. Entry, like all classes at Outback RC Raceway, is free.

Classes that are likely to be running on that same day are 4wd, 2wd, and Open (1/8th electric, most anything). The Rc Pro NCCS Spec Slash class will be rolled into the SCT Showdown class this day. All classes are limited to electric vehicles. Rookies are welcome, and a special class may be set aside for such new folks.

The track is open at 9am. Registration is from 10 til 10:20. Then classes are drawn up, a drivers' meeting is held, some track watering is done, and qualifying starts at 11:00 sharp. Three rounds of Rocket Round Qualifying and mains are held. All heats will be 6 minutes. See more track info at www.outbackrc.com.

Use rcsignup.com to sign up (although signup is allowed in person up til race time):
http://events.rcsignup.com/events/di...nt.cfm?ID=1086

For this special SCT Showdown class, there are some rules, as follows:

SCT Rules:
-Any 2wd SC Truck from Traxxas, Associated, Losi, & HPI
-Stock tires from any SCT, but cannot be modified in any way
-Any stock motor from any SCT, 17.5 brushless, or 27 turn brushed
-Any 6-cell NIMH or 2s LIPO battery
-Any ESC
-Any diff
-Any steering servo
-Any modifications except must retain stock chassis
-Any final drive ratio
-Any SCT specific body
-No minimum weight

You can't run a modified T4 in SCT unless it is completely converted to an SC10. You can only run SCT trucks, no hybrids like a B44 with a truck body or an 1/8 scale buggy with a truck body. It must be an SCT RTR or kit.

Yes, you can run SC10 tires on a Slash and vice versa.
Yes, you can run a 17-turn SC10 motor in a Slash and vice versa.

2009 Asphalt Assault This Weekend!

This Saturday and Sunday, August 22nd and 23rd is the second leg of the three series electric on road race being held at Strictly Raceway, 7719 W. Lawrence Ave., Norridge IL.  Saturday late afternoon the track will be ready for free no charge practice. Sunday the track will open for racers practice at 7am. Racing to begin at 11am.

Here's the details thread on rctech.net:

http://www.rctech.net/forum/wisconsin-illinois-racing/302301-asphalt-assault-2009-a.html

Can't Get Enough RC- local racer spotlight

Robert Rangel loves RC and more than RC he loves racing RC.

I met Robert earlier this month at the first leg of the 2009 Asphalt Assault up at The Track. What first drew me to him was his infectious laugh and then his zeal for talking RC, and  that he's new to the area's on road racing scene.

I had a second trip up to Harbor Hobby this month and ran across Robert again. Up there practicing with his newer RCGT and his SC10. Robert actually had four vehicles with him, USVTA, RCGT, Slash and SC10. Great paint schemes on all of them.

I asked Robert to tell me how he came to start racing RC. He said he started about two years ago racing offroad up at the old Bristol track on Monday nights. Since then you can find him as a regular racer at The Track in Winthrop Harbor. He's since added a ton of vehicles to his stable. He's hooked now as he says. 

He's recently come over to on-road racing and with the help of Eric, the owner of The Track, he's learning how to tune his on road stuff. He now owns two on road chassis' both TC5's one for RCGT and one for USVTA. 

Robert now travels all over to race...loving every minute. He's now traveling out of state to hook up with many off road races before this year's outdoor season ends.

Catch him locally at the MIdwest Nitro Series, of course weekly practicing at The Track, and new this year to the Asphalt Assault.

Fun Newer Race Classes

Last year Vintage Trans Am began to really take off. Strictly now regularly sees two heats of cars for racing, Underground RC Racetrack saw an A and a B too on Sundays. this Summer at Strictly the hot new classes have been RCGT and F1. USVTA is still popular too. For electric off road out at Leisure Hours last winter Slash was the hot ticket on Saturday nights.

What makes a class "hot"? 

I know for a fact Kevin Kane popularized RCGT at Strictly this Summer, and that Rob King was responsible for getting F1 off the ground at Strictly. 

This coming indoor season, especially for Leisure it will be interesting to see how Bernie deals with all the new short course vehicles that have and will come out to compete with Traxxas Slash trucks. Last year it was easy. Stock Slash was just that...a Slash that you changed very little and used a 3800 stick pack. What will the classes for short course be like at Leisure this year??

There's talk of and I want to jump on the bandwagon at Strictly's indoor small scale track of trying to resurrect Mini-Z racing. Well resurrect might not be the word because I don't think Mini-Z racing ever really caught on here in Chicagoland. Stay tuned and I'll bring it back up soon.

Hey, find anything interesting here? 

Leave some comments.

Newest Local Track

The newest area track, RC Hobby and Track in Elk Grove is up and running for over a month now I think. Lots of people have been stopping by. Biggest negative issue so far for them was not buying and installing CRC racing carpet. They do have an Ozite product laid down, but it's not traditional racing carpet.  In the first weeks racers were seeing tons of fluff balls and fibers working their way into vehicles. Ruined bearings and lots of time spent pulling pubies out of everything. Reports are it's way better but not perfect. Looks like they absolutely need to vacuum after every race and practice session to keep it manageable.

Hopefully the problem gets solved before the indoor carpet racing season begins. The track is in a perfect geographic area for many area racers.

The best thing that could happen to the place, in terms of generating way more business, would be for them to drop 60 yards of clay and dirt in the place and groom a wonderful electric indoor dirt track. There's never been one so close to the city since Chicagoland Hobby had their dirt track in the back of their store in the 90's. Dirt would draw a huge crowd.

Here We are in 2009

2009, a great year to be a local Chicago area RC racer. We have what? Eight tracks and racing programs and counting in about an hour drive of Downtown Chicago. More venues to race at since I started racing 8 years ago at Leisure Hours Raceway back in the Crest Hill Il days.

Many of the tracks have their own "internal" forums, and then there's the big major forums like rctech.net/forum. And there's local websites that have area racing forums that have dried up like chitownrc.com, where racers don't contribute anymore. What all of these places and forums on the internet have in common is as an area racer you just might not want to post up something that isn't set in a positive light for fear of hurting someone's feelings or worse yet impacting the business at that track or hobbyshop. Well that's one of the reasons I thought we needed a new place, like this, to offer frank, honest and hopefully helpful info about our area tracks and support businesses like local hobbyshops.