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Last Year

©2012 Merlin Dougas Larsen

Published by Merlin Douglas Larsen at Smashwords

This document is free. Do not obtain any remuneration from it but distribute it freely.

I went through emails that I sent to my son, in which I included a sort of on-going narrative of my increased, renewed interest in slot car racing. This was the hobby that kept me out of trouble in high school. It was the hobby that my longtime friend Rocky Russo and I shared in common.

I met Rocky in the summer of 1969, when my friend from high school, Don Dimmick, and I, entered our first-ever slot car racing series; it was for novice drivers, with “Formula One” cars. As we came into Hammond’s Raceway (in the basement of the Cottonwood mall), I saw this stocky Italian-American-looking guy with the very first silver strands already starting in his long, black hair. He was dressed in a t-shirt and denim cutoffs and leaning against the glass counter, talking with Lee Hammond the proprietor’s son. Rocky turned and introduced himself to me, and at once I saw something we had in common: his large eyes were made small by his glasses too. I thought that I would be teammates with Don Dimmick, but Lee separated us and put him with a Japanese-American kid named Gary Aoke (sp), and me with Rocky. I won that race. And afterward, Rocky offered to give me one of his motors, as mine had started to go soft on me near the end of the race. I followed Rocky up to his parents’ house on Kensington Ave. His mom met us at the door and greeted me as if I were one of her son’s old friends. His work bench, in a basement of vast clutter, was chaos incarnate; scaled mountains of parts and junk piled against the wall halfway to the ceiling and there was this little cleared work space maybe a foot in diameter. He rummaged through the piles and brought out a couple of hand-wound armatures and gave them to me. That was the beginning. The armatures did not work for me in the subsequent race a week later. But at the time, Rocky’s cars also did not work as often as they caused him trouble. He was a lousy painter too. But, he was determined and increased his skills over the years until he was more than competent at painting, and his cars were often faster than mine. Rocky possessed the talent of “gear headedness”: he knew how to make things work. We raced weekly, both at the commercial tracks and at my parents’ house where I had a plastic, four-lane home set on my bedroom floor.

That first slot car stint, that Rocky appeared in the midst of, lasted for over three years; then I left to serve an LDS mission for two years. When I got back, slot car racing in the Salt Lake Valley was dead. But, I had picked up a new hobby: miniature war gaming. Rocky was good for that too: before I left, we had played board games as well, and we shared an interest in history, especially air combat. So we spent the bulk of the 70s co-designing war games rules. Even when he moved away, we continued to correspond; and when he visited the Valley, we nearly always managed to fit in a game or two. In 1978 slot cars returned to life. I was married and so was Rocky. But we dug out the cars, made/bought new ones, and had a spell of racing again. His slot car “career” continued unabated throughout the years; mine was off again and seldom “on”. Rocky continued to live away from Utah but visited every year. Our lives remained connected, both through shared interests and because, mysteriously, we enjoyed being pals: I don’t believe that Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser were more unlike than we two. When he moved back to Utah in the 90s, I was into “midlife crisis” mode; hobbies were ailing and failing to satisfy. Thus my feeling of connection to my friends was waning. I realized that the hobbies would keep the friendships alive. So I continued on with the hobbies in order to keep connected to the friends, especially to Rocky. Mike Kelly had been my closest friend through grade school and junior high, but we had not remained in touch since graduating from high school: because of slot car racing, Mike and Rocky had continued to be friends; this had grown into being pals as well and was a separate thing from Rocky and me. I would see Mike once in a while over the years, always when Rocky and slot cars brought us together. Except for a single blip (chance meeting in a mall), Don Dimmick had dropped off my radar altogether.

It was in 1995 that Rocky got an infection in his right leg which resulted in amputation below the knee. After recovering, with adaptation to a prosthetic, Rocky’s wife got a job in Pittsburgh and they lived there for a number of years; he was hospitalized twice while there for infection related diseases in his left leg and I despaired at learning the news. But he recovered again and kept going. Returning to the Valley, he and Cathy bought a house on the east bench. But they had not been living there two years, when she died in an auto accident. We were playing an air war game on the day it happened; it was April 1, 2003. Rocky never got over that loss. But he also never quit coming out to games, and stayed “for coffee” afterward, chatting us all up from his great store of accumulated knowledge on a large array of subjects. He and Mike Kelly were into slot cars again up to that point; but I had lost interest for the most part.

I could tell that my friend Rocky was in even greater need of continuous friendships. So I began to go up to his house for Thursday night games. When these changed to Tuesday nights, somehow the group dynamic fell off, and the other guys stopped coming for games regularly, then seldom and finally not at all. On those nights that a game did not happen, Rocky and I would sit down to movies. He showed me all of his favorites; he had an increasingly large collection of DVDs. For the last half-dozen years of our friendship I hardly missed a Tuesday night: “Boys’/guys’ night out”, we would call it, when the girls at Millie’s wanted to know what we were doing. “I’m just a lonely old man, living with his cats,” Rocky would admit ironically. Sometimes there would be three of us, if one of our other friends from the gaming group happened to come by: Steve Bradfield, Chuck Hards; or Rocky’s “good son”, Chris; almost a foster son. But Chris got married and then became a daddy and that was the last we saw of him on Tuesdays. Sterling Price, Rocky’s free flight modeling club buddy, started coming by, at Rocky’s invitation, on Tuesday nights to share burgers and movies. We three, in the last two or three years, were the Millie’s Regulars. Some of the girls even memorized what we would order; that’s how regular and predictable we were.

The Tuesday night gaming group did not revive, but Thursday nights were faithfully participated in by Rocky, Steve Bradfield, Peter Vernon’s clan, Chuck Hards and myself, at Hastur Hobbies, where our friend Bob Baker made his shop available for miniature gaming, especially the air war game. Toward the end of the decade, I grew weary of the constant challenge to adapt to Rocky’s increasingly casual way of playing our war games rules: finally I just had to bow out. Chuck Hards had thrown in the towel a year earlier. So for the last c. two years of Rocky’s life, I did not play any more war games with him. Without the regular association of our “guys’ night out”, I probably would not have been around for Rocky to influence me back into our original shared hobby.

A year and a half before Rocky died, a slot car track was made available in Salt Lake City: Don Haase’s The Slot Shop put up a Kingleman. Rocky helped revive my interest in slot car racing by loaning me a “D3” to take to Buena Park Raceway on my next trip to LA. Never the collector, I had divested myself of nearly everything; but I still had five cars left: So I had gone over four of them and they ran okay. I started showing up on Friday afternoons at The Slot Shop to “dice” with Rocky; and Mike Kelly appeared. By the time fall arrived, I was starting to think of slot cars as my regular hobby again.

That was when I started sending email “reports” of the races to my son, Ricky, as he served his LDS mission in Brazil. I have gone through them and pulled out the slot car “reports” and arranged them here. This is a little memorial to my friendship with Rocky Russo. That last year, he encouraged me back into the hobby which began our friendship 41 years before. And I like to think that by getting me to liven up a little, my presence gave his last few months an added dimension which would not have been there: without the slot cars, and hoping that Rocky would be back to enjoy them, I probably wouldn’t have been there for him during his final illness.

(the dates of these entries are the email dates and not those of the events as described)

11Oct10

I went slot car racing; to an actual race, not just tootling around the track like I do on Fridays. My car was slow; geared too low, so it "peaks out" on the straights and banking, and gets passed there by the properly geared cars. Also, they power past me in the "bowl" (the up-and-around section): but I think that there it is mostly driving: I am too afraid of miscalculating my speed and coming out. But in the dim past (as a kid and slightly older), when I was "vigorous and quick" (i.e. young), I used to drive a slower car too, and win from time to time: my modus operandi was to seldom if ever come out; and to use my superior "brakes" to catch up at the end of each straight: cars with lots of "horsepower" would blast past me coming out of the bowl and down the straights, then hit the "brakes" and I would scoot right up to them, and sometimes pass them going into the turn. I like my cars geared a little too low, because it gives me more control and better brakes (resulting from my high gear ratio - most cars run a 9 tooth pinion and 28 tooth crown; I'm geared 8-32: if that's confusing, look at it this way: "low" gearing is the highest ratio of motor rpm to wheels rotation; so obviously my 8-32 is a ratio of 4 to 1, motor revs per wheels rotation; so, I am geared "low", like gear one or two in a real car; whereas 9-28 is a ratio of 3.11 to 1: the motor only turns a tad over 3 times to rotate the wheels once: so my car picks up speed quicker and stops quicker, but is c. 22% less at the top end, if the other motor and mine have the same rpm: but I'm thinking that my 40 year-old motor is probably not as high in rpm either); which, as I said, I had timed to a nicety, back in the day. But so far, this time around (which is still very brief, yet) I don't have my eye and control finger retrained to take advantage of my better brakes. Maybe it will all come back.

Anyway, I finished 7th out of 11 drivers: I did beat out Rocky in sheer driving (his car was even slower than mine, and c. 40 years old - well, slower with him driving it anyway: I drove it earlier, just trying it out, and its power is better than mine, but the brakes not nearly as good; so, as I said, I catch him up at the end of the straights and even get into the turns a tad ahead - when I do it right, of course: which, as I also-also said, I don't do very consistently, yet; but when I do it right, it's really a satisfying feeling to catch up and nip on by: sometimes I can even nerf the outside car by sliding up and nipping by on the inside: but I get nerfed quite as often as I dish it out! - "He who lives by the nerf, dies by the nerf"). My other lifelong friend (Mike, since the 2nd grade; he's the one in the video I posted to my blog a couple weeks back - Rocky's the annoyed one whose car got broken), DNFed ("did not finish"): his motor mounts all broke! which sabotaged his gear mesh. It was a brand new car, too; one Rocky had bought just the day before, and was very fast till it broke down: he sat out the entire last heat (each heat is three minutes, and there are six heats - except when there are eight, but not this race), and I only beat him by eight laps, which shows you how much faster he was than me (we lap the track every c. 4.9 to 3.9 seconds: Mike was turning consistent 4.1's and 4.2's; yours truly was doing well to get below 4.8).

2Jan11

On New Year's Day I entered a slot car race at "the other track" (one set up in Douglas Models, on 33rd South, which originally was on 9400 South at MRS Hobby Shop - that's an acronym for Model Railroad Stop hobby shop, not "Mrs."!): I hadn't driven that track for the better part of ten years: and even back then I disliked it because of the three square pillars in the way of watching the cars (each pillar was over 12" across). Well, the pillars are gone (the holes for them though are still there - but no cars went down the two open ones yet, and the lap counter sits over the third hole), so driving the track is actually pleasant now: but I never really learned this track before, and so it was like driving a new track for me; consequently I was slower and finished dead last. The field was small, only eight drivers; and "dead last" means among the six of us that finished the race: two drivers broke their cars in the first heat. There were only four heats, making a 16 minute race. I felt gyped, actually; the heats should have been at least five minutes long since there were only four of them. We only ran four racers at a time, which also felt lame; on the heats where one or both of the broken cars should have been running, we only had three or two racers going at it; bleh. The track has eight lanes, or is supposed to: only the [middle] six lanes have pickup braid on them?! The owner hasn't even bothered to put power and braid to the two outside lanes: yet he complains that "the other track" ([The Slot Shop] my usual haunt) gets all the racers and his racing programs only attract a handful. Well, DUH! You only offer three-quarters of a track, don't pay the heating bill so that your establishment is dark and cold (the track is in what should be the warehouse, aft section of the building); on top of this, you insist on restrictive racing classes with weird rules that are constantly changing, and then wonder why "the other track" gets all the participation. The owner of "the other track" actually cooperated to get some business going to the freezing, three-quarter track: the four-race series on New Year’s Day was his idea, and he participated in that first race that I was in (he won it, iirc). He wants Douglas Models to do well, because a more healthy slot car fan base benefits his store as well. But at this juncture, my initial exposure to the Douglas Models track is less than encouraging. I wonder if I will return. Oh, and Rocky doesn't feel welcome there and didn't bother to participate, which was/is another personal negative for me: the conflict goes back years to when Rocky ran afoul of my other friend Wolf Detlef Scheering, who is a rules lawyer extraordinaire, and a handful of other rules lawyers, including the owner: whereas Rocky is casual about rules and has a "let's just put the cars down and race" attitude, which I mirror. Anytime Rocky showed up at the MRS - now Douglas Models - track, somebody would complain that his cars were "not legal" for some reason or other. Even when Rocky borrowed someone else's car he'd get flack about "I bet that car's not legal" (this would be opined before said-objector knew the car was in fact borrowed).

There were three more races scheduled for the day; a second one at that "new" track and two more over at the track where I have been driving and entering races since last fall: but I didn't feel interested in any of them because they were driving cars in specific limited classes and with bodies in the last two races that sort of look like stock cars or pickup trucks (bleh). Even when offered cars to drive I declined: I really only enjoy running my own stuff.

On New Year's Eve, I had been over to the regular track and "diced" with my two old friends, Rocky and Mike. Rocky wasn't "in the groove" and quit and just watched Mike and I. We ran OLD cars, after a brief spell with the new/current kind; and we were pretty even-steven with everything we pitted against each other. Those "duels" are what slot car racing is all about: playing with favorite model race cars (modeled after REAL cars, not just stoopid looking "thingies" designed to go fast, but not bearing more than a superficial resemblance to real cars); and in addition to that, cars we have been playing together with for over 40 years! We are a rare breed, Rocky, Mike and I: there aren't any other racers at the shop who have cars from their childhood almost half a century ago! :)

31Jan11

Because of my toothache "adventures" I had not worked on my new slot car that I bought the parts for the previous Friday. But by Thursday I was feeling a definite interest. So all afternoon and clear till past midnight I worked on the car, and finished it, including spray painting the body. Next day I put the body on and went to the track; I broke in the motor on 5 volts as recommended; then broke in the car on the track. It worked! Very cute orange and white Ferrari CANAM P-4, number "33". It isn't quite as fast as Rocky's cars (the class is called "D3", and is a "retro" racing class of in-lines with vintage sports car bodies - no ugly "downforce" handling bodies, only "real" cars); and this other guy, Charlie Nelson's cars are really spiff, but my rendition won't be thoroughly shamed to race against them: I've "never" had the fastest car - I qualify "never" because I can remember once, maybe twice, MANY years ago, when I happened to have the fastest driver-car combo, for maybe part of one race, before the car got smashed up, and I never did regain that VERY temporary edge of being fastest. On Saturday I raced at The Slot Car Shop track (the one in the video I put together last September from the video clips that your Mom took). I didn't do any better than I usually do (10th out of 12 drivers), BUT I turned my first 40 lap heat! With a c. 41 year-old car too (I'm the only one running OLD equipment: because even Rocky seldom runs his old "wire" cars these days). If you can consistently turn 40 lap heats you'll be within 10-20 laps of first place; if you can turn in several 41 or 42 lap heats you'll be within a handful of laps of first place, or might even win with a little luck! The fastest heat was [by] one guy who turned ONE 43 lap heat: the fastest heat ever is a 44, very rare: we all agree that 45 is possible. SO, my "40" is encouraging. The way I pulled it off was by "stealing" one of the track owner's 2 OHM controllers off the wall without telling him, for the fourth heat (of eight): my first three heats had been 35, 34, 33 - I got so annoyed at the unresponsiveness of my 4 OHM controller (too soft for that motor, I thought I'd adjust eventually, but instead I am getting worse!), so therefore I did the "theft" and turned in an instant 40 lap heat. Quite a dramatic difference! For the last half of the race I borrowed one of Rocky's spiff adjustable ($200+!!!) controllers and did no worse than a 37, with LOTS of crashes taking me out. I did one 39 lap heat, which would have been a 41 or just shy of it, because although I was off only twice, one of those cost me a full lap and more, because there wasn't a corner marshal where I came off(!?) and the nearest one had to run and put my car on. Crap! Anyway, I have to get a new controller or at the very least a 2 OHM resistor (and swap resistors for the next anticipated race: the 4 OHM is perfect for my new car, and a 2 OHM would be too sensitive to handle - ::sigh:: ). After that race I found myself over at the "other" track, just around the corner on 33rd South east of State Street: this track used to be in the MRS Hobby Shop in Sandy on 94th South (maybe you remember?); but I never liked the setting with the three pillars in the way and a claustrophobic feel to the place. Well, the present location of the track is no better but for different reasons: too COLD (the owner doesn't pay the heating bill, or else the warehouse area is just unheated in the first place: the rest of the store up front doesn't feel particularly chilly to me), too dim (warehouse lighting, duh!), and you can't get out of the left-end driving positions to go get your car during practice if it comes off and other drivers are to your right: there isn't enough room to slide between their butts and the wall! Annoying! But worst of all is the two outside lanes are not powered, so this is really only a six-lane track: which tells me that the owner doesn't really care that much if he has a big racing program. I raced Saturday on his track; there were nine of us counting Rocky and me (Rocky doesn't go there because he feels unwelcome: I've told you this before, I'm thinking): so "they" would have had a grand total of seven racers without us. My new car performed well and I got used to the track by the end of the race, or was starting to get used to it a little bit more: I feel strange, surreal, driving it, because it's just so weird with its "two-storey" construction (the entire "back straight", and 180 turn onto it, runs UNDER the top, main-straight and bank): fun to drive actually, but it plays with my mind and I can't connect to the experience - at least not so far anyway. Anyway, I finished with 154 laps (Rocky did too, but I don't know which of us was ahead of the other), placing me either 7th or 8th out of the nine of us: but the neat thing was I turned a 41 lap heat, and the fastest heat was only a 42! First place turned in 170 laps, so I am not that far down even my first time out with this car and only my second time on that weird track in ten years. I CAN do much better: but do I want to? Like I said, the track just feels weird to me and not in a pleasant way. It's a bit like trying to enjoy driving inside a cave.

6Feb11

I didn't enter any races last week. Boring "NASTRUCKS". On Friday I was down at the track running my cars and trying out different hand controllers that Rocky has. My NEW Ferrari P4 CANAM went into the red lane, and I leaned over to the kid standing next to me (I was on white) and said, "That's okay, just bring me around". Next thing I knew my car hit the wall full speed. He didn't understand, at, all. That's the trouble with overestimating what a newbie knows. No real damage happened: my guide shoe went down about 45 degrees, which I simply bent back up straight; my body got a couple of tiny starting splits in front, which bookbinding tape arrests. But probably more was bent than meets the eye, because now on the inside four lanes around the bank my car won't stay in the slot without "blipping" the controller. ::sigh:: I guess I'll have to take it apart and set it flat on a block and check for bends. Heh, hobbies.

13Feb11

Yesterday's slot car race was stoopid: I couldn't seem to escape trouble no matter how hard I tried. Even on the INSIDE lane (Red) I still got collected - by the clumsy corner marshal "finger nerfing" me as he went to put on other cars. Then in the last heat I got nerfed on the bowl from my Green lane into Blue: my car made it around the bowl and the last turn and I could see it was going to go down the main straight at speed (trying to grab a car going fast is usually very bad for the car; gears suffer first, and even the alignment of the chassis and integrity of the body mounts can take a "hit"; not to mention that if you time the grab wrong your little slithy fingers can get hurt!). "One off Blue!" I yelled. I should have yelled, "HOLD BLUE!" or "RIDER ON BLUE!" What in the world possessed me to yell "One off Blue"? Anyway my car zipped through the lap counter and paused on the bank, and I thought, "Good, Brad is pausing to let Jim take my car off Blue and put it on Green". No such luck: the next instant, my car zipped the rest of the way around the banking, down the straight and full speed into the dead man and into the wall. I spent most of an hour after the race getting everything bent back into straightness. Brad was very sorry and said, "You'll have your car running better than it was because of this." And he was right! It does run better! But the race was a frustration. I finished 12th out of 16, two laps down from 11th place; and only 9 laps down from Rocky who finished 7th with 290 laps (five laps down from 6th): our buddy Mike Kelly won again (that's two in a row) with 336 laps. So that was quite a mob of six of us all within that 9 lap spread. After the race, Mike and I diced with the fast cars that Rocky has available; including the one that Mike had won with (and set a new total lap record). When I drove that car, Mike couldn't beat me either. We went at it, neck and neck with the two "slower" cars; or inching away with the race winner car. Then we switched to the D3 class (my new car is that kind) and repeated the neck and neck driving. "Too bad you can't drive that cleanly in the race", Rocky quipped at me. I could only agree. Well, my day will come; if I keep this up, that is. My enthusiasm, which is only mediocre as it is, is getting deflated by "rools" talk and the continued annoyance of 3 minute heats (they're too short!), with the track power being shut off for this, that and the other thing: why can't we just RACE ferpetesakes?

27Feb11

Yesterday I was in a pretty big race; twenty racers entered, 19 raced (the 20th guy's car let him down right before the race started). We had to start the race over! Stupid lap counter computer froze after two heats. I wish I could have had those two heats instead of my first two in the restarted race; my lap total would have been three higher and I would have finished 8th instead of 9th. Rocky was flying and beat this, my best race so far, by a good 14 laps; he had 313 and finished 7th; Mike won, again, with 326: the guy who would have won (Charlie Nelson, the best car builder in our present racing club) had his controller blow a fuse and it cost him 40 seconds, or roughly 10 laps; he still managed to finish 4th or 5th. My 9th place was with 299 laps, considerably better than I've done so far; this was the first race where I managed to finish in the top 50%. If enough guys show up tomorrow, we will have another D3 "retro" class race. But I am not very hopeful. I will go over to the track anyway, to show my intent, and maybe word of that will get around. We've got to push that racing class; it's the best one by far, imho, and needs to grow. In-line setups always look natural (and sexy) to me; angle-winders and side-winders look wrong somehow; but of course I've been used to seeing them for decades, as they are the most common setup. I worked on my car after last Monday's race; basically I rebuilt the whole car, improving the rear bearings, limiting the wiggle in the brass side pans, lowering the motor and repairing the main rail joints: after the race Monday I noticed that the right rail was just about to part company with the rest of the car: I barely finished without breaking down! (no wonder my handling was getting screwy). Anyway, the instant I started lapping the track on Friday with my rebuilt car, I could tell that it was like an entirely new machine: it was handling like a dream! Now, if I can just get the "brakes" back, I'll be lapping two or three tenths of a second faster and everybody had better watch out! I'd run this car even up against angle-winders, it's that slick to drive and that quick. I think it's my fastest car now, even without good "brakes". (Unfortunately, to get my "brakes" back, I think I have to replace the motor, and I'm a cheapskate: I won't replace it till it dies.)

7Mar11

I did no racing last week (the Saturday race was trucks; and as I explained when someone wanted to know - again - why I don't do trucks: "Trucks are for haulin', not haulin' ass". But then I allowed that "boys will race anything that moves"; no duh. The Monday D3 race was a non starter for lack of participants, but Rocky, Mike and I drove together and had fun. Also on Friday, Rocky brought the GE-powered Indianapolis 500 "offy" (diminutive for "Offenhauser", the kind of engine popular back in the early 60's), like the car I have had for over ten years. Back in the day, both Mike and I had GEs (this is, oh, 1967 or 68); so with Rocky resurrecting Mike's car we had fun dicing for a couple of hours or more. My car was slightly better, but Mike drives (usually) better than I do, so it was pretty even. (these motors and frames are originals from back then, but not the exact cars we had: Rocky is a collector and provided these duplicate cars c. ten years ago for Mike and I to drive; Mike's car has spent several years in the "to repair" pile)

27Mar11

Yesterday, I entered the "enduro" race: it was eight 15 minute heats, or two hours. I expected a lot of dropouts due to mechanical failure, but surprisingly we only had one of the ten teams have their car utterly fail with a burned up motor. By the halfway point, I had to replace my motor brushes, which was a surprise to me; otherwise the motor ran great and stayed cool. I also had to put one of my front "O" rings back on (they function as front "tires") and straighten my front axle twice: that wasn't too much repair work for a two hour race.

I didn't know when I left the house who (if anybody) would be my teammate: it could have been Rocky or Mike or BOTH, or nobody at all. I was prepared to pay the full $25 entry fee (split to $12.50 per driver per two-man team). Well, I got paired up with Luke - the guy with the reversed baseball cap in the video I put up Last September on my blog and YouTube, the one who "broke" Rocky's car, heheh. We weren't the fastest team yesterday, but we were the tallest! He ended up having to bail at the halfway point to go to his nephew's birthday party (the enduro took longer than Luke expected); so he only drove two of the eight heats. I drove the entire last hour by myself.

Except for the second to last heat I did just fine: but in that heat when I was on purple I had Jack Norman on my left on yellow. He and "Crash Carter" are two of the youngest drivers, c. 12 years old. Jack is usually so fast that he is a contender for first place and even wins occasionally: Don, the track owner, for some mysterious reason, builds Jack's cars (maybe as a favor for Mike Norman, Jack's dad, I don't know); anyway, the last few races Jack hasn't been "in form", or maybe he just hasn't had cars that he can adjust to (I think he only knows how to drive a particular type of setup and hasn't got the experience to adjust when the car doesn't have the "feel" he needs). ANYWAY! he and Carter were teamed up and already out of the running for the money (first through fourth place), and Jack was not driving at all well. In fact he was happy to come off if it meant also taking me with him!! I felt like kicking him in the ankle halfway through the 15 minutes of hell.

I asked him: "Why are you doing this"?

And his reply was: "All's fair in racing."

He was deliberately trying to position himself on the bowl so that he could nerf me as I came up on the outside - which he succeeded in doing three or four times. The rest of the time, I was driving so warily of him that I hung back until I could get by without being taken off. A few times I botched it and both of us went off together, which bothered me a lot and him not at all. Then he crashed his car a bit too hard and one of his "friends" took it and worked on it. But did that remove Jack from my presence? Not a chance: he was immediately driving a different car while his "official" entry car was being put back into driving fettle.

"Why are you driving that car"? I asked, feeling more vexed than ever.

"Why not?" he said.

"Because you are out of the running, and now you're just a moving obstacle and hazard."

He just grinned and kept driving it. A few minutes later his "real" car was put back on and the "fake" car taken off; but nobody bothered to notice that the laps he'd done shouldn't have counted (just because it ain't right; it's sloppy race management). Oh well.

Meanwhile, on my right, on black, was Charlie Nelson, the best car builder in the Valley. He and his partner (Kerstin Hardy) were somewhere behind me, having had a rough race altogether. I had a safe lead on them at the start of the heat. But Charlie kept whizzing past me every couple of minutes or less; except when he'd try and get by me on the bowl and I'd nerf him; this occurred several times; and we tangled elsewhere as well.

"I am starting to feel like Jack to you, Charlie," I said after I'd taken him out for the fourth or fifth time. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to; don't try and pass me on the bowl and we should be able to get through this".

You see, normally, without Jack as my nemesis, I would be able to concentrate on Charlie and let him by in a strategic place. But with Jack hounding me I was all focused on how to avoid him, and Charlie would come up on me and I'd nerf him on the bowl or we'd tangle; sometimes all three of us were off together. It was most frustrating.

But finally it was over and I moved to my last heat lane, blue. I thought: Sheesh! I bet I only turned a 189 or 190 that last heat. Hah! If only it could have been that good. In fact I turned a 183! Horrible!! Jackie had slowed me up far more than I had realized. My other heats had been 196, 195, 197 and 197 (Luke's two heats had been 193 and 195). That purple heat had put Charlie and Kirsten within striking distance of my fourth place; and totally ruined any chance I had had of catching Mike and Rocky: their team and Luke and I had been dicing all through the race for third place; first they and then we would be up a couple of laps on each other - at one point I had a seven lap lead in fact.

Going into the last heat, however, Mike was on purple and now 13 laps ahead. He got a second 207 (on orange he'd also done that well), and I turned a 200! Yay! That was more like it. If I'd only had at least my lowest so far of 195 on purple, instead of 183, he and Rocky would only have beaten Luke and I by eight laps instead of twenty. Oh WELL!

I got the four things out of the race that I wanted before it started, so although this turgid recital of an event interesting only to me sounds like a rant it really isn't: I wanted to turn at least one 200 lap heat (that would be equivalent of eight 3 minute heats of 40 laps, my current best), I wanted my car to finish the race in good shape, I wanted to drive my OWN car in the first place, and finally I wanted to go head to head with Mike and Rocky such that we finished close to each other. I consider a 20 lap difference to be almost nothing when you consider the totals: our team had 1,556, and Mike and Rocky had 1,576.

3Apr11

Yesterday I finished seventh out of c. a dozen racers. Well, Rocky had less than a half dozen laps more than I did, but he was DQed because his original car broke down. So did Mike's, so his lap total also did not count. But even if they had finished with the same cars I would have beat them both, had Don (the proprietor) not put my car back on the WRONG lane and I hit the wall: one of my pickup brushes got knocked out and Don put it back in, but I lost c. ten laps. The fastest heat was 70 laps by Brad (he also was DQed because his original car broke down); my fastest heat was 62. My car was hassling me; no brakes, and for some reason the handling was a bit "off". I think it was because my frame was touching on the outside in the corners. After the race I bent the front ends up a tad and that seemed to fix the handling annoyance. Charlie Nelson won again; he's taken first place in the two D3 races we've had so far: and first through sixth place were all chassis built by Charlie - I have said before that he's the best car builder in the Valley. Afterward I bought a new motor, hoping that this will give me brakes again; also I am going to try a lower gear ratio, to the same purpose, and to give me a bit more snap coming out of the turns.

11Apr11

On Saturday I entered the "open" slot car race: this meant that any chassis or motor under a "high downforce" body was allowed. Of course, I loathe the look of HD bodies, with their high sides, wedgy "butt-high" look, and withal not being models of any RL cars at all. So I always run a car that is at least a recognizable RL car: mine was the same Porsche that Luke and I ran in the 2 hour "enduro" a few weeks ago. I hadn't changed a thing. And naturally my car was slow compared to the cars that took first, second and third. Mike Kelly was gloomy throughout the race, because said-cars were "blasting by me" all during the race. He took fourth place, only c. 30 laps down from first (a guy named Jeff with 580 laps; I think second place, but it could have been third place, had 562 laps; Donny, the owner's son, had 548 laps for fifth place). I was a good 25-30 laps down from Mike with 526 laps. Rocky also had 526 laps! But he hadn't marked where his car finished so I got to have sixth place and Rocky was seventh: we both stopped on the bridge going into the last turn!! I ran the last heat so my car's stopping place was my mark; and anyone who has pulled his car off in the previous heat(s) must mark his place, which as I say Rocky had not done: "I couldn't find a safe place to put a marker", he said twice. I just stared at him, then said: "Well, you broke protocol, so they're going to give sixth to me". When they called out, "Who's ahead, Rocky or Doug?", Rocky said, "Doug is." And that was the end of that. I have lately been marking where my car stops with one of those heavy duty paper clip thingies that have the hinged handles - this kind http://myitchyfingers.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/clip1.jpg . Very convenient and secure; I can clip it to the track guard rails either on top or on the underneath edge. I even painted my name on both sides of it. There is NO excuse (but lame ones) for not marking where your car stops. I've decided to get my old "open" car built up again; the "Group 20" motor should still be in good shape and it's powerful. The chassis handled really well back in the day; it should be my best handling and fastest car when I am through. I'll need another hand controller though: the one I borrowed from Rocky isn't "buff" enough for that powerful of motor and will "blow" the circuitry of the controller if I try and run the Group 20 with it: so I have to find a "cheap" used controller (probably Don the track owner has one) and put a low resistor in it, probably a 1.5 or even a 1 ohm will be necessary to give me the right responsiveness. Enough of that gear head talk...

18Apr11

I did indeed resurrect my c. 33 year-old car. Tuesday I picked up the parts and bought a used 2 ohm hand controller (a 1 ohm allowed too much power, enough so that I knew a 1.5 ohm would also be too much) for only $25 from Don the track owner. Wednesday I painted up a McLaren M8B CANAM body, in orange of course. So now the car closely resembles the incarnation of c. 1978-79, when I won the "semi-pro" class and finished 2nd over-all in a big race (iirc, there were at least 20 entrants): back then the "air dams" were all the latest rage, to create down-force and thus higher cornering speeds, i.e. faster lap times and better handling.

(But the air dams are UGLY! At least they're now relegated to an "only air dams" class which so far is the least popular class, may it remain so, Amen! Picture sheets of Lexan stapled and taped to the sides and rear of the body, waggling inches high, and bending down under the air pressure - such that the side pieces actually flatten out over the adjacent lanes?! Hideous abominations that they were, I could not stomach the thought of putting them on MY car. So mine was the only car sans air dams. Mine was the only car that looked like a model car. And I took 2nd place over-all to boot. Yet my "legendary" drive did not inspire even one other driver to remove the unsightly dammed things. Instead they flourished and grew taller yet and racing became ridiculous. I quit. And the car - minus its cannibalized parts - has languished in the box ever since. I guess that I have sort of imagined it as my "secret weapon".)

The race two Saturdays ago finally convinced me that without more "horsepower" I was not going to go faster. The time had arrived: my driving efficiency had been regained enough to warrant the upgrade to a faster setup. So out comes the old beastie. And she is FAST alright. Wednesday I was driving routinely, right off the bat, in the 4.0 to 3.9 second range. I finally have a car that breaks the 4.0 second lap! I got it as low as 3.8 on the Black lane which is rather impressive. The single-most important aspect about a great car setup is handling: if you can get a car to stick like glue then you don't have to work hard to go fast enough to be competitive: and not working so hard to go fast enough and stay in the slot means you have more concentration freed up to watch out for accidents ("events") occurring in your way, i.e. you avoid being taken out by other drivers coming out of their slots and causing wrecks. That's what this old car is like: swift enough to keep the leaders in sight, yet easy to drive, such that I can "see" the rest of the track and traffic as I am driving.

Anyway, Don allowed on Wednesday that "any 16D" could include my motor; the whole setup could be "grandfathered" in, heheh. So on Saturday I brought out the old beastie, and Rocky, inspired by my silliness, also brought an old car he'd resurrected. I tested it before the race and found it quite as fast and easy to drive as mine.

But during the race, Rocky did not "bond" with his setup as well as I did. And Mike Kelly was having difficulties with his car(s), even the one he finally selected - while being the prettiest, a Ferrari 612 CANAM in appropriate red - frustrated him with how hard he had to work to try and keep up. His race lap total was 530; I don't know what Rocky's was, and I don't know who finished in what places below me: I finished 3rd with 545, 19 laps faster than my best up till then; Charlie (the best car builder, imho) finished 2nd with 550, and Jeff won with 558: last race, the "open" that convinced me to pull out my 33 year-old car, Jeff won with 580 and Charlie had 562 for 2nd (the higher lap totals being almost entirely due to "high downforce" bodies - that is to say, hideous abominations for bodies instead of cars that exist in real life). So the race last Saturday showed me in my "natural" form, heheh: right up there with the leaders - of which I was one - and ready to take them out if they slipped up for even a little bit. Neither Charlie nor Jeff slipped up and both their cars worked to perfection the entire forty minutes. Rocky's car crapped out in the last heat (broken motor lead wire). Mike's remained with him the whole race, but as I said, he had to work very hard to keep up and got into rather more difficulties with traffic as a result. I was very able to keep an eye open ahead of myself for trouble and consequently had a minimum of off-time: I only fell out due to my own mistakes five times, and only once on my own in the last three heats; that's more like it! For most of the race I was either just a tad slower than Jeff or Charlie, or they and I were effectively equal. I actually won the heat when I drove Yellow and beat Jeff by one lap when I turned a 71. My lowest heat was a 66, and I had one other heat where I had 70, and the rest were two heats with 67 and three heats with 68 laps. Not bad! I can do better still, IF I care.

The trouble I saw - again and yet again, this attitude manifests when racing programs go long enough - was a desire to go faster at the expense of all other pleasures. Mike's comment at the end of the race is indicative: "If I had a car like [Jeff's] I would bid all of you 'good-bye.'" There isn't enough joy in driving the car, it's all about winning and beating everyone else. I truly enjoy the old cars I have; I'm antagonistic toward HD bodies (they being the bastard children of the old air dams); ugly mass-produced, stamped steel and aluminum chassis are BORING cars, almost as boring as plastic ready-to-race 1/32nd scale club racing cars. What I would always like to see is more people enjoying their scale looking cars for their aesthetically pleasing appearance.

1May11

I went to the track Friday afternoon as planned, and as I walked through the door I was met by this big, empty space. The track, was gone! Before I could react, Don the proprietor announced that it would be back Sunday night and put back together early in the week. He rented it to the Scout-O-Rama for something over $4000. I reckon the hassle of dismantling, transporting, assembling, dismantling again, transporting again and reassembling, again, is all going to be worth it for that price. I hope so. Because it sure shocked me. Mike Kelly and I drove my two open-wheeled slot cars on the small, six lane 1/32 scale track; with an empty lane between us because the lanes are spaced narrower on a 1/32 scale track than on an eight lane 1/24 scale track. We diced fairly evenly and had a fun time anyway. We had the shop to ourselves for c. two hours. Rocky did not show up.

8May11

Yesterday the slot car track held a thinly attended "open motor, high downforce body" race. I got to race my steel beastie again: I was the only guy using a scale (real car) body. There were nine of us. Mike Kelly would have made ten, but he opted to not race since he was unhappy with each of the cars Rocky provided. I thought all of them were fine; but I do not have the same narrow discrimination prepping for a race that Mike has: he must "bond" with a car, and it must break the 4 second lap handily, not have to work at it, etc. He corner marshaled for the rest of us. We had three corner marshals only - the bare minimum; the straightaway was unmarshaled; but at least we got to race all eight lanes. Turned out that the heats had been programmed for only four minutes instead of five. GRRR! So a 32 minute race instead of a 40. GRRRR!!!

Rocky and I tied, AGAIN; with 430 laps, but I was ahead and took 5th place. He said, "They should have added in two laps that I lost earlier, when my car was out crossing the lap counter."

"I lost more than two laps just putting other peoples' cars back in (the straight) in front of me." (Rocky never puts anybody back in, but that's because he can't move fast enough to do it with his leg missing.)

"Well, your motor is a lot more powerful than all of ours, he said."

"My car is also a lot heavier than any other car."

"That doesn't stop you from pulling me down the straights and in the banking."

"I saw us as equal speed-wise," said I: "I didn't overhaul you going around the bank."

"Yes you did."

"No I didn't."

"Yeah right, you were getting two feet on me there each lap, which my car would gain back in the bowl; your car is faster, mine handles better."

"I didn't see it that way at all, Rocky. I caught up to you in the dead man because I brake later than you do."

We had this interchange at least twice. (I have driven BOTH cars and his is at least as fast as mine and handles very well indeed, possibly even better than mine. He hasn't driven my car, but if he did, while I drove his, I'd skunk him for certain: maybe next Friday during practice, if I can persuade him to try.)

Anyway, the racing was very even. None of the nine drivers and cars were significantly slower. I found myself dicing with sometimes two other cars at once. The guy who won is named Steve; he's "Crash Carter's" dad: CC finished second to last because although he's fast he is not consistent and comes off quite a lot, thus his moniker, because he causes crashes (he's only c. 12). The highest lap total for a heat was 58. I turned one 57 and a couple 56s, but my last heat was only 47 (that was the heat where I put four cars back in when they ended up in front of me; and of course, I have to stop each time I do that). From Rocky and I to third place there was only a seven lap spread: fourth place had 433 (a guy named Coby), third place had 437 (a guy named Rick), second place (Charlie Nelson again, second place, third week in a row) had 444, and Steve had 451. The separation was entirely Steve's success in staying out of trouble better than everybody else. There were some heats during the race where Steve and I were racing head to head, sometimes equal, other times with either he or I having a slight edge. It was a fun race. But I don't like finishing 5th after returning with a 3rd place. (grouse grouse grouse.....)

I won't be racing next week, as it is an IROC race ("International Race of Champions", heheh, the slot car version), the first of an eight race series: the bodies are NASCAR (which I loathe), and worst of all: the shop supplies the cars , i.e. Don built them all - thus the IROC appellation. Each car is tied to a single lane, so you race EIGHT individual cars during a race. I couldn't be less enthused unless the cars also came with air dams. But two weeks from yesterday is another "open" race - well, sort of open; "any 16D motor" is the same as the last race when I finished 3rd. And so far nobody has complained. Even if somebody does, Don said that he doesn't care; "A 33 year-old car isn't a threat to anybody". A sensible attitude that I wholly agree with, of course. And the week after that is a "D3" race; hopefully that will not be cancelled for lack of participation.

15May11

On Friday I went to the slot car track for a couple of hours. At first Rocky and I diced with fairly even cars; ones that we could drive almost automatically and talk at the same time. I didn't put my steel beastie on, but spent most of the time driving one of Rocky's cars against the other. Then Mike Kelly showed up and we drove the open-wheeled (Formula One) cars a bit; mine is outclassed by Rocky's wider, lower (not scale) cars; and even his scale cars are a tad quicker than my Eagle. Oh well, both he and Mike fell out a lot and I hardly fell out at all; so I "win" by staying in I guess. Then Charlie Nelson showed up, and Kerstin, and the kid running the shop that afternoon for Don put his D3 car on and we all drove around crazy for a bit. The kid's car was the quickest D3 and it was even just a squeak quicker than my second fastest car (the one I drove in the 2 hour enduro a while ago). Charlie's Formula One car was the quickest of that class, but not by much: I could drive Rocky's Cooper Maserati almost as fast, and Mike driving the Ferrari was no faster than I with the Cooper, but I fell out a lot less than Mike did, so that means I "win" again, haha.

23May11

In the afternoon I tootled over to the slot car track and diced evenly with Rocky (I was not, however, driving my steel beastie, other than a few laps to make sure she was still going great guns). Mike Kelly showed up and was very silent. it was because he was keeping a secret: and soon, in through the door walked his secret: our old high school chum, Don Dimmick, who raced slot cars with us. I recognized him instantly; not difficult; he's got the kind of heavy skin that doesn't wrinkle! He only looked a few years older than high school, and not older than the last time I saw him, which was probably 15 or 20 years ago in the Fashion Place mall, a chance meeting. I heard from Mike that Don had gotten back into slot cars briefly at the MRS track in Sandy; this would be some 10 years ago, I'm thinking, either predating or postdating my brief reentry at the time. Anyway, he looks very youthful for a large guy; he weighs more than he did in high school, I can see that, but he carries it well. He's one of those big framed men who happens to be fat, rather than a fat man who only looks big because he's overweight. The years between high school and today seemed to have amounted to almost nothing as we showed each other our cars, and as Don started to drive the Kingleman. He watched Mike Kelly and I dicing evenly at great speed and I could tell he was having doubts about being able to do that again.