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Uncle Kal's 3 Hour Enduro 2003, Rally
Cars. Since the FIA started exporting televised World Rally racing to the US several years ago there has been definite interest in the slot racing world in these great looking production based racers. Jerry Kulick of JK saw the need for World Rally based slot car bodies and provided over a half dozen great looking bodies and sticker sets to make them look great. Traditionally Uncle Kal's Underground Raceway in Monrovia California has had at least one slot car endurance event per year. Last year it was our six hour, build them on the clock "Deathstar" enduro. With the popularity of the new Rally cars we elected to run a three hour enduro for Falcon powered Flexi Rally cars. Realism was encouraged.
Team Driven received 20 additional laps for their second place finish in concourse.
Team Blue received an additional 15 laps. "Team Hardcore", Josh Bauer, Ross and Sara Curtright received 10 laps for fourth in concourse with their nicely detailed Peugeot with an awesome interior with full roll cage.
Qualifying was held for lane choice and the black Peugeot 206 of football fans Greg Gilbert and Blain Halberstadt's "Raiders" took TQ with an outstanding 4.926. Next fastest was "Team Feel-Awful" with a respectable 5.098.
The Raiders and Team Driven sat out heat two as Team Whatever came in on Black with 184 and Team Hardcore came in on Red with 185. Team Feel-Awful did an awesome 184 on blue to take a solid lead after two. Heat three saw the Raiders back in with 191 on Black as Whatever ran a strong 188 on yellow and Feel Awful did 182 on purple with Big Brian at the control. Forsyth Racing ran a strong 175 on Orange and Driven came back in on red with a great 172. By this time problems were starting to take their toll and Rally Slots, Team Blue and Team Hardcore all had trouble in the third heat. Rally Slots spent time in the pits and only ran 157 laps on white. Hardcore could only muster 152 on green and team Blue had only 148 on oddly enough, the blue lane. Segment 4 belonged to Forsyth Racing and The Raiders with 185 laps heats. Feel Awful and Rally Slots sat out while Teams Jolteon and Hyundai had strong heats in the 170 range to put a few laps on the competition. In the fifth Feel Awful and the Raiders both rung up 190 lap heats on black with Casey Scott driving the Feel Awful car and Blaine running an identical 190 on the orange lane for the Raiders. Whatever ran a strong 181 on white while Jolteon and Hardcore ran 173s. After the fifth segment was over
the track was turned off for 15 minutes for a short break for the
drivers while the cars had to remain on the track or in impound.
At the "Halftime" break the Raiders had 4 laps on second
place Team Feel Awful and it looked like barring misfortune the
race for first was between these two teams with Team Whatever being
the longshot in third, though quite a few laps back. Segment six was fast and a bit cleaner as everyone's tires were coming down and the cars were handling better. Greg G. ran high heat of the race on white with 202 laps as Big Brian drove Feel Awful to 191 on yellow. Whatever sat this one out as Forsyth ran a strong 182 on the fast red lane. Team Driven, who had problems on blue got it going and ran an outstanding 179 on purple. In heat seven Chris Radisich turned in an awesome drive for team Hyundai with 192 on white. Other than Greg's 202 this was the races best lap total on the white lane. The Raiders sat out as Feel Awful ran 181 on orange and Whatever did 183 on red. In the eighth first and second place were next to each other on red and white, two of the tracks fastest lanes. Greg G. upped the high heat of the race with 204, a near perfect heat on the red lane as Big Brian turned a great 189 on white. Whatever ran 188 right next to Feel Awful on white, and Hardcore did an impressive 182 on yellow. In heat nine the Raiders Blaine Halberstadt ran 190 on green to lead the heat with Team Hyundai's Chris Radisich turning 186 on the red lane. Teams Feel Awful and Rally Slots sat the ninth out as team Hardcore in seventh ran a respectable 176 on orange that put team Hardcore close enough to use their 10 concourse bonus laps to move past team Jolteon in sixth. In the tenth and final segment team Feel Awful put in their closer, Casey Scott to try to rundown the Raiders Blaine Halbertstadt. With a 39 lap lead starting the last segment Blaine knew all he had to do was cruise and not hurt the car for 18 minutes and the race would be his. It didn't take long for Casey to realize he was barely gaining on the consistent Blaine, and after a couple of deslots decided to cruise for second place.
Team Hardcore used their 10 well
earned concourse laps to move past team Jolteon in the final standings
by a mere three laps. Hardcore finished sixth and Jolteon seventh
with the next two places numbers two and three in concourse. Team
Blue was third in concourse and received 15 laps, Driven was second
and received 20 laps. Blue finished the race eighth, ten laps ahead
of Driven. After the bonus laps were added Blue was still five laps
ahead but this just illustrates how the added concourse laps, or
even the place a car finished in concourse could alter the results.
Thanks to Uncle Kal's, Chris Radisich, The Underground Staff and most of all the racers who's participation in our events keeps making them successful!
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Uncle Kal's Underground 626-303-0585 116 West Lime Avenue Monrovia, California 91016 |
Concourse
was judged by a worksheet to help with objectivity and the top five
in concourse received up to 25 additional laps in the race. Racers
put in the additional work to earn concourse points and the
"Rally Slots" team of father and son Paul and Bob Abbey
took first place with a great looking Mitsubishi Lancer with incredible
detail. Team "Rally Slots" received 25 additional
laps for their first place concourse finish.
Second
place in concourse was the "Driven Products" team of John
Emmons and his daughter Cait. Their Skoda had every imaginable
add on for detail. Everything from a map for the co-pilot
to glued on wipers and mirrors. As was required, all cars had two
person interiors.
"Team
Hyundai", Chris Radisich and Jenna took the bonus five laps
with a fifth place concourse finish with their "West"
Hyundai. Jenna skillfully applied the JK Products "West"
McLaren F-1 decal sheet to her silver JK Hyundai Rally car body
and it looked great!
Ten
teams signed up to do battle on the 160' Dadds Grandstand that is
nearing the end of it's five year reign. It was recently announced
that the raceway will be moving into a larger building and the old
Grandstand will not be making the trip. It will be replaced
with a 190' Ogilvie Engelman with esses and a 125' Ogilvie hillclimb.
This is the first of a series of "Farewell to the Grandstand"
races we will be holding prior to the move this summer.
The
race began with Team "Feel-Awful" putting the first heat
in the capable hamds of Casey Scott who opened with a strong 200
laps on the green lane. Six back was Greg G, driving for The Raiders
with 194 on Purple. Team Driven ran a strong 185 on white with Team
Blue doing an impressive 183 on Red. Forsyth Racing started strong
on black but a controller problem cost them a good 15 laps
right after the start of the race.
The
Raiders took a 41 lap win over team Feel Awful as Whatever was herding
one of the race's slowest motors around the track but staying on
and finished an impressive third with one of the most severely bent
rear axles I have ever seen a car finish with. They "drove
it round". 
Forsyth
Racing had one of the more consistent performances finishing fourth,
the last paying position. Just seventeen behind Forsyth was Chris
and Jenna of Team Hyundai in fifth. 
Paul
and Bob Abbey limped home with the concourse winner after repeated
mechanical problems but the car looked great doing it. Thanks to
all the racers who put their time into making the cars look great.
This was one fine looking field of Rally cars.