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Uncle Kal's  Rally Car Enduro, June 1st 2003 on the Grandstand Hillclimb

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Uncle Kal's 3 Hour Enduro 2003, Rally Cars.
Sunday, June 1st 2003

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.

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 Driven received 20 additional laps for their second place finish in concourse.

Third was Sam Brown and Colin Herzig's Team Blue Subaru.  This car was very striking to the eye with great interior detail, paint and decals but the added touches of real mud on the exterior of the body and wheel covers made actual photos of the real ones on the real car.

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.

"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.

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 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 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.

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.

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. 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.

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!

 

 

Uncle Kal's Underground   626-303-0585   116 West Lime Avenue    Monrovia, California 91016