A Joe Myers Event
http://southwesttour.com/images/swt_header09.jpg

[Lindsay CA ] - Saturday, July 11th - the South-West Tour R/C Oval Series rolls out the RUG for a little SUMMER Carpet Racing action!

The 3rd trip to the small Farming community of Linday marks the 1/2 way point in the competitive traveling series with both the points battle AND the weather heating up.

The Track: Layed out on a basketball court, with a perimeter of 100 x 48, the track provides a great racing surface with enough lane width for the best racing battles.

The Classes: For the 2009 season, classes include

21.5/LIPO - Sportsman
21.5/LIPO - Expert
17.5/LIPO NASTRUCK
We will also be hosting a class for the local on-road racers to run their cars in. This will be a 10.5/LIPO TOURING OVAL class.

As always with a 'TOUR' race, we will include other classes if desired by racers, with a minimum of 4 cars.

NO Memberships required
NO Participation in the POINTS series required
ALL Entries/Racers welcome to participate.

The basic rules (For more rules info go to www.southwesttour.com (http://www.southwesttour.com) and click on the RULES link)

NOVAK MOTORS ONLY
ORION 3200 & 3400 mAh batteries ONLY
NOTE: Batteries must have ORIGINAL "Bullet" type connections.
BOTH 21.5 Stock Car classes MAY run wings
along with upto a max .750" spoilers.
NASTRUCK is SPOILERS ONLY

No BODY Roof Height minimum will be checked.

MIN. Chassis/Body height will be checked, and should be NO LOWER than 5.00 mm
NOTE: This "MIN" height rule is to protect the carpet. The SWTour series does NOT own this carpet, and we aim to protect the investment of the McDermont Field House.

MIN Weight - 38oz. ALL CLASSES - ( conversion 2lbs 4.0oz )

BATTERIES May be HEATED, MOTORS May be COOLED
However, batteries will NOT be allowed on the track if they check over 8.45 volts (On the TECH DVoM) at Pre-Tech.*

*Tech is generally available to check and/or calibrate your personal DVoM with the meter in TECH. Please make sure you do so - we do NOT allow cars to race if they come to Pre-Tech over voltage.

Everybody wants to PUSH the envelope...

The Charge Voltage 'RULE' is 8.40 with a +/- .05 so please remember if you come in at 8.46 you are NOT .01 over, you are .06 over.

MOTOR Inductance - 51.7 microhenries* (Averaged using the numbers from each pole to the ring / 3)

Note: Motors "MAY" be teched on race day.

Example: PASSING MOTOR = A) 51.5 B) 51.6 C) 52.0 = 51.7
FAILING MOTOR = A) 51.5 B) 51.6 C) 51.9 = 51.666

Most of our motors have tested in the mid 55-56 range, I'm using a standard of 54 as a base with a +/- 5% spread

Entry Fees - $25.00 (First Class)
additional class(es) $15.00

The BEST LOCAL MOTEL - Super 8 of LINDSAY (Lindsay CA)

For more info - joe@southwesttour.com

The South-West Tour Series
Proudly Sponsored by
NOVAK ELECTRONICS
Team ORION

...well the race is just over a week away - it'll be good to see the "TOUR" regulars back on the Rug, along with a few non-regulars coming to race with us.

It sounds like we should have an AWESOME "Battle of the Brands" for this race.

On the BLUE TEAM we should have...

Gary Hamilton
Erik Steenhoven
Paul Cathey
Larry Ruby
Jason Hastings? (Not sure if he'll be there or not)

and on the RED TEAM we should have...

KC Racing's Kenny Collins
Jeff HUMPTY Helms
John the Rocket Birmele

and in the lone 2k9 STRYKER in the Pro Class

Scot Petitclec

...so far in 2009 on the RUG - KC has a pair of TQ's, and has Split the wins with Scot and his Stryker...so coming in the score is

HD - 1
Stryker -1
KSG - 0

How will THIS race shake down?

IT SHOULD BE EXCITING!!

Running on the rug in the heat threw me for a bit of a loop last time. I got lucky in the main. I think I have it figured out and can't wait to bang doors!

Scot,

You should have your work cut out for you next weekend - should be fun to watch...and CALL!

It looks like the weather is going to be WARM state wide next weekend - BRING plenty Something COLD (non-alcoholic) to drink.

will there be any ac??????

John,

MAN I sure hope so -- even being indoors with 100+ outside temps takes it toll on me.

I've sent reminder messages to the management reminding them WE NEED A/C -

yeah yeah were here in lindsay those guys r setting up the track and getting ready to role the blue teams going down!!!!!!!!

Hey John!!

I heard you had rolled into town already, Kenny and HUMPTY are supposed to be there in about an hour, Hamilton and Blackburn are there...

The RED/BLUE clash is ON!

For the rest of you not yet on your way!! The TRACK is down - a few guys will be there practicing this evening - (Extra donations to help McDermont pay for this would be NICE but not required)

The A/C is on, and the weather is pretty nice from reports I've been given!!!


ROLL Carpet ROLL! The SWTour Summer 'Rug Burn' is ON!

We had a real nice day of racing on the Rug... The day did get away from me and we finished really late, but we had 13 heats, A&B Mains in the Expert 21.5 class, and A,B&C mains in the 21.5 Sportsman class - Plus a ROOKIE class, Oval Touring class, and a NASTRUCK 17.5 (2 cell) class.

I have to give the HD Pro4 guys props - THEY were fast!

HUMPTY came to race with us, and brought Scott from AZ with him, and he put on a clinic. Also traveling in from Las Vegas was John Birmele and Joe...and John had his car dialed too.

In qualifying HUMPTY had the field covered by a lap, running the only 78 lap run in the class, while most of the field ran 77's.

The Expert 21.5 main was awesome -

The top (3) cars ran 78 laps in the main - all three I believe were Pro4's

1 - Jeff "Humpty" Helms
2 - John Birmele
3 - Kenny Collins

and Birmele was COMING for Humpty, and reeling him in a little every lap, but just couldn't get there.

Gary Hamilton had his G3 looking really good too, getting his first 77 lap run on the Lindsay carpet, and improving that time in them main to finish 4th.

Then there was Eric Brust who WON the "B" Main in a battle with Joe Blackburn, and both of these guys really wanted the transfer to the "A", Brust got it and started in the 8th spot, and made his way to a 5th place finish.


Sportsman 21.5

Art Hernandez came back to Lindsay with another TQ in Sportsman 21.5 class, in the main Hernandez would get a great holeshot, while Tony Gammel would get tuned off the line and fall to the back of the pack coming out just in front of the leader.

Art would continue to run right behing the car of Gammel, running a very conservative race, protecting his car and lead, while there was a lapped car running behind Hernandez shielding him from the charging 2nd place car of Keith Brown.

Somewhere after the 3 minute mark, Brown got around traffic and was closing in on Hernandez, and Art said it was time to go. He'd get around Gammel to put him a lap down, and just a few seconds later all HECK broke loose. Cars where crashing, spinning, flipping and dead in the middle of the track.....

When the destruction was cleared from the track - the leader Hernandez was no where to be found Art's car was done, as was the ORANGE bodied car of Dave Barber, and the other front runners were no longer up front - and here came John Miles picking up the lead, and hanging on to it to grab his first 21.5 win of the season.

17.5 NASTRUCK

Our NASTRUCK Class is mostly made of guys that are sportsman level drivers who just run this class for fun. The 2 cell / 17.5 with a truck body gives us a little of that 'Out of Control' feeling, yet most of US (This is my favorite class) run over all slower than the 21.5/lipo class.

Once in a while it's fun to see one of the Hot Dogs run this class - just so we can see how far off "WE" really are. So far this year it's been Scot P and his Stryker 08 that has been leading our way on the Rug. Scot's truck always looks and works great, and usually he's got us covered by 2 - 3 laps.

This weekend, Ken Collins and HUMPTY brought out 17.5 trucks - and all I have to say is WOW!~

While the main core group of the class was running 74-75 laps, Petitclerc was up in the 77 lap range - HUMPTY took the class to a new level - going a FAST 80 laps in qualifying.

The spread throughout the field was 80 laps up front to 69 laps in the back of the 8 truck main. That was going to make things very interesting in the main, which up until the end stayed pretty clean.

Humpty's luck didn't hold out in the main, but Kenny Collins would grab the lead when Humpty went around backwards at some point. Series points leader Scot P. was hanging on the 2nd spot as them made their way through traffic. The defending truck class Champion, Brad Muther was running a strong 3rd, also dicing traffic.

A couple late race crashes would involve Humpty, Muther and I believe Collins and one other truck, but Collins would hang on to take a narrow victory over Petitclerc.

Muther's truck wound up broke, and unable to continue just seconds before the end of the race, but he was far enough ahead of the 4th place car, he still was able to take the 3rd spot.


On a side note: We were down several racers @ this race. With the high cost of renting this facility for our races, I'm hoping we can solve this issue so we'll be able to continue having carpet oval races on the West Coast.

The location we've been using in a Jr. High School Gym has provided some excellent Carpet Oval racing.

If this works....here's the complete results from LINDSAY!

Videos from the race in Lindsay...

Sportsman 21.5 Heat Race

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIvj0O-XTzc

Expert 21.5 "B" Main

www.youtube.com/watch?v=s72_9X5pfqs

Expert 21.5 "A" Main

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUAM2AQueik