Midwest Offroad Racing League 2009 - Stateline Race Action


Continuing with the HandyRacing coverage of the Midwest Offroad Racing League summer points series...

Let's recap.  Race number 1 at Litchfield, rained cats and dogs for Friday practice and throughout the night.  Track was a sticky muddy, soggy mess as all get out Saturday morning as the rain continued to fall.  Yes, It was a sloppy mud fest for moments of practice between the rains.  With some follow up maintenance and TLC, the track dried out and racing was underway by early afternoon - with us all wearing winter parkas by late night Mains.  No one wanted to call it for the Sunday back up race day.

Race number 2 at Jones - heavy rains again the Friday night before the race inclusive of the storm warnings, heavy winds, and flooding with downed power lines in the region.  The skies cleared and a great day of racing followed.  Welcome to Meeechigan.

And then once again with our MORL summer points series, and the outdoor Great Lakes racing action, the story was the rain for the third race in a row.

But this time before the rains came, the action got underway the night before the points series program with the Stateline RC Speedway Friday night Dirt Oval program...

Enjoy a little Pre Midwest Offroad Friday night action:



Following the regular Friday evening Oval program, and with many of the Midwest Offroad Racing League crowd arriving at the track Friday for a day of practice and fun and games, the weekend's racing extravaganza started out with a special treat 30 minute Slash Enduro put on by the Stateline Crew Friday...

The Stateline RC Speedway special offering was to take a stock Slash, a team of two drivers with each required to drive a minimum of 10 minutes, one required pit stop minimum for a battery change, and run hard door to door full out for 30 minutes on the oval with cross over to the infield offroad course...

The HandyRacing game was to turn over the Slash to two of our bravest teen drivers, let them spend the day tweaking the suspension and drive train, and then let them take on the Enduro.  Mind you, with the large presence of the MORL race crowd on hand it made for an exciting field of 15 Slashs, many driven by some of the best drivers the summer points series has to offer.  These folks who run the summer series know what they're doing.  Our drivers of course, had never before driven a Slash on the track and in a race.  The experience thus far with this Slash was myself driving it as a rookie driver, and the teens aspiring to drive like Ivan Stewart or maybe Evil Kenevil (or a modern day Robbie Gordon), was to upgrade to a Novak 5.5 powered by a 3-cell Lipo and flog the dalylights out of it.

But back to serious racing, and run hard they did.

After it was all said and done, after 30 minutes of hard driving, of which many on the drivers stand said flew by like moments...  4 trucks finished with 77 laps, and the HandyRacing Slash came in second place - ONE second behind the first place finisher.

Yesiree - some damn fine racing action by all who stayed up late to play.

Watch and enjoy...

 


Yes, everyone had a ball, and many said they would love to do it again.  Stay tuned, there may very well be another go at the 30 minute Enduro later this fall.

As an aside, the Short Course "Nationals" were going on over the same weekend, and in the follow up discussions  many are suggesting they too would like to push the envelope with this push-it-to-the-limits 30 minute race adventure.  You can read more about it here.

Getting back to the points race the following morning, as has been the pattern for both the previous MORL events so far this season - the Great Lakes Region brought us thunder storms with heavy rain Friday night late.  Heavy enough rain to bring down an EasyUp, and leave he track a soggy mess for Saturday AM.

While the Crew at Stateline slogged around in mud boots and brought in extra sand with the frint end loader, a few even tried to get in a few proactice laps - in the mud pit that it was.

(a few pictures will be added as time allows)

For my part, I doused my Slash with some Teflon Spray Lube and practiced a little, hosed it off when done - and waited for the sun to come out and the day's racing to get underway.

As had been the case for the weeks leading up to race day on the Forums, the huge South Double was the talk of the day.  Being a tradtional 1/8 scale track with a sprawling technical layout, wide lanes and huge jumps - the hot topic was would the 1/10 scale rigs make the jump or lay up and take it as a single single.  As predicted the mod classes could handle it OK given a clean run up and not getting looses in the mid - the stock folks had not much choise but to drive thru it and hope to not get mired in the Grand Canyon like abyss...

Here's a small look at how the electric 1/8 buggies dealt with it:





The mid-course jumps were nothing to sneeze at either:





(pics from July 2 practice)

And a few qualifying action shots from race day...







After the sun came out and the track dried, an hour of track practice and a driver's meeting at 11:30 - the days qualifying finally got underway.

One of the treats I find always present in our regional racing scene is folks aren't satisfied to just run what's off the shelf.  The HOT growing Short Course truck class is no exception.  The folks behind the program in our MORL series were savvy enough to not only just offer a Slash Spec class, but also a Short Course.  Bounded by ROAR guidlines and stock motor, the door is open for the innovators, and come out they do...



Check out this hand built custom Academy Short Course Truck by ChaD Sulski, Waterboy's Dad, and one of the long running supporters of the MARS / MORL racing program:



Sometime early in the evening after a long day, the Mains were finally posted and the program swung into high gear - until the menacing radar showed something way coming.

The rains held off until the Mod Buggy A-Main - and then being the troopers the MORL racers and program officals are, the Mod Buggy A was run IN THE RAIN.  Following that, the eather broke and the program finished with the damn exciting racing our series is known for.

With a Main for Novice, two for Slash Spec, three for Masters 19T Truck, two for Stock Buggy,  FOUR for Stock Truck, two for Short Course Truck, three for Mod Buggy including a rain delay, FIVE for Mod Truck, THREE for 4WD Buggy, and THREE for 1/8 Electric Buggy - the program finally finished around 2:00 AM.

All in all it was an Enduro Racing Prgram to say the least.  With approximately 250 entries and along long day - there is NO Racing like Great Lakes Region offroad racing.

Here is the program in all its glory, and aside from a few differencs of opinion, the real story is the class act that our racers are and a first rate family friendly racing environment - not the least item to make uas all proud is the tremendous particaption of parents and theur children, all racing together and smiling all the way...

Following is the enitre A-Main program, front to back on one vid (see below for individual races):







Individual races:












Hope you enjoyed the pic and vids, please let us know what you think.

(and please click on the Google adds)



 

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Posted by HandyRacing at 7/30/2009 1:31 AM
Categories: Midwest Offroad Racing League
Tags: midwest offroad racing league rc video slash handyracing mod truck buggy 8th scale
 

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