2011 Vallejo Grand Prix, Randy Tragni wins!

This last Sunday five slot car racers took the green flag to start the Vallejo GP at Eddie’s Slot Car World. The turn out was again quite small but the competition was intense. “A win's a win!”
Before the end of the first lap 3 cars lay wrecked on the squiggle as Randy and Gary K slithered through as power to the track was cut. After a brief stint behind a safe car (not really), the race was re-started led by Randy to lead decisively for the remainder of the event.
The rules were written this season to allow more flexibility in motors and chassis. Also to allow for D3 retro cars. The cars that actually raced were all angle winder vintage Formula One Flexi, also know as “Cigar Cars”. These cars lack any aerodynamics and have a thin fuselage. They also require the builder to fabricate the hinged pan section from scratch to be matched to a commercial center section. Various chassis manufacturers were represented with most cars being built on a Champion TurboFlex.
Power was provided on some cars by the venerated 16D motor, on the more successful by JK Hawks and on one by a Falcon. Surprisingly, fastest lap came from a Falcon.
The race was run on the Motherlode flat track. Condition was slippery. Each heat lasted 7 minutes in what can seem like an eternity when your car is just not right. Actually, it can seem like an eternity even if your car is perfect. In this race no one had the prefect car.
Randy pulled out an early lead on the pack after the wreck and kept his car there for the whole race. Randy won the Vallejo GP with 324 laps. That was 8 laps ahead of the second place car of Gary Klobas.
Captain Ernie pulled off the fastest lap at 6.530 seconds done on the purple track a mere 1/1000th of a second faster than Tom Joseph’s fastest lap.

Here’s the final statistics:
1st Randy Tragni with 324 laps fast lap was 6.636.
2nd Gary Klobas with 316 laps fast lap was 6.761.
3rd Captain Ernie with 311 laps fast lap was 6.5308.
4th Uncle Gary with 307 laps fast lap was 6.758.
5th Tom Joseph with 305 laps fast lap was 6.5309.

Thanks to Eddie and Janet for putting on a great race. Thanks to Russ Toy and Sam Rock (along with Eddie and Janet) for turn marshalling.

More pictures....

Congratulations Randy.
Seems like a tough race to finish, let alone win. Top job!

Regards,