World Challenge 2018

A beautiful weekend at Steel City Speedway saw drivers from Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Mexico, Dominican Republic and USA drivers from Florida, Texas and Northern and Southern California. It was hot but not the blistering hot weather had in the weeks before. Unless you count the blistering lap that Markus Feldman put down almost destroying the previous 5th scale lap record by 2 seconds. But even for the locals, the track was in such great condition it would be hard to find anyone that didn't run a personal best that weekend. Thursday was a nice mellow day with the visitors getting the feel for the track. Friday morning till afternoon was another practice day and then the first round of qualifying would start around 3:30. The ever professional Mike Brawn keep everything for the weekend on an impeccable schedule and everything ran smoothly. Friday's qualifying would be the start of everyday lap times getting lower and lower. By round four it was pretty well set that Feldman and Catalanni were in. The mad dash would be to fill the remaining 6 spots so your weren't competing in the B Main to try and get the bump. The B wasn't filled with slouches either. The times from 4th to 14th were within 2 seconds of each other. It all came down to who would be the most consistent. With some major arm twisting we got Victor to compete this year and I hope he had fun putting his Mecatech in the show P3. Saturday Night we had our meet and great with a Trivia Quiz presented by West Coast 5th Scale. After Craig Kaplan pulled an entry from the pile, it was Marquell Osbourne getting the $100 prize. Marquell brought his usual personality to the festivities giving everyone some good laughs. Sunday was Finals Day. The STC Finale had tons of excitement. You have to watch the race. But going from pure domination with your Teammate right behind you to your Teammate having issues falling into the clutches of one of the locals to that local eventually taking the lead only to loose it and have one of the owners of the track take the lead with less than 2 minutes to go and come home with the win, it doesn't get much better than that for excitement.

Sanwa G.P.

James Stuard  Craig Kaplan  Chuck Clendenon

Kaplan had a pretty uneventful run to his win at the Sanwa G.P. at SCS. He was T.Q. and from the green never looked back. The big mover was Chuck Clendenon from his 6th qualifying spot to finish 3rd. Congrats on your first 5th scale onroad podium. Regular James Stuard ran a solid and consistent race to finish 2nd behind Kaplan.

The 2018 West Coast Challenge

 

The West Coast Challenge started up on Friday with a few drivers getting out to the track to get the dust off or make some setup changes since the last Club Race. Everything was set for Saturday Qualifying. There were some new faces this year with the RAMS which is always good to grow the sport and they were losing a member, Dino Tapia. Hanging up his California Residence and moving on. The RAMS hope they can talk him into making at least one trek a year and coming out to participate in the WCC. The biggest class of the weekend was Sportsman with two relative new comers, Jansen Ng and Brendan Foskett having good showings. The 4WD class had your usuall suspects minus Dan Kim as well as STC. In remembering last year, the time from the top to bottom has gotten a lot closer. Even TQ Tony Vega who decided to sit out the last qualifier and announce was sweating a little bit as the last cars took to the track and at one point threatened his top spot.

In F1 Fernando Jose showed up on Sunday and dropped the gauntlet down to get TQ and it was over from there. He went on to dominate the race. Places 2nd - 5th were in flux throughout the race with pretty much 3rd being a lock by Bill Lin showing you can still get it done without the high budget car. Steve Gerace ran a very consistant race after overcoming his early race issue with the infield eating grass. We are still trying to figure out what happened to Marc Drennen and his horrific crash. The crane had to be brought in to remove his car.

The Sportsman class had the biggest entry list and the main could have been won by any of the top 5 qualifiers and even possibly by the two newer drivers Jansen Ng and Brendan Foskett. And the big surprise of the weekend was.....wait for it.....Yes it did happen. Tim Gerace was back behind the wheel of a car and had times that could have put him in the top 5 had he not had a mechanical. Don't let it be a one and done and put the car on the shelf....lol.

The TQ 4WD driver Daniel Colhour had the bad luck bug, Lost the lead early, fell to 5th, made his way back up to 2nd to fall to 5th again and that's were he stayed until his retirement. Your 2nd place finisher John Ng pretty much stayed in place the whole race, but what could have been if he didn't have a front brake failure. Your 5th place qualifier Henry Cruz would come home in 3rd with a very consistent run and the win went to Doug Wallace.

West Coast 5th Scale Pit Walk

STC

Michael Grim          Tony Vega             Todd Rizzo

STC Main Results

Sportsman

Dino Tapia              Huan-Ching Liao           Steve Gerace

Sportsman Main Results

4WD

Henry Cruz              Doug Wallace           John Ng

F1

Bill Lin                   Fernando Jose           Steve Gerace

Additional Pictures from Byron Soublet Here

KO Propo Grand Prix

For the Nitro guys the KO Propo GP is one of the biggest races of the year. The 5th scale group has been lucky enough to have an invite to this event and the numbers are growing each year. Electric Modified even had a contingent and was well represented. Unlike the ProtoForm race many of the 5th Scale guys were on deck on Friday ready to dial in their setups. From all over Southern California with our new additions to our 5th Scale family to the RAMS (No Cal) being represented. A Big Thanks to Craig Kaplan for securing a spot on Thursday for the crew to setup. This race is nuts on the turnout so space gets real tight quick. Traction was a challenge for the weekend. You would need suspension and diff changes to be competitive. This had a few drivers seeking out the assistance of the guru, Victor Garcia of FGSupply.com.

Tire choice was another topic of conversation and different combos were tried to come up with that magic pair for the main. If you wanted TQ you were going to have to get into the 21's. To have a shot at the top 3 you had to get into the 22's. But as with anything else, you have to be there the whole time during the race, just ask Victor. Who looked to be on his way to the win (or was he). Craig Kaplan was visibly starting to close on Victor around the midway point of the race until the Rut Roo happened. Rookie mistake, tire nut comes off. Phil Goodwine (spectating for this race, we missed you) sprang into action and got a nut for Victor and by the time he got off the drivers stand the wheel was back on and he was ready to rejoin. By now he was a few laps down to your leader Craig, but second and third would be on Victors radar. Victor set his sights on James Stuard (3rd) running a solid race and who was 1 lap ahead at the time. Once James was dispatched it was on to Frank Pena. He would catch Frank in the later part of the race to grab second. Craig cruised on for the win. Chuck (7th) and Jason (5th) had solid runs and toward the end both got down to that magic 22 second number so with more consistency they are going to be the ones to watch in upcoming races. Dino Tapia from the RAMS brought his RS5 home in 6th. We even had Rick St Cyr join us although his main run was cut short.

Results

A Main....Enjoy

All in all it was a great weekend and race. A lot of bench talk and laughs and sorry Jason, have to say it one last time. He had a parts failure we had never seen before.

The race starts and before you can even get to the loop two racers are out on two different issues. Your second place qualifier George Velazco and 6th place qualifier Cedric Collins. The scramble up front left your pole sitter Santiago in the back with a lot of work to do. Santiago would make it up to 6th but withdrew from the race with assumed mechanical issues. This left Jorge Ali all alone as the only driver left in the field to crack 22. He went from 2nd to first within the first few laps and never looked back.

Your Top 10 from the International G.P.

Videos

A Main

B Main

The Big News for California is the opening of Steel City Speedway at Fontana Speedway

Click the image for the track info and schedule

The RAMS

Are back for a full season, click the image for the site

Schedule