December 10th marked the end of an era in RC Onroad Racing in Southern California. The closing of Steel City Speedway in Fontana. Even Mother Nature was cruel that weekend cutting the end short by one day because of rain. But the mains were moved up to Saturday, Mike was on his game as usual and the rain held off to complete the racing and enjoy a nice evening of food and tributes.

The closing of the highly recognizable facility (2 Worlds, Some Nats, THE KO and other Headlining events) was to no fault of their own. And if you know where the track is and what ground it was situated on, that's all I have to say about that. And now there is a new "N" word that shall not be spoken by many as the harsh reality of greed and profit sets in.

The Goodwines put their Heart and Soul into this facility. The RC Racing Community owe them a lot for having this great facility for us to use as long as we did. And always the special thanks that goes out to the guys that helped every weekend in getting the track ready. While it isn't like setting up a temp track, there was a lot of work to get done before opening. And after a while it was like watching a choreographed performance. That's just how efficient they became.

It is doubtful that we will have another facility like this, just because of the land cost in SoCal and more and more areas being built up which leaves less and less space to have noisy cars run and no one complains.

So with all sincerity. Thank you Goodwines and SCS, it was a Blast.

The Final STC Podium

2) Austin Sarnelle             1) Kyle Goodwine                  3) Bill Jeric

For the 4 days of the 2022 US Nats presented by FG Supply it was nice and toasty or should I say roasty. Grip was good and everyone had their setups dialed as we saw minimal rollovers. On Sunday afternoon we got a little bit of a break as the clouds started rolling in from the storm (yes storm) that had just flooded an area of So Cal the day before. The racing was great and the battle for TQ in STC resumed between Kyle Goodwine and Satoshi Takesako. Those two would get the free pass to the mains whille the rest of the drivers would race their way in. Lazaro Alonso, Chris Velez and David Blakeney would get in from the 1/2 Even and Austin Sarnelle, Bill Jeric, George Velazco, Ken Gerberding and Luis Rinzivillo from the 1/2 Odd.

          10) Chris Velez             6) George Velazco         2) Austin Sarnelle      1) Kyle Goodwine         3) Bill Jeric                      7) David Blakeney   9) Lazaro Alonso

                                                8) Ken Gerberding     4) Satoshi Takesako                                                                               5) Luis Rinzivillo

Results

Sportsman

The heartbreak award has to go to James Stuard. He led the first 22 laps of the race until a mechanical took him out. But like they say: To finish First, you must first finish.

2) Tom Wong     1) Brian LaCroix   3) Andrew Alden    TQ) James Stuard 

Results

Spec 5

2) Jacob LaCroix         1) Ghost of Paul Smith       3) Gary Kyes

2) Derrick Butterfield     1) Walter Diaz     3) Austin Sarnelle

Kyle Goodwine lead the first 15 laps untill an issue sidelined him handing the lead over to Walter Diaz. Walter jumped from 3rd to 2nd by Lap 3 and Chris Velez went from 2nd to 6th by lap 3, Chris would make it to 4th on lap 4 only to go to 8th by lap 6th. He would make ot to 6th by lap 18 and would stay there. Craig Kaplan had a brief stint into 3rd but would drop back to 5th aound lap 17 and would finish there. Austin Sarnelle madeup the most ground from the start. Making it as high as 2nd and settling to 3rd for the duration. Derrick Butterfield made his way to 2nd by lap18 and would finish there.

Your Dash for Cash Winners

That was a warmup

Results

Practice started in earnest on Wednesday with 13 drivers starting to lay rubber down and practice the semi technical track. By Thursday you had 33 drivers trying to improve on their times from Wednesday, try new things and just get consistent. By the end of practice Markus (Feldmann) had already cracked the 20 sec mark with a 19.741.

By round 1 Markus would have to dig out of a hole, but with the best 3 of 6 that shouldn't be to big of a hill to climb. Satoshi Takesako would take round one in STC with a fast lap of 19.846 and 30 laps in 10:08.

By round 2 Markus had a clean run with a new fast lap of 19.609 and running 31 laps in 10:18, Satoshi in 2nd with 30 laps followed by Chris Velex 29, Kevin Cole 29 and Luis Diaz 29. 29 was starting to look like to cutoff if you wanted to be in the semis.

After round 3 lets look at some of the other classes. In F1 you had Tony Tam, Paul Smith and Andrew Adlen as your top three, in Spec 5 Gary Kyes was on top followed by Mahlon Roberson and John Burton, Jojo Bayabo and Danny Pacho would be your top three in Sportsman. STC would continue to be hot and heavy with round 3 going to Markus with a 30 lap run this time followed by Chris Velez, Satoshi, Kyle Goodwine and Kevin (Panda) Cole.

By the time it was said and done after 6 rounds of qualifying, Markus Feldmann was your direct pass to the final with three 31 lap runs with the fastest being 10:16.893. Leaving Super Pole to Satoshi, Chris, Kyle and Panda, and it would come down to Satoshi on lap 3 taking Super Pole and joining Markus in the Final.

InSpec 5 your TQ would be Paul Smith, in Sportsman John Burton and F1 Tony Tam.

In the STC Final, bad luck struck Satoshi during warmup and he had to change engines, so we will never know if he could have had anything for Markus. With Satoshi out, Markus started to build his lead from the start and never looked back.

There was a great battle between Kyle and Chris for a portion of the race.

Bill Jeric and Lazaro Alonso would battle at the end for 4th and Tony Vega and Romeo Rodriguez also battling for 6th.

In Sportsman John Burton would win by two laps over Bob Sarnelle and Danny Pacho would take 3rd followed by the return of Frank Pena in 4th and Juan Blaylock in 5th.

Spec 5 you had Paul Smith with the win, Mahlon Roberson 2nd and Gary Kyes 3rd

In F1 Tony Tam would get John Burnett by 1 lap, but Burnett would get fast lap of the race. Cedric Collins would come home 3rd.