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| The 2008 Fray - East Coast Perspective |
| By Bill Kurtz |
Race day in Ferndale, California started out early with the drivers meeting held at 7:15am and the green flag for all 14 teams dropping at 7:30am
During the drivers meeting Rick Phyllis explained some of the features on the SlotTrack software, went over a few obvious rules and wished us luck ... And it was off to the races.
Race One: Independence - Purple Track
What a way to start our day, taking on one of the top seeded teams with drivers the likes of Don Royal, Steve Nelson and Hiram Durant on a lock and joiner track that called for a perfect set-up. The track is shaped in a figure eight lay-out with a vintage Aurora bridge spanning the main straight all placed diagonally on the platform giving an the racer a unique view of the circuit.
The team was hoping that with this early start time and a track that had the ability to equalize any given event we may just pull off an upset ... Not in the Cards !!
The Independence team handed us our first loss of the day in our first race of the day. All of us fought to keep the poor 2-11 performance of 2007 out of our heads. Captain Tom Bowman had made the wise decision to keep Fray rookie Brad Morgan out of this race as not to start off his first Ferndale adventure with a possible defeat and keep him hungry. This move would not take long to pay off but at the moment, we sat at 0-1.
You know them in the HO web world as HOSERS and they were an all rookie team at this years Fray. This group was the hardest working team all week as with most new teams they arrived with a stable built with what they knew but unsure of what was waiting for them in California.
Tirelessly they would build, test, tweak, test, fine tune, test and build chassis after chassis for the routed or lock and joiner tracks until they had a stable for Saturday morning.
Against some very tough odds they showed up at each race with the confidence they could run hard and our second race of the day was evidence of just that. The race gave us our first win of the day but we walked away with the knowledge that it was no gimmee. The sportsmanship they displayed in our competition with them apparently was displayed in all of their races as they were voted the “Team Sportsmanship” award in the 2008 Fray.
Team East Coast now stood at 1-1.
Race Three: Free Agents - Green Track
Free Agents is a group of racers who want to take part in the Fray experience but are not picked up by one team or another … so like any die-hard "Slot Head", they just formed their own. The guys were all about having fun and there was NO other team at the Fray who enjoyed the racing as much as them. They supported each other, ran hard and took some heats from us on more than one occasion giving us the real feeling we could lose this battle if we did not take it seriously so we buckled down and scored the second win of our day and putting us over .500 at 2-1.
The San Francisco HO Racers Association had given us a true thumping in 2007 and this race would be a good test of just where our program stood this year. To this point we had beat the teams we thought we could and lost to the one we knew we would, SFHORA was one of the teams that we were hoping our car preparation and driving skills now equaled. This for the most part proved to be true as we headed into the final segment tied but after the heat was run with an extremely tight finish and what seemed an eternity waiting for the final points to post on the computer screen, San Francisco handed us loss number two by a mere two points. East Coast was back down to .500 at 2-2.
This is Jeff Hurley’s team so not only are their cars fast, but they look great. The H.E.M.P. Prius bodies were flying around this fast routed Bowman during pre-race warm-up and like SFHORA, South Bay had embarrassed East Coast last year but after the squeaker we just had determination took center stage. We found ourselves up one with one heat to go but South Bay had triggers Jeff Hurley and Ron Coaxum in the rotation so it was all on line as the computer flashed the green … three cars passed the start finish line at almost the same exact time so all eyes moved the screen as both teams felt they could win this match. It took a few seconds to sink in but Jeff Hurley turned around and simply said "We Tied".
Yes, it was a tie but to us it was a win in the big picture of our team's development. We all drove hard and we ran fast against a team that was favored on paper and past Fray success. We had also just posted a record that ensured a better performance than last year giving us a boost in morale, 2-2-1.
Marty Bauer captains a team that now includes Paul Kniffen in his presence has made an immediate impact. Paul has some of the best building and fabricating skills in the hobby and has recently added body casting to his resume. This race quickly became the Henry Harnish vs. Paul Kniffen show as these two best of friends battled lane after lane. Anyone who has raced in the lane next to Henry knows that he can take you "OUT" at will and that's exactly what Paul fell victim too, not once but twice as Team east Coast ended on the upside of a two point close race and with only one match in the morning session we now sat at 3-2-1.
Santa Cruz is FAST, has been for quite a while and when you make a list of teams you might beat and might loss too they were placed on the might lose too side of the paper.
Last year, they simply wiped us out, there was no talk of if we had done this we may have done better, we just got 'Spanked' on 2007 so many on East coast were concerned as we walked back to red track to take them on in 2008.
Heat after heat the lead would switch from one team to another, up one, down two, up three, down four. The Red Track is a great mix of almost 90 degree turns and a carousel that leads into a long straight away that ends in a slightly banked turn so keeping your tempo and timing in a race that is so tight can "Fray", no pun intended, your flipp'n nerves. As the final heat ended everyone from both teams gathered around computer screen and when the East Coast victory flashed up our team erupted in a resounding cheer !! At the Break ... East Coast was now at 4-2-1.
(Afternoon Session)
After a morning record of 4-2-1 it was easy for the East Coast team to get caught up in it's success but that would be nothing short of naive as we had several of the top seeds yet to come. On the other hand we would need to draw on our morning record to give us the "dig for every inch" mindset in the upcoming contests.
SoCal's rooster is a who's who in HO Racers and Builders, from R.C. Lincoln the Rick Jocham and this first race of the afternoon was an uphill battle from the beginning. East Coast did have several good heats and do to Lewis Wuori having this (almost) exact same track at home did give us a feeling of comfort ability while running it. The Green track has it all from long sweeping esses to short wiggle runs, short shoots and a long straight, a good if not great circuit.
As the heats went on, the point difference began to separate in SoCals favor, but non of us stopped digging and although SoCal did give us our third loss of the day, they knew we were there. 4-3-1.
There are two ways to go into a race where you are facing unbelievable odds. You can simply say, "let's get through this' or you can say, "Let's take it to'em" and it was the latter that we choose. No one, and I mean no one like the Purple Track but it was on this years docket and everyone had to race it. Kansas City is a team of All-stars, John Habernal, Steve Ward, Clint Bourne and Don Bourne are the best of the best, not only as racers but also as people. They will stop what they are doing and offer help whenever and to whoever it’s needed.
The track is a short one but a tough one, an up and down bridge is an obstacle that can bite you when in the heat of the moment, suddenly you find yourself airborne and landing 3 slots over. In the end, KC won but if there was one thing we could put in our pit box from it, it's in just about every heat we all finished on the same lap and that would not have happened last year. 4-4-1.
I love this track, it's a smoother than smooth, 3 dimensional sweeper that lets a racer race. Mike Block is the captain of FSMRA, a team that had Andrew Keeling, Jim Keen, Charlie Karnes and Adam Wright in its ranks this year along with a stable of cars that were smoking fast to say the least. We ran hard and made few if any mistakes but just could not crack into the top two finishing positions no matter what we did, this was a extremely frustrating run for all of us since we could hang with most of these guys in practice. This race just may be the one we look back on as motivation for 2009 to use as a benchmark for where we need to be. Team East Coast fell below .500 for the first time since race one against Independence. 4-5-1.
The "Home" team is Ferndale. Rick Phyllis, GoGo and Slotcar Bob dot the drivers rooster and they were coming into this race on a hot streak, but this was the Blue track.
To give you my thoughts on the blue track can be summed up by the fact each of the East Coast team members had to sit out at least two races, I choose both of the runs on Blue as mine. The lay-out it self would make a great routed circuit, but the Lock and Joiner track that currently occupies the table is nothing short of a road rally feeling and it’s even harder to marshal than it is to drive. We started out pretty even but suffered an equipment failure when Tom Bowman lost a pick-up shoe and had to run a back up for one heat giving Ferndale a points advantage we could not overcome. I would look for the East Coast team to work on it's L&J program for '09 as all of us felt disappointed on our performance on these circuits but 2008 was what it was and we now dropped to 4-6-1.
Race Twelve: Seattle - Orange Track
The Orange track, either you love it or you hate it. It's routed and smooth but it's longest straight is 12 inches long. The way I feel about the Blue track Henry Harnish feels about Orange.
Anyway, Seattle is Dave Rock's team that they formed in 2008 when Trek Lawler moved over with his sons from one of the KC teams. After 4 loses in a row we badly wanted a win and if you remember that Tom Bowman had held Brad Morgan out of the races against KC and Independence on Purple to "Keep Him Hungry" and the thought it would pay off later, this is where that hope began to pay-off. Brad was fast and smooth and almost single handedly brought this race to the win column. No matter what lane, gutter or center he was dialed in and we were back within striking distance of a.500 day at 5-6-1.
The last race of the 2008 Fray and if we were to get back to even we had to do against Mickey Hurtado’s IEHO team that featured Scott Dunlap in it's driver stable on the Lock and Joiner Yellow. This race was even as they come. East Coast jumped into an early lead on the shoulders of Henry Harnish and Brad Morgan. When Scott Dunlap rotated in IEHO moved to the top in points and with one heat to go it was virtually all square and we had Brad, Tom and Myself on the track... it was looking good but after only 3 laps the Bowman car slowed, then speed up and then let out that heart stopping "Oil Squeal" and in the blink of an eye it was all over for Team East Coast and our hopes of a non-losing record at the 2008 Fray. Mic and the Inland Empire handed up our 7th defeat of the day and putting us into a ninth place tie with South Bay. Ironically, we had tied South Bay in Race 5 so it was a "True Tie" for Ninth at 5-7-1.
There is a complete photo journel of the 2008 Fray at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KeepOnRacing/
We will see everyone at Hiram Durant's 2008 Shoot-Out in the Fall
and until then ...
Keep on Racing
Bill Kurtz
Charlotte, NC
Doyle Aston Martin
