NitroDude's Racing Adventures

[Magnethead]

Unbeknownst to many, slot car racing is alive and very real. @Nitro Dude semi-final'd in brackets and won supergas (a fixed index) this weekend.

New photo by Steve McDermott

photos.app.goo.gl

New photo by Steve McDermott

photos.app.goo.gl

New photo by Steve McDermott

photos.app.goo.gl

New photo by Steve McDermott

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[kkfan91]

Cool, please tell me those have mini parachutes

 

[Nitro Dude]

Thanks Mag you saved me a lot of trouble because sdj just messaged me a few days ago wanting to know if I had any pics of my cars I could put on here. So, I was getting ready to try and figure out how to up load pics from my phone to here. That was a pretty tough bracket race last Sat with a 121 car field. I hope you did ok at your race.

 

[Nitro Dude]

Cool, please tell me those have mini parachutes

They have fake ones but that doesn't help much at 80 mph on a 55 foot track from starting line to finish line and then only another 15 feet of shutdown.

 

[Magnethead]

I'll let @Nitro Dude caption these

New photo by Steve McDermott

photos.app.goo.gl

New photo by Steve McDermott

photos.app.goo.gl

New photo by Steve McDermott

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[Nitro Dude]

That was a surprise birthday party that Jim Dunn Racing did for me at the slot car track a couple of years ago. The bottom pic is of drag racing legend and HOF funny car driver, owner and tuner, Big Jim Dunn and his grand daughter Johnna autographing a banner that a few other big name and world champion drag racers have stopped by and autographed. The second pic is of some of my fellow slot car racers, a hot rod builder, 5 drag racers, Jon Dunn and his daughter Johnna, and Jon's girl friend Shannon, Big Jim and his wife Dianne, Jim Campbell the driver of the funny car for the past 3 years, and myself. The next pic is of me showing Big Jim which button is the roll out button on the controller. He has raced real drag cars since 1950 but he had never raced a slot car... but it didn't take him long to get the hang of it.

 

[sdj]

Way cool @Nitro Dude !

Thanks @Magnethead for posting the pictures.

 

[Nitro Dude]

This week as been pretty busy finishing up my new dragster and then rebuilding the motors and changing tires on my funny cars and super gas cars so I could test on Thursday and Friday night for the race on Saturday. Saturdays race was huge and brought in a lot of cars from all over the Westcoast for brackets, super gas, super comp and a funny car shootout. The doors opened at 8. am for test and tune and then the first round of brackets was at 2.00 pm. The bracket race had 135 cars and I got to the bottom 5 and then had a red light with my new dragster. Then in super gas I went to the semi finals and ran .001 on my number but had an .004 red light with my GTO. Then in the funny car shootout I had an .002 red light in the finals. But, I won super comp with my new dragster. I normally don't have to many red lights but my main controller had a rollout switch go bad earlier in the day so I had to switch to my back up controller and it has a little lighter trigger spring on it. It will definitely have a heavier spring on it before the next race. Still over all it wasn't a bad day with a quarter final finish, a semi final finish, a final round finish, and a win.

 

[sdj]

@Nitro Dude , is there anyway you could post pictures of each car you have by class? I am sure all here would like to see them.

 

[Nitro Dude]

@Nitro Dude , is there anyway you could post pictures of each car you have by class? I am sure all here would like to see them.

I have around 40 cars. But, I still have to figure out how to upload pics on here. I don't think I have ever uploaded anything here. I usually just copy and paste links on this forum.

 

[sdj]

I was thinking one car from each class you race in to see what they look like.

email me the pictures and I will post them, if that works for you let me know and I will PM you my email.

 

[Nitro Dude]

We have been getting between 120 to 145 cars in the bracket class on Wed, Fri, and Sat at my local track. The past 3 races I have came up a little short making it to the bottom 5 or 6 cars. But tonight I got the monkey off my back and got a win with my new dragster. I have only had it for about a month and it has 2 wins now. I left my pit set up at the track tonight because there is another race tomorrow but I'm going to look at the weather for Pocono in the morning and if it looks like a chance of a rainout I will probably go race. I sent 3 sets of rims out last week to get new tires glued on them and the guy is bringing them to the track in the morning so that on Sun I can cut them to the height I like and do some testing. But if Pocono looks good then I will probably just pick up the tires and come back home to watch the race.

 

[Nitro Dude]

It has been another busy week of setting up a couple cars and testing them for a new top dragster heads up class that debuted last night. I also had to prep and test a car for the 300 Outlaw class before they change to a different motor combo starting next month. I had a pretty good night starting out qualifying # 1 and winning the 300 Outlaw race. I already had the track record with the Hawk-7 motor that has been required for the past 3 years but next month we are changing to the new 605 Eagle motor that we run in the new top dragster class. In the top dragster class I qualified # 2, and then in round 1 of Eliminations I set the track record and then in round 2 I lowered the record. But, I went red in the semi finals. At least now I have the track record in both classes. I loaned my back up dragster to my buddy and he qualified # 4 and went to the semi finals also but got eliminated.

 

[Clutch]

It has been another busy week of setting up a couple cars and testing them for a new top dragster heads up class that debuted last night. I also had to prep and test a car for the 300 Outlaw class before they change to a different motor combo starting next month. I had a pretty good night starting out qualifying # 1 and winning the 300 Outlaw race. I already had the track record with the Hawk-7 motor that has been required for the past 3 years but next month we are changing to the new 605 Eagle motor that we run in the new top dragster class. In the top dragster class I qualified # 2, and then in round 1 of Eliminations I set the track record and then in round 2 I lowered the record. But, I went red in the semi finals. At least now I have the track record in both classes. I loaned my back up dragster to my buddy and he qualified # 4 and went to the semi finals also but got eliminated.

Been a busy boy. Bet you barely had time to EAT.

 

[Nitro Dude]

There was another good turnout for the Wed night bracket race last night with a 109 car field. I decided I would enter the maximum 6 car limit and I normally make one pass about 2 hours before the race and then another pass about a half hour before the race. When I made my 1st test pass all 6 cars were running right where they should be for that track temp. Then as the air conditioner cools the track down a few degrees the cars normally start running a little quicker. But when I made my 2nd test pass they all slowed down a lot. So I started checking my controller and found a wire to the relay broken, but I only had about 10 minutes before we started racing. I grabbed my back up controller and made another pass on each car again and this time they were right where they should have been. I made it to the finals and then pulled an .001 light with a .004 dial for a .005 package to take the win.

 

[Nitro Dude]

I added another dragster to my collection last week and then a buddy of mine that has been buying a few cars on e-bay bought a beautiful painted Gas Rhonda nostalgia funny car body and he had me build the car over the weekend. But when I got done with it I liked it so well that I made him a deal he couldn't refuse and I ended up trading him my 1966 and 1967 GTO's that I won the last 2 super gas races with, for it. I have accumulated so many cars lately that I have filled both of my slot car boxes that hold 10 and 15 cars. So Tuesday I drove 300 miles round trip to the guy that builds my boxes and picked up another 10 car box and it is already half full. Last night I had another pretty good race and won a 94 car bracket race.

 

[Whizzer]

Way to go, Nitro Dude!!!!!!

 

[StandOnIt]

inquiring minds want to see some pics of the rides, AND we will keep on until we do.

 

[Nitro Dude]

inquiring minds want to see some pics of the rides, AND we will keep on until we do.

I just sent some pics to Magnethead. The yellow Cuda is the one I won with last night.

 

[Magnethead]

 

[TexasRaceLady]

Nice, pics. Thanks for putting them up, Mag. Beautiful cars.

 

[StandOnIt]

I just sent some pics to Magnethead. The yellow Cuda is the one I won with last night.

Nice. I'm partial to the 64 Goat, I used to have one of those. Did a lot of street racing with it.

 

[Nitro Dude]

If you notice the new Gas Rhonda funny car has mismatched front and back wheels. That is because I wanted black wheels on the car and I only had black front wheels so I ordered a set of black Bulldog rear wheels and they just came in today. I also put black Bulldog wheels on the 2 dragsters but I haven't took a picture of them yet. When I get to the track tomorrow I will take a picture if I think about it. Next month is going to be a busy one because we have a big cash race coming up at the end of August that will pull in around 400 to 500 cars and I have to do a lot of testing with the new 605 Eagle motor that will be mandatory in 2 of the heads up classes..

 

[Nitro Dude]

Nice. I'm partial to the 64 Goat, I used to have one of those. Did a lot of street racing with it.

When I was in high school I had a 1967 and 1968 GTO. I hopped up the 68 a little and drove it to school...but I built a full race engine for the 67 and it was for weekend drag racing only.

 

[Magnethead]

@Nitro Dude

 

[Magnethead]

 

[Nitro Dude]

This will be my new super gas car to replace the two I traded for a nostalgia funnycar last week. Now that the chassis is finished and the body is mounted I have to hurry up and finish putting the rest of the body together so I can send it to my painter so I can get it back in time to wire it, and install a motor and gears and have a few days to test before the big cash race next month. I ordered a nice set of black Bulldog wheels and tires for the front and rear but they won't be here until Wed.

 

[Magnethead]

 

[Nitro Dude]

The past 2 Saturdays have been pretty good for me. I had 2 cars in the finals at both races. and both of them had around 100 car fields. That means I pick up winner and runner up money and the cash pot.

 

[Magnethead]

First pair:

 

[Magnethead]

Next set:

 

[Magnethead]

Next set:

 

[Nitro Dude]

That is a new slot car track that will be opening up next month in Santa Fe Springs Ca. It will have the first 4 wide dragstrip.

 

[Whizzer]

Very impressive. There isn't anything like it around here. I wanted to find out more about the slot dragsters so have been looking on youtube.com.
Can't begin to imagine the tie and finesse that goes into these small racers.
Good luck with future endeavors!

 

[Nitro Dude]

Here are a couple videos when the 2005 USRA Division 1 National Championships and the 2013 Wing Worlds were held at my home track in Buena Park CA.

 

[Magnethead]

 

[Nitro Dude]

This was the first ever Kings of Speed all dragster race held at BPR in Southern California. It pulled in 118 cars from all over the west coast. There was a lot of tough close racing but at the end of the day I took home $410.00 and had an awesome time.

 

[Nitro Dude]

The cars that were lined up on the track were not even half of the cars that were there. There were a total of 118 cars this year, but I wouldn't be surprised to see over 200 cars show up next year. The dragsters just became popular here on the west coast within the past year. They just had the annual funny car shootout a couple of weeks ago and there were around 300 funny cars that showed up for that one. I will find a pic to put on here.

 

[Nitro Dude]

Here is a link to the brand new state of the art racing facility here in Southern California in the city of Whittier that just had their grand opening on Saturday. Chico from up in Northern California has been making trips back and forth for the past few weeks routing the braid grooves, filling in and sanding all of the joints and drilling the holes for the power taps to get the dragstrip ready for paint. After it was painted he came back and installed all of the power source to the track and laid the 4 lanes of braid down. Even though they have some more things to finish they still had a great turnout with a lot of good food and racers got to test their cars out. Chico ran one of his old c-can motors and ran a .406 at 128 mph so there is no doubt that we will see some .300 runs at over 160 mph when some of the open funny cars run. I went over their after the dragster race finished at BPR but I didn't run anything. I will probably go test there sometime within the next couple of weeks.

Piranha Speedway & Hobbies

Piranha Speedway & Hobbies, Whittier, California. 1,360 likes · 175 talking about this. World Class Slot Car Raceway

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[Magnethead]