USA Race Number Two: Englishtown, New Jersey!

Hosted by
American Raceway!

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Over the weekend of July 14-15, American Raceway of Englishtown, New Jersey hosted the largest turnout of racers at any HPI Challenge regional event! 172 racers entered to race, have fun, get free HPI stuff and just have a good time. So many racers entered that we even had some trouble printing out the race listings because we were registering late entries!

American Raceway owners Doug Venner and Bill Rondeau operate a well-oiled machine on their roadcourse and off-road dirt track. Race announcer Dan Haberman put up with repeated requests for late entries from Frank, but eventually we had to get the racing started, so we cut it off at 172 entries.

Friday, July 13

Frank McKinney and Troy Lyman arrived at 7PM from Newark airport, ready to check out the shop and track. Although the drive through the actual city of Newark isn't the most scenic in the world, once the rental car ventured off the New Jersey Turnpike it was easy to see why New Jersey is known as "The Garden State". The back roads, routes and off-highway areas of New Jersey really are much prettier than most travelers give them credit for, and although it is the most densely populated state in the United States, it's hard to tell from the many farms, open areas and forests that occupy the areas between the NJ Turnpike and the Garden State Tollway.

Friday nights are oval racing nights at American Raceway, so Frank and Troy ordered pizza and settled down to watch some good racing. Maybe the local racers didn't want to disappoint, because there was plenty of close racing to be seen! It's not very often oval racing can be found nowadays, especially good drivers, so "HPI Guys" Frank and Troy were happy to see a variety of classes and skill levels represented.

After the racing was finished, the specifics of the race weekend were discussed, then everyone went home to get their rest for what was sure to be a very busy weekend!

Saturday, July 14

The weather was one area of the weekend's planning that didn't need to be worried about. A balmy weekend was forecasted, and rain plans weren't even discussed. However, sunshade (in the form of a wide-brimmed hat or canopy) was the order of the day, and by 10 AM the parking lot and all areas around both the on-road and off-road tracks were full of brightly colored canopies and racers pitting at card tables, picnic tables or out of the trunks of their cars or sport utility vehicles.

The early count of entries on Friday night was around 95, yet by 11 AM on Saturday it was easy to see that this race would blow away all previous records for attendance at our regional events! By 10 AM it was 140 entries. By 11 AM it was 160. By noon it was 170, and more people were still coming! Unfortunately for the late arrivals, the decision had to be made to cut off the entries and start the racing. If all the late entries had been accepted, there would have easily been almost 200 entries racing! As it was, there were 24 heats in nearly all the available classes, including HPI Truck, Electric Rally, and even a few racers in an exhibition Mini class.

Practice was available on both tracks until noon, with a staff member of American Raceway watching the frequency clips and the race announcer calling off "runtime slots" of five minutes each. One group of racers were allowed to run for up to five minutes, then they had to come off the driver stand and allow the next group of racers to practice. This went on all morning until the driver's meeting was called, and seemed to work really well.

A radio impound was enforced as well, a necessary measure to make sure that racers who would be competing wouldn't have to worry about someone turning on their radio to check their steering or throttle trim, adjust any settings, etc. This is a standard part of any large racing event, and in this case worked very well. Each racer used their "racer ID", or the number next to their name in the Autoscore heat sheet, and a sticker was placed on their radio with their ID number on it. When they were ready to race, they would get their radio and transponder as they brought their car to the radio impound counter, which was underneath the driver stand.

At 12:15, only a few minutes behind schedule, all the racers were asked to bring their cars to the racing surface for the Concours Challenge lineup, driver meeting, group pictures and hat giveaway. While the cars were lined up on the back straight, Frank and Dan went over the specific rules of the race weekend and reminded racers that they were there to have fun and have a good time.

Then, of course, the Concours Challenge took place, yet another competition that was filled with tough choices and hard decisions!

Concours Challenge pictures now available! | Check out the racing! | Thanks!