The Short Course King series made its way to the Ocala RC Car Club(ORCCC.org) for the second stop on this whirlwind tour of the best short course tracks in the state of Florida. Over the years so many of the tracks have been catering to the larger 1/8^th vehicles, with huge jumps, random obstacles in the track that toss the cars around violently, option lanes, stutter bumps, etc. It is refreshing to race your car around a track, where the jumps and elevation changes are a fair test of driving skill, and the racers actually get to race each other on the track, rather than see who can survive the run with the fewest crashes.

The track crew in Ocala did an excellent job with this track layout. The footprint of the Ocala track is one of the larger in the state, but they have left a 12’ buffer zone all around the perimeter of the track for this layout, reducing the length be about 30’ and the depth by 12-15’. This left us with a track about 100 x 55’ – the size a 1/10^th scale track used to be just a few years ago. Coming down the straightaway, drivers are funneled into a high-speed uphill switchback taking you all the way to the back of the track, from there a left hander into a double roller with a tight carousel leading into a tricky double apex section with and elevated entrance and exit from the section. This section of the track provided for some great racing with the full-fendered trucks. From the double apex, you find a long sweeper headed to a table top/roller, another carousel around to the right, leading the drivers back uphill to an elevated 180 on a plateau. Coming down the hill from the 180, the drivers are slowed back down immediately with a tricky side-hill off camber right-hander, leading to a small hop double section leading back onto the straightaway. Fast lap time of the event was in the high 28’s for Mod, and high 29’s for stock.

The Ocala club general holds their club racing on Saturday afternoons, so they graciously moved their club racing to Friday night in order to accommodate the Short Course King series event. Many drivers made their way up on Friday afternoon to get some practice, take in the club race, stay the night and enjoy the rather late start time of noon for the race. There was a lot of conversation around the track on Saturday about the events of Friday night – most of that conversation has no place in a race report, so suffice it say that a good time was had by all. The turnout was around 45 entrants, which is significant given there were really only one type of vehicle being run. At some larger races, you will have 100 entries, but its really about 35 people running 2-3 classes each; so the actual size of the crowd was pretty large with a lot of activity surrounding the event.

Stock Class – the stock class was run with no amendments to the rules from round 1, box stock, kit tires/motors/electronics. Lots of interesting story lines in the stock class – Tyler Noel coming off a win in the first round – Zach Genova looking to back up his strong run and near win in round one – the ongoing story of Chad Cason and Jimmie Cooper’s rivalry on and off the track. Around 10am, notable Florida driver Sherwin Diaz showed up at the track with a Team Associated SC10 – in the shrinkwrap. He literally pulled it out of the box, swapped out his receiver for his radio, set the ride height, and put it on the track – DIALED.  Sherwin ended up putting this SC10 in the third spot on the starting grid for the A final.

Eight drivers qualified directly into the A-final:

1. Tim Davis
2. Zach Genova
3. Sherwin Diaz
4. Tyler Noel
5. Chad Cason
6. Jimmie Cooper
7. Tyler Rimes
8. Ariel Aquino

The B-Final saw a heated battle up front for the entire 6 minutes, with 11 year old Austin Blankenship qualifying 9th overall, at only his second race – that is right, his first RC race ever was the previous night at the warm-up club race.  Austin started the main strong, but some understandable mental errors caused him to fall back into the pack early, and was only able to get back to the 4th spot by the end. Local racer Kyle Paquette was able to win the B-final, after some trouble in the qualifiers that kept him from finishing any of this runs. EHZ driver Kraig Lowe was also able to transfer into the A-Final after a strong run in the B.

The A-Final was more of what we saw in the qualifers – each round, Zach Genova, Sherwin Diaz and Tim Davis were constantly taking each others lap times down – each driver pushing the trucks harder each lap – Genova set blistering qualifying times in each round, only to see them fall in the next Heat race with Davis and Diaz in the last round. If all three driver’s had been in the same heat race, it would have been interesting to see exactly how fast the TQ time could have been. The start of the Final was remarkable clean, with no contact through the opening uphill switchback section. Davis lead the trucks through, single file, just a tad slower than race pace – this made for a tight single freight train around the first few technical corners. A little brake check from Davis a the top of the roller leading into the double apex gave second qualifier Zack Genova cause to check up, allowing Sherwin Diaz to over take him on the outside. Davis and Diaz pulled about a 2-3 second lead instantly and never looked back. Kyle Paquette took this start to the best advantage, going from 9th to 3rd in the first half of a lap. The balance of the main was pretty uneventful, Davis was out front, with Diaz in second, and Paquette and Noel battling for the 3-4 spot. Noel ended up getting the third position for good with about a minute to go.

Stock A-Final Finishing Order:

1. Tim Davis
2. Sherwin Diaz
3. Tyler Noel
4. Kyle Paquette
5. Zack Genova
6. Tyler Rimes
7. Chad Cason
8. Kraig Lowe
9. Ariel Aquino
10. Jimmie Cooper

Modifed Class:

Again, eight drivers qualifed directly into the A:

1. Matt Mosieur
2. Michael Grant
3. Paul Womble
4. Ariel Aquino
5. Tyler Noel
6. Richard Carpenter
7. Jimmie Cooper
8. Calvin Carpenter

Pete Payne and Shawn Ousley finished 1-2 in the B, to transfer into the A-Final and round out the full 10 truck field.

The start of the Modified Short Course A-Final saw Mosieur leave the grid punched, and rocket up the switchback section, instantly distancing himself from second place qualifier Michael Grant. This was a dramatically different approach that the start of the Stock A-Final, where Davis held the pack up to create space for himself after a few corners. The Mod trucks have much more power, and the open tire rule makes it much easier to put that power to the ground. Ariel Aquino , Womble, and Noel all got around Grant on the start, they ran the first three laps in that order nose to tail. Mosieur opened up an enormous lead in the first two laps – Mosieur opened with two identical 29.2 second laps, back to back in laps one and two to open up a 7 second lead in the first minute of the main. Aquino turned a 29.9 of his own on lap 3 to get free of the Noel / Womble Battle for the 3-4 spot. After the 7 minute A-Final, Mosieur held on to take the win, with Aquino pulling to within a few seconds near the end, but it was too little, too late.

Final Finishing Order for Modified Short Course

1. Matt Mosieur
2. Ariel Aquino
3. Tyler Noel
4. Paul Womble
5. Calvin Carpenter
6. Pete Payne
7. Richard Carpenter
8. Shawn Ousley
9. Michael Grant
10. Jimmie Cooper

Overall this was an incredible event, and could not have happened without the support and hard work of the Ocala RC Car Club. A Big THANK YOU to Danny Mayer for all his hard work on the track, and for keeping it in race ready condition all day – which paid off huge by the time the mains came around. ORCCC Club members Dennis Paquette, Aaron Wood, and Ken Shiver also made huge contributions to the event not only on race day, but in the weeks leading up to the event. There are so many small contributions behind the scenes that the average racer never sees that make these types of events go so smoothly. See everyone next month at Round 3!