Summer Pro-Am - Stage 2 - Pro division

Here are the groupings for Stage 2. I got word that recording was happening this week/end, so hopefully more action to watch in the next few weeks.

Make your picks and place your bets! Good luck!

Group A:

• Mattman213
• FOTF
• G4 Diecast Racing
• Ghost Driver

Group B:

• Sneaky Bob
• DXP Racing
• Rivera Racing
• R-Lo Racing

Group C:

• Voxxer
• Chief Wapahoo
• Golden Owl
• Secondhand Speed

Group D:

• Mopar Mac
• Big Al
• Uncle Elvis
• The Maker's Box

Great cant wait to see how this leg goes...gonna be nuts!

Matt

Pro Group A:

Pro Group B:

Pro Group C:

Pro Group D:

Groups were assembled in serpentine fashion, based on the results of the first leg of the tour.

The Pro Division races will premiere Monday 6/28 at 7PM ET on the Diecast Racing Report channel.

Will Mattman213 keep his spot at the top of the pile of Pro racers? An open track can mean anything and has a chance to shift the standings quite a bit. Come join the fun and chat with fellow racers and see how the landscape changes while the cars continue their journey across the country.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVhzNnAPS0E&ab_channel=DiecastRacingReport

Well...ide like to say that was interesting but...wow.  

Looks like we will all be dragging at the next location and I'm not talking about the race format.  We will be PHYSICALLY dragging.

Matt

Yeah...uhhh...please see on-going drama over on the Amateur thread. 

Not happy at all.   It was not a race ... but survival.   I signed up for this Pro-Am to help out another racer ....  this has set back downhill racing for awhile.   

I didn't think it could be any worse than the amateur division. I was wrong. This was like watching the final match in rollerball with no penalties, no substitutions and James Caan slowly circling the track amidst the flames and carnage of his broken and battered teammates, the lone survivor...

youtu.be/BB1LuCUovW4

Maybe Blueline can do an invitational style drag for anyone who's junk got destroyed by the last track and we can try to patch, repair, tweak and tune our entries and send them back to see how they do at their best!  The Redemption Race.

Matt

OH!!!!  And congrats to those who survived, made at least one full lap AND those who scored good points in this circus round.  Big time congratulations. 

Matt

I think its time to let all of the competitors in on something that I think is absolutely inexcusable that occured PRIOR to the races. Let me preface this by saying this was NOT sanctioned by Redline Derby. As I alluded to earlier, well let me just share what was shared with me: 

Random thing on your car

GenX_VintageRacing Today
Hey... Thanks for the feedback. 

Just a quick note so you know... When your car returns to you, it now is held together by 2-56 screws.  Each car was given a test run down the track when it came out of the box.  Yours fell off the track at the end of the 1970's 2-lane turn and shattered into 4 pieces.  The glue didn't hold it together at all.  I tapped out the posts and screwed it together.  Given the race results, you can see that it held together thereafter.

for what it's worth,

Kit

What's the big deal, you may ask. Of course its customary to give the cars a test run. But consider this. YOU CAN SEE HOW THE TRACK RAN. One of two things comes to mind. Our cars were the guinea pigs, or Kit either didn't do adequate testing prior to running our "test runs" with his own cars, or he did, and should have known the track was a diecast deathtrap. For those of us who actually own the antique sizzlers two lane curves, we know those damn things have to be tuned just right pitchwise or else EVERY car flies off the track. Of course the straights going into the turn were also unsupported. What I think is ultimately the most egregious thing about this entire debacle is that even after the amateur massacre, NO CHANGES were made to the track. HAVE YOU SEEN THE DAMAGE TO RLO'S AXELS? Look at the time stamp at 24:11. When I say we were the test dummies, the guinea pigs, thats what I mean. If proper testing had been done with non competitor cars the dangers would have been well known  ahead of time. IF THEY WERE DONE AND NOT ADDRESSED, or worse left there and promoted as an exciting part of racing at that track, as in the case of dead man's curve, then I feel that this is an incredible breach of trust and a callous disregard for all of the time, money and effort spent on putting together these cars. I am so angry right now I cannot hardly contain myself to civil speech. I tried to be sympathetic, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that Kit should have stepped up and postponed until track conditions were safe for racing. Would my car's gorilla glue still have failed? Possibly, though I have never had that happen before, and my cars have tumbled, but this was the heaviest car I've ever done so, I will accept it was a possibility. But given that my car didn't leave the track on camera at the sizzler corner, it begs the question why did it do it before. Maybe I'm off base and the sizzler corner was fixed. But did you see the hard wood that bordered that turn? Did you see the exposed metal brackets on the base of the track? WHY WOULDN'T YOU AT THE VERY LEAST PUT SOME PADDING DOWN? I do appreciate Kit repairing my car. He did not have to do that, and I am very grateful he did. But this stop on the pro am has severely damaged the sport in my opinion, and that is not Redline Derby's fault, though the RLD brand will probably be affected. I know that RLD is devastated by this, but he is endeavoring to be diplomatic and take a measured tone, and I respect that. But if this were a real life racing weekend, with this amount of carnage, there would be serious sanctioning investigations. I am not suggesting malfeasance here, the deliberate desire to see as much carnage on the track as possible, but I do think that there was GROSS negligence or worse a complete ambivalence to the consequences of running the races under these conditions. I don't know what the response from the diecast racing community will be moving forward, but I for one will NEVER submit a car to race the box canyon ever again because rather than saying, you know what guys, I blew it, the track wasn't ready and I knew it and it never should have happened Kit doubled down and said, well you shoulda seen the total party kill fest that happened on such and such a date... That is simply unacceptable knowing now what transpired with the Pro division...