This past weekend (January 25th, 2014), I ventured out to Green Island, NY for Full Throttle’s first off-road trophy race, the FREEZE! The track is located near Albany, NY. It is an indoor clay off-road track in an old warehouse type of building. They also have an indoor clay oval on site and a TON of more room inside.

This is pretty much a brand new facility run by Scott Flanders and John Parker. Full Throttle R/C Raceway is off to a great start from what I experienced this weekend. The facility is nice, with a ton of room for pitting, an excellent track surface, and a great friendly environment with great racers. They had several out of area guys make it out to this event, which is always good to see. I think the weather scared away a few entries, but they had a respectable ~85 entries across all the classes for the Freeze.

Below is the race flyer. They picked up some very reputable sponsors, some of the best companies in the industry supporting a start-up track. I love it.

As mentioned, this was indeed a trophy race. They had awards for 1st-3rd of the A Main, and Top Qualifiers. They also had a very cool looking trophy for the fastest lap turned during any main, built by 1945 Speed & Custom. Very cool.

We’ll start off with the drivers meeting. Being the first big race at the facility they wanted to make sure everyone was familiar with the way things will be run. Turn marshalling after a race was mandatory (like everywhere), failure to do so meant losing your last heat’s times. They had a table to put your car on so that you can marshall in a timely manner. It worked very well.

During the drivers meeting everyone voted and they decided to run 3 rounds of qualifying instead of 2, since there were a couple less than anticipated entries. Bonus! More track time fore everyone to get their car dialed before the Mains.

A shot of some of the pit area from the drivers stand.

They ran 14 heats per round. Rounds lasted a little under 2 hours each, and they ran at a steady pace. It was a very well run show. They took a few minute break between rounds just to make sure everyone was ready, and allowed a few minutes of open practice. This was extremely helpful if you wanted to try out a different tire without wasting a heat to find out if something works. Guys like me who got there a little later and didn’t get much practice time didn’t have a ton of time to test tires/gearing. I appreciated the short practice time.

Here’s my pit area for the race. The 2 rides I’ll likely be bringing to most races for the foreseeable future. Associated SC10 and B4.1 (almost WE). The SC10 felt awesome right off the bat and super planted all day on Pro-Line Ion tires. I was a little under-geared but decided to focus more time on the B4.

The buggy I just purchased used from fellow racer Rick Walsh. I’ve been hesitant to enter this class due to it’s reputation for being difficult (remember, most of us RC Soup guys don’t ever claim to be “Pro’s” lol). With the Souper Bowl coming up, and buggy promising to be a big class, I figured it was time to jump in. I threw some tires on it when I got there that I thought would work. Wrong. I found it undriveable. I switched out to a different set (I believe Proton rears and Bar code fronts – only because that’s what I had). A lot of guys were running slicks from what I heard. The tire swap, and switching from a full size pack to a shorty really perked up the buggy and made it handle a lot better for my driving style.

I ran both 17.5 Stock classes, as that’s what I usually run when traveling.

Making the trip out to Green Island with me was JMC Carbon Products‘ owner Jim Mehaffy. He joined me in the Stock Buggy class with his TLR 22 and ran his Mid Motor 22-SCT in the Mod Short Course class.

We were pitted across from Redneck locals Rob Stillwell and “Afro Thunder”. For some reason I’m missing pics of their area, but it was cool to see them out and about, traveling to a race. It’s great to travel to neighboring tracks and meet new people, see how others run their show, and just promote the hobby and have a good time.

Next we have some shots of the track. It’s a hard packed clay surface. It had little to no dust and provided good traction. I really like this type of surface. I believe this was a good warmup for Motorama for me, where I’ll be running stock SC on the “Awesome Track”. The layout has a nice flow to it, and is not overly technical.

I find it helpful when tracks paint the jump lines. It helps give them definition for those with mediocre eyesight (me) and can improve jump timing.

My only minor thing with the track that I found was the number of poles in the line of site on the track. I know that’s unavoidable, all depends on the building, etc.. If you get a bad position on the stand the back corners can be hard to see. In my first heat I found this out the hard way and was basically driving my truck blind into the far right corner. I simply moved over a little on the stand and didn’t have an issue the rest of the race.

Note, above, you will see a marshall cone. Now, cones aren’t anything new to marshalling.. However, Full Throttle is the first place I’ve seen a box painted on the track, with an arrow telling the marshall which direction to pay attention to. I found this to be great. It kept the marshalls out of the line of sight for the most part. As a martial it’s super simple where you need to be and which way to keep track of. Great idea!

Now we have some random pics from around the pits.

Had some vintage cars in the house racing!

The impound table below is where trucks were stashed after your race while marshalling.

They had some girls come in and provide everyone with food for the day. Prices I found were extremely reasonable. No need to venture out into the winter wonderland was a plus for me. They served a variety of chips, candy bars, beverages, hot dogs, and burgers.

We spotted this beast in the pits. It caused quite a stir on our Facebook page, getting a ton of likes, shares, and comments.

Another shot of the pits. Plenty of room for everyone. Even if the 60+ built in spots were filled, there’s still half the facility open to setup your own table.

Not sure what he’s doing here.. John Koiva in the house

Jason Punty’s RCE converted Slash 4×4 Pro-Lite E-Buggy. Yes folks, this was once a Traxxas Slash.

Now for some results from the event.

2WD Mod SC B Main

4wd Mod SC B Main

2wd Mod Buggy B Main

Novice A Main

2wd Stock SC A Main

2wd Mod SC A Main

4wd Mod SC A Main

2wd Stock Buggy A Main

2wd Mod Buggy A Main

4wd Mod Buggy A Main

Mod Stadium Truck A Main

Pro-Lite E-Buggy A Main

Last we have the podium shots under the Full Throttle mural.

2wd Mod Buggy – Micheal Garramone 1st, Rich McNair 2nd

2wd Stock Buggy – Chris Proctor 1st, Jim Hustins 2nd, Jake Mangini 3rd

2wd Stock SC – Jim Hustins 1st, Fred Wieland 2nd, Kevin Crandall 3rd

4wd Buggy – Andrew Palente 1st, Micheal Garramone 2nd, Chicken Little 3rd

4wd SC – John Koiva 1st, Dave Roberts 2nd, Jason Punty 3rd

Pro-Lite E Buggy – Jason Punty 1st, John Koiva 3rd (Carl Doran 2nd -not pictured)

Stadium – Michael St.Denis 1st, Paul Medina 2nd, Rob Birchall 3rd

Below are a couple videos to give you an idea of the track flow and layout.

4wd Short Course A Main

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAzwOJCGVC0[/youtube]

Some laps of E-Buggy Pro-Lite class w/ John Koiva

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZtOWxt7UIk[/youtube]

Overall the event went very smooth. The additional round of qualifying made the day longer, but that meant more bang for the buck. Speaking of bang for the buck, they gave away a bunch of door prizes. I’m not 100% sure, but I believe everyone went home with something, be it a tire container tube, t-shirt, B-Fast diff kit, Pro-Line gift certificate, Stick-It 1 graphics, or any of the other prizes they had. Great stuff.

I had a great time. I’d encourage anyone in the Northeast to make it out to their next event in March (see their Facebook Group for more details). You can also keep an eye on their website for more info on future race events, etc. I can’t wait to make it out there again, hopefully with some more folks from our area.

You can check out pics from photographer Michael Conway @ his website as well.