A good crowd turned out at the remote controlled car races during the Heavy Horse Pull event in Thornhill, B.C. on May 28.
“The turnout was great… I’m fairly certain we gained a few new members and sparked a lot of interest in many others that may join the club soon,” said club member Craig Mills.
The races had 16 people, 20 cars and 4-5 children in the novice class, he said, adding that lots of people seemed interested in the club and their self-developed track.
The club built the track at the fairgrounds last August and ran their first races during the fall fair. Since then, they set up a new drivers’ stand and installed a new state-of-the-art timing system.
“It was our first time using the new lap system so it was a little hectic," said Mills about the recent races.
Mills organized most of the races himself, which involved connecting cars to transponders for the timing system, operating the new software, and organizing a manual system to count laps for vehicles without transponders.
He was also scrambling through last minute issues and racing himself, he said.
“When it came to actually racing, everything went extremely smooth in my opinion, even if I took on a but more than I could chew,” he said overall.
The new driver's stand, built on a trailer-sized portable container, worked great.
“People were shocked to see how much easier it is driving a model from such a vantage point,” Mills said.
The container was hooked to power and houses charging stations inside.
Mills said they plan to add a roof and are organizing a schedule for more races to come this year, which will be posted on their Facebook page “North West R/C Club.”
Race results from the weekend:
Novice — Ryan Leminski
2wd sc — Dave Essay
4x4 sc. — Craig Mills
1/8 Buggy B. — James Iamele
1/8 Buggy A. — Craig Mills
Results from the sled pull:
Monster truck — Calen Findlay
4x4 buggy — Andrew Kennedy
1/10th scale — Chris Faggan
Scale class — Dave Essay
Unlimited/any model — James Iamele