Scott Kimbrow Wins the 11th Annual Castle Classic

11th annual Castle Classic

Norcal Hobbies, Union City, Ca.

October 23rd

By: Scott Kimbrow

 

Norcal Hobbies is a premier r/c facility run by Kevin Jelich and Eric Vasutin. They have incredible experience in the r/c world and do a great job managing 4 tracks as well as their well stocked hobby shop. The 11th annual Castle Classic was a bit of a different event. On October 16th they ran all electric classes for on road and off road, then the following Sunday it was Nitro on road and off road. It was kind of cool because you could practice on road while the off road guys were racing and vice-versa. I enjoyed watching the fast guys in 1/8 off-road and even got to spin some fun laps with Jason Moberly's Serpent Cobra 811.... my first time ever behind the wheel of a nitro buggy! Thanks Jason!.... and Jason did an awesome job taking his 811 to  3rd on the podium for the 1/8 buggy class.

 

I raced 1/10 nitro with my Novarossi powered 733 and had a great time. There was a good turnout of close to 30 touring cars with lots of fast local drivers present.  The track is tight but fast, and the grip was very good. As incredible as this may sound, we didn't need to change a single thing on the car setup.... it was just MONEY! I used the exact same setup as I did to win the Chipotle GP at Speedworld Raceway, and that setup sheet is listed on the Serpent website. After 2 rounds of qualifying I was able to just squeak out TQ over Kevin Woods, even though we blew a glow plug in the fast heat of the day! It was awesome, my Novarossi Flash PTS blew a plug about 3 minutes in and still ran to the finish and a TQ run!

 

The final didn't run until about 6pm so the track was in the shade and it was super hooked up! Lucky, I decided to make a change of my Xceed tires to a smaller, harder compound, and it proved to be a good decision. The car was fabulous in the final and I stayed out of trouble to bring home the win. As always, i have to say thanks to my mechanic Rich Browne for the great work on the car, but I have to give big props to my awesome wife Sherry for spending the day at the track with us and doing an incredible job pitting for me in the final. She does a great job fueling the 966, but this was her first time pitting the touring car and she kicked butt!! she had the fastest pit laps of anyone!! All in all, we had a great time..... thank you to everyone at Norcal, and especially thank you to all my great sponsors........Serpent, Serpent America, Novarossi, Spektrum, Xceed tires, Tornado, Avid bearings, Empire Racing, A-main hobbies, and Protoform.

 

Next event for me will be the 24th annual Toys for Tots race in Los Angeles, Ca. December 10-11. Hope to see some of you there!