It is no secret that onroad racing is changing a lot and the past few races I have attended have certainly shown me why onroad is dieing a slow death. I feel like todays average sportsman racer has grown tired of the constant speed control war and how certain companies seem to have such a huge gap over their competition when it comes to stock & superstock racing. From a high-level competitors stand point, it has really been the same since I started racing with having to always drop tons of money for the latest, greatest electronic equipment, but now it is much different. 3-4 years ago you were at least still able to compete if you didn't have the "speed control of the month." You may not have been the fastest down the straightaway, but you were usually able to bridge the gap by gearing a little lower for a little more punch in the infield, or something to that effect. Now the situation is much different: if you don't have a speed control that can allow for a timing increase or "turbo" as some have been calling it, you will find yourself way to far off the pace and unable to bridge the gap.
This became a reality for me this past weekend when I attended a leg of the Southwestern Ontario Series at Lou's Speedway in London, Ontario (about a 2h drive from Toronto). I normally race 13.5 rubber, and since I will be attending the Snowbirds in a couple weeks I decided that travelling to a different, high grip track would be great practice. Well the turnout for the 13.5 rubber class was dismal, so that class did not run. Instead the 17.5 rubber class was the big class out that way so I decided that since I had driven 2 hours, I wasn't about to run only my 12th scale and not run the car I intended to go practice with in the first place. So I borrowed a 17.5 and lets just say let the boredom begin! How that class is appealing to so many people I have no idea. Who wants to go out and buy $500+ touring cars to run that slow?!? But wait, if you buy the $400 speed control and run 17.5 its all of a sudden not so slow......and we have our answer!! I see the difference now that these speed controls are making and why people are becoming so frustrated with onroad racing. I ended up finishing second in the 17.5 rubber class even though I was loosing 4-6ft every lap on the straight away to nearly everyone. The only positive thing that came out of running 17.5 this past weekend was that it forced me to drive perfect because being so down on power it is impossible to make up for any mistakes.

On the 25th I will be leaving for the Snowbirds. That race will be very different as I will be running the much faster 13.5 class, and hopefully my LRP speedcontrol will arrive in time for that event so I am able to be competitive with it. I will also be running 10.5 12th scale at the Snowbirds to help fill the massive amounts of time between races! Hope to see some of you there!

Steve Bortolotti