My name is Walt Gorczowski and I'm the race director for the Chicagoland R/C Raceway in Tinley Park (
www.chicagolandrc.com).
Rob contacted me about this spec series idea, and I told him that we are very interested. In fact, we'll probably try to push a spec class to race every week, and your series can 'visit' our track on any weekend you wish and participate with us.
I like the idea of a spec class because we tend to get a lot of 'drive by' spectators who then show an interest in racing with us. However, many of them aren't quite ready to spend the $1000 that it takes to run competitively in most of the RC classes that are popular. I'd love to be able to point to an active, inexpensive 'spec' class for new people to try out before taking the plunge into one of the other classes.
Also, the owner of the Tinley Park Bowling alley (home of the Chicagoland R/C Raceway) has shown an interest in buying several of the same car to use as 'rentals' for people who want to try out R/C. This is the car we are thinking of buying, so people would be able to come by during the week and rent one of these cars to try out, and then come on the weekend and rent the same car and actually race in the spec class if they wanted to, before deciding to buy one.
We can help promote this class by offering existing racers the opportunity to run in the spec class as an extra class for no additional charge (if they are already racing in at least one other class that day).
People are already talking hop ups, but I think it's VERY important that you NOT allow hop ups. It's up to you guys how you want to run your spec class, but my recommendation is that you NOT allow driver's to change: the stock motor (except an exact replacement), the stock gearing (that's right, if you've got one motor and one set of gears, that REALLY evens the playing field), the stock tires, and decide on the battery to use (however, with only one motor and one set of gears, only the number of cells should make any difference). The rest of the car should remain completely stock too, I just mentioned the above items specifically because those are usually the first to get changed, and are the most important to NOT allow to be changed.
If you want to run in a class where you hop up, we've got plenty of other classes for you. Keep the spec class what it's intended to be: spec.
I think this can be a great addition to our track, or any other track, as long as you keep the rules under control.
Good luck guys. I'm really looking forward to this year's racing season.
-Walt Gorczowski
Race Director, Chicagoland R/C Raceway
www.chicagolandrc.com