Competitors from all across the United States, and from as far away as the United Kingdom, came to push the limits of speed at the International R/C Speed Challenge, held at the Rockingham Dragway in Rockingham, NC, on Oct. 4.

One of the highlights of the event was provided by Team Novak driver Tim Smith who clocked an 84.54 mph run in Scale Electric, shattering the existing record by more than 10 mph. Tim drove a Novak/MaxAmps/Grand MotorSports electric vehicle with a GTB Programmable Brushless/Brush ESC, a Velociti 3.5R Racing Brushless Motor and a production-oriented 2-cell Li-Po.

Read on to hear the complete story of the record breaking run.

The 2008 ISC Speed Challenge, as told by Novak Team Driver Tim Smith.

For a little background on my drag racing experience, we are going to take a journey back to the summer of 1991. I was asked to drive a car for the motor company AstroFlight. Back then, I was drag racing the majority of the time and did some oval racing if possible.

I had been using AstroFlight motors in all of my drag cars for a few years and had some tricks up my sleeve to make them run pretty fast (70+ mph in 132 feet). When I was asked to drive a car in the Insane Speed Run at the Thunderdrome at the Encino Velodrome, I was all for it.

The Insane Speed Run was, basically, four laps on the velodrome using a somewhat modified oval car. The speed of your four laps was averaged together for your total time. At that time, the fastest single lap was 65 mph, and the average over four laps was 59 mph held by, I believe, Kent Clausen. My long time friend and racing partner Mike Ogle was my go-to guy for racing, and the two of us, in just a matter of days, converted an out-of-the-box RC10L into our own version of an Insane Speed Run car. It looked more like a dirt-oval car from the outside, but under the body was all dragster parts.

We showed up at the track feeling a little out of place and way out classed. But we found our reserved-pit table amongst all of the team drivers and sat back and waited for the fun to begin.

I had done some oval racing – even held a few track records – and, of course, had done drag racing. But I had never combined the two and not against drivers of this caliber, so my expectations were not very high.

After hearing my name announced, I made my way to the drivers’ stand without as much as a single lap with my car. Never before and never since have I stood alone on a drivers’ stand with so many eyes focused on me and my car. There were literally hundreds of people standing around the track and filling the stands to watch these team drivers (maybe everyone but me) pilot their toy cars around this enormous oval track. Dan of Dan’s RC Stuff fame was the announcer/interviewer and came over to join me on the drivers’ stand to ask me a few questions before the run. To be honest though, the only thing I remember was him asking me how many motors were in my car. And without saying a word, I just held up one finger. Everything else was a blur.

With the track cleared, Mike turned on the car and set it down on the track, and with a soft-trigger finger, I slowly began to get her moving. I eased her through turn one and into turn two, following Mike and I’s plan, I squeezed off to full throttle on the back straight away.

I still remember the crowd letting out a gasp as the red, white and blue rocket gained speed.

I pushed her down into turn one again, and she held the line like she was on a guide wire. The race announcer had been talking the entire time, but I was in a trance, fixated on the car that I didn’t hear a thing until he exclaimed, “First lap: 73.6 mph!” The crowd began to cheer, and I lost focus, nearly dumping the car in between turns one and two. I quickly recovered with a second lap time of 71.0 mph! I kept telling myself to focus, focus, focus. The next lap time was 69.5 mph! One more to go. I drove her down the back and into turn three, and then pop! The car blew the rear caps clean off the rim and spun an obscene amount of times before coming to a stop, and just like that it was all over.

Though this story does not end with a fastest RC driver title, I really wasn’t too upset. Mike and I had shown up to a race that we had no business attending and came less than a quarter of a lap from destroying the current record. With very little support or a portfolio of national titles, we had a great deal to bring to the table.

Flash forward to July 2008.

My buddy Nic Case called to tell me that he was working on putting together a speed run event in Rockingham, N.C. – The ISC Speed Challenge – and wanted me to think about going. Honestly, I would love to go, but I just didn’t see how it could be possible. More than 17 years ago, I used to travel nearly once a month to race RC cars, but back then, I had no wife, no kids and nothing even resembling a mortgage.

But Nic knows me too well. He knew that he only needed to plant the seed, and I would soon call to ask what hotel are we staying at.

So with the seed planted, all I thought about was getting this trip together. After a few e-mails and phone calls, Team Novak, MaxAmps batteries and GMS chassis shared the same excitement for the event and made sure to get me there to compete.
 
The plan was to run in the Scale Electric class. The rules for this class are simple:

The best thing about this class is that it allows racers to showcase easy-to-find products that anyone can buy. Anyone can walk into a hobby shop and buy exactly what the record-breaking scale cars are running.

Luckily for me, there is a brand new, very flat parking lot near my house that I couldo test in. I spent the next few Saturdays running combination after combination with great success. On an official police-radar gun, we were able to put down 12 runs over 100 mph, peaking at 121 mph on 7.4 volts.

The next step was to pack up all of the cars, batteries, tools and everything else to ship to my BFF Mike Ogle. Once everything arrived in one piece, all that was left was to get me there. Looking back, maybe I should have boxed myself up. It might have been easier.

I jumped on a plane to fly from my home base of Southern California to Atlanta, where I will change planes, and go on to Charlotte, and then drive 100 miles to Rockingham Dragway, aka The Rock.

And now the fun begins. After circling the Atlanta airport a few times, our captain came on the speaker to inform us that there was an issue on the runway in Atlanta and that we can’t land.

His plan now was to fly to Birmingham, Ala., to land, refuel and then try again for Atlanta.

After we finally landed, I was about two hours late for my connector flight to Charlotte, so I jumped off the plane and headed to the gate to see what, if anything, they could do for me. There was another flight leaving in more than an hour to Charlotte, but it was full, and I’d have to go on a waiting list.

I used to caddie for a professional golfer for a few years and lived in airports, so I know a few tricks of the trade. After explaining my predicament to a supervisor of the airline, she gave me a code number to give to the ticket agent, which unlocked a first class seat for me.

I boarded the plane and enjoyed a lovely free-adult beverage. As the other passengers boarded, I recognized two people from my last flight that made the cut and got a seat in coach. As they passed by me, I could feel their eyes attempting to burn a hole through my sole. So I asked for another free drink to help quench the fire.

We touched down in Charlotte; I grabbed my bags and headed over to the rental car lot. I hopped into a shiny, clean Hyundai Sonata, but I noticed two problems. One, the car had less than a half a tank of gas, and two, the GPS was not working. Because of the gas problems in North Carolina – hurricane Ike broke some main lines and gas was very limited – they didn’t have any fuel at their pumps, or another GPS.

To solve the problem, they offered me a pearl-white Cadillac STS for the same price. That’ll do just fine, I thought.

I finally arrived at the hotel 5 hours late, and the first person I saw was Mike Ogle. No matter what happened this weekend, it would be worth it to see old friends.

After a very late night/early morning of talking and reassembling cars, we arrived at the track and set up for a day of racing. Things had changed since the old days of racing around a bicycle velodrome. Now, the speed runs are just a straight-line affair, like Bonneville.

Once on the track, I hit a road block when my car seemed to have absolutely no traction on a surface that felt like fly paper to walk on. This same car hit over 100 mph 22 times on a dusty lot back home. I still am not 100 percent sure why it happened.

After five or more grievous attempts to get my car up to speed proved pitiful, especially when the back end swapped with the front once I reached half throttle. With nothing to lose and running out of day light, Mike and I put full down-force wings on, gooped the tires and geared it for a normal length dragstrip but set the car about 300 feet from the timing traps.

I looked up the drapstrip, and without thinking, I grabbed a hand full of throttle. She held her line and blasted through the timing traps. They announced 84.54 mph! A new Scale World Speed Record! The old record was 71.0 mph and had been untouched for more than 5 years.

With a Tiger Woods fist pump, I made my way back to my pit table and set the car on its stand and declared, “Unless someone goes faster, I am not making another run.”

She never had to leave her stand for the remainder of the day.

I spent the rest of the day signing a few magazines, giving out stickers, the Li-Po packs from my car and all of the advice you can carry free of charge!

Win, lose or draw the trip was well worth all of the work. If you have the opportunity to attend an ISC event, I highly recommend it. Go pick up a cheap-radar gun and stick the biggest pinion you have on your car, and drink the Kool-Aid® of high speed.