Redwood Empire R/C Ground Pounders Club

12/06/2024

CLUB RACE #3
SUNDAY JUNE 30TH
FEATURED RACE: FORMULA 1

ROAR Membership Required
Open at 7AM
Sign Ups at 9-9:45AM
Practice 9:30-10:15AM
Race Start 10:30AM

Top 3 in all club classes get a decal
Top 3 in featured class get a professionally designed award

We provide electricity
Bring your own table, pit supplies and tent from the sun

$25 First Race Entry
$10 Second Race Entry
$5 Third Race Entry

Classes, Rules and more can be found on our website:
www.TheGroundPounders.com

3710 Regional Parkway | Peterson Cat Parking Area | Santa Rosa, CA

We plan to have a 50/50 Raffle!!
See you at the track!

04/06/2024

Mother Nature finally cooperated and we were able to race this past Sunday. What a beautiful and perfect day to be outside doing what we love!
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Here are our race results from GP24 Club Race #2 Sunday 6/2/24

We had 2 featured races for the day.

21.5 Oval Nastruck. What a race, Chuck Mefford made it look easy all day finishing with 1st and TQ in round 1 and 2 of qualifying. However as they say “..in racing luck plays a huge part in how you finish”. Chuck ran a flawless main and led the pack for the 1st 71 laps. On lap 72 and 73 he got into lap traffic and it upset his pace …Chuck was consistently putting down sub 6 sec’ laps, however on 72 and 73 he clocked in at a 8.1 and 8.6, things got worse on lap 74 where he actually collided with another car and spun out. He got nearly an 11 sec’ lap on lap 74. I am sure he was nervous as heck as 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc were closing in on him. Fortunately he was able to get back on pace for the final lap and clinch the win. That was a really close call in the end. What saved him was the huge lead he had for the first 71 laps. Great job Chuck!! You beat the bad luck that was trying to get you. Great job to Dave Ivey who started 5th and was able to work his way up to 2nd. Brian Gilson rounded out the top 3 with a great 3rd place finish.

USGT was our other featured race, James Joiner again made it look easy taking TQ and the win in the main. James also had fast lap with “11.406”. Phil Bourne and Scott Norcross who both started 2nd and 3rd finished as they started. There was some great battling going on all day between Phil and Scott, in fact in every class the two of them ran together they were really close. USGT, everyone pretty much finished where they started. The big move was from Dave Lucas who qualified 8th, yet moved up to 6th. -Great job Dave.

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We had a great turnout, and as a result this allows our club to continue to thrive. We are discussing some fun things for our next event and how we can make our events even better. We also appreciate all the feedback we get, so please continue to let us know what you think and how we can make things better.

THANK YOU PETERSON CAT for allowing us the use of your facilities!! Our club is looking for additional locations to race, if you know of a place please reach out to us and let us know.

Next race will be Sunday 6/30
We decided to race the weekend before the 4th of July weekend -so yes, 2 races in June. Then we take a break for the entire month of July.

Stay tuned, we will be posting details about our next event very soon. We will also post club points total, yet with only 2 races in it is a bit early.

See you at the track!!

31/05/2024

RACING THIS SUNDAY! Details in the post below. See you at the track!!

Send a message to learn more

15/05/2024

CLUB RACE #3
DOUBLE FEATURE!!!
OVAL - 21.5 NASTRUCK and ON-ROAD USGT

That's right, our next club race is coming up.
Sunday June 2nd! Track opens at 7:00AM -setup until 9AM
Sign Ups at 9:30AM, Racing starts at 10:45AM.

Must have a valid ROAR membership to race.
WE ARE TECH'ING FOR FEATURED CLASSES (oval nastruck and on-road USGT). Check the rules at www.TheGroundPounders.com

Professionally designed awards for top 3 in featured classes.
Decal awards for top 3 in all classes.

See you at the track!

11/05/2024

There is no make-up race, our next club race will be Sunday 6/2. Stay tuned for official announcement in the next week or two.

Send a message to learn more

03/05/2024

RACE CANCELLED DUE TO RAIN

Sadly we are cancelling club race #2 scheduled for this Sunday May 5th. Up to 2" of rain is expected on Saturday, and with temperatures dropping to the 50's ...the track will be too cold to properly dry out before Sunday. There is also the concern that water soaks into the ground then comes up through the cracks in the ground as the track drys on Sunday. Having water/wet areas on the track does not make for good racing (we have tried in the past, cars lose traction in these areas).

We hate cancelling as much as you hate hearing it. But we can't fight Mother Nature.

We'll post the plan early next week (in terms of skipping or rescheduling). Stay tuned for more info

23/04/2024

Just a quick reminder that we have our next club race on Sunday 5th, May (cinco de mayo). This is club race #2 for the 2024 race season.

Additionally, you can find rules, race classes and answers to many questions you might have about racing, our club and what to expect on our website:

the Ground Pounders RC Racing Club

17/04/2024

CLUB RACE #2
FEATURED CLASS: 21.5 OVAL NASTRUCK
SUNDAY MAY 5TH, 2024

Track opens at 7AM
Controlled practice 9AM - 10:15AM
Race Meeting, then race starts at 10:45AM
MUST HAVE A VALID ROAR MEMBERSHIP TO RACE
Professionally designed awards for top 3 in featured class
Decal awards for top 3 in each class

3710 Regional Parkway, Santa Rosa
Peterson Cat Parking Area

Rules, event photos and more can be found at www.TheGroundPounders.com

See you at the track!!

08/04/2024

RACE RESULTS CLUB RACE #1
Sunday April 7th, 2024.

Thank you to everyone who came out for our 1st race for the 2024 season. We'd especially like to thank Peterson Cat for allowing us the use of their parking lot. Rob Burns for bringing the drivers stand and all the track equipment out each race day. Dave Ivey for the use of Peterson Cat, Matt Senn for announcing and running all the tech' equipment throughout the day and of course El Presidente Shermon Wong who organizes our events and keeps everything running smoothly. Last a special thank you to Amy Wildt, our treasurer who comes out early every Sunday morning to collect race fees and takes care of all of our finances.

This was club race #1, points are based on your top 5 race finishes per season (so if you raced all 8 club races you would be able to "throw out" your lowest 3 finishes). Awards will be given out at the end of the season to top 3 points winners in each class.

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Featured class was Euro Truck!
David Krinard finished 1st in round 1 and 2 and had top qualifying spot in the main. This race had some interesting battles in the top 4 spots. Phil Bourne got around David Krinard in the first lap to take the lead, yet David quickly got it back. Eric Falk who started 4th moved past Scott Norcross early on to take the 3rd spot. David who was battling for 1st lost his wheel and was out of the race. This gave Phil a great lead, Eric was in 2nd and Scott in 3rd. However Scott got past Eric to take the 2nd spot, then made a mistake allowing Eric to get 2nd again. However Scott who was a bit faster slowly reigned Eric in to reclaim the 2nd spot. Overall finsish was Phil Bourne 1st, Scott Norcoss 2nd and Eric Falk 3rd.
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Detailed race results can be found on LiveRC
https://groundpounders.liverc.com/results/?p=view_heat_sheet&id=7884791

Results shown in this post are for top 3 in each class.
However on LiveRC you can view the entire race, times and more detailed information.

See you all at our next club race in early May! Details to come soon!

All results and race day photos will be posted on our website:
https://www.thegroundpounders.com/

22/03/2024

Congratulations to several of our Ground Pounder racers who competed in the Delta Dirt Oval R/C Racers Winter Series. The series took place over several months and many late night weekends.

Matt Senn, Justin Senn and Brian Gilson all placed in the top 3, and had TQ's in several classes.

All three of these racers can be seen racing at the Ground Pounder races and did a great job representing our club.

Congratulations Matt, Justin and Brian in your top finishes!

07/03/2024

CLUB RACE #1 SUNDAY APRIL 7TH!
Featured Class: Tamiya Euro Truck

Track opens at 7AM
Controlled practice 9AM - 10:15AM
Race Meeting, then race starts at 10:45AM

MUST HAVE A VALID ROAR MEMBERSHIP TO RACE
Decal awards to top 3 in each class
Acrylic professionally designed awards for top 3 in featured class

We will be tech'ing your Euro trucks, every truck competing MUST follow the rules as listed on our website www.TheGroundPounders.com

If your looking to get practice prior to the race, 707 707 raceway and hobby is having a Euro Truck race Saturday 3/9 (check out their site for more information).

Hope to see you at our first club points race of the '24 race season. Reach out with questions!

03/03/2024

Looking to get some racing in? Next Saturday, March 9th "707 Raceway" is having a Tamiya Euro Truck race. Details at the 707 page

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=849524513646456&set=a.545221094076801

Tamiya Euro Truck will be our featured race next Saturday 3/9/24. Two qualifying rounds and 1 main.

Rules can be found here:
https://www.tamiyausa.com/tcs/rules/
(scroll down to the section that covers "Euro Truck"

Get your trucks ready and bring them out!
Top 3 finishers get one of the 707 limited edition decals. Once these decals are out, we'll be moving to a new design. ;)

28/02/2024

RAIN!!!
MARCH 3RD'S RACE IS CANCELLED DUE TO EXPECTED RAIN.
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We have been watching the weather everyday, and are making the call to cancel this Sunday's race due to expected rain. We are getting a series of small storms heading in Thursday and expected to last throughout next week. Once the track gets wet it needs a few days of sun to really dry out. Water seeps up from under the track and with rain and the ground being so saturated we are making the call to cancel this race.
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This was a "warm-up" no points race. Our next race will be on Sunday April 7th. The April 7th race will be our first GP'er club points race. We will be making an official announcement about this race and what class will be "featured" in the next week or so.

Please reach out to us with any questions.
We are just as bummed about cancelling this event as you are about not being able to race with us.

21/02/2024

2024 RACE SCHEDULE!

There are 7 races this year, your top 5 will count towards the year end points series. Race dates are listed in the graphic below.

We also have a "Featured" race each club race day where we provide acrylic award plaques to the top 3 in the featured event. In addition, all racers who make the top 3 for all races (except the warm up race) will receive an award decal.

We are a ROAR club, thus valid ROAR membership is required.

Check out www.TheGroundPounders.com for club rules and more information.

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Our first race is Sunday March 3rd. It is coming up quick, it is a "warm-up" (no points) race, yet a great time to get your cars dialed in. We are monitoring the weather and will make any announcements if needed here on our page.

The first race is Sunday March 3rd.
Opens at 7AM, -track setup
Practice starts at 9AM
Sign Ups 9:15-9:30AM
Racing starts at 10:45AM

We race at the Peterson Cat parking lot area, located at 3710 Regional Parkway, Santa Rosa, California

More info on our website
www.TheGroundPounders.com

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A few rule updates:

VTA
Please check our website,
yet of notice: 1) new weight limit is 1400grams 2) you can now use either/both Protoform and/or Gravity RC VTA specific tires and 3) our club is allowing the use of any ROAR legal 25.5t motor (no Trinity Slingshots).

Slash Street Stock
No aluminum shocks
Shocks must not have an overall length of 84mm front (measured end to end) and 99mm rear (measured end to end)

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05/02/2024

Don't forget to get your ROAR membership for this year's GP24 race season!

Year long membership can be purchased at the ROAR website, here: https://www.roarracing.com/member/index.php

21/01/2024

2024 GROUND POUNDERS RACE SEASON IS STARTING!

We will be announcing the official race schedule for the entire season very soon, (it is almost finalized). In the meantime we do have the date for our first race, it is Sunday, March 3rd. It is a non points “warm-up” race.
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RACE DETAILS:

Location:
Peterson Cat
3710 Regional Pkwy, Santa Rosa, CA 95403
(We race in the parking lot area just in front of Peterson Cat)

Date/Time:
Sunday, March 3rd
Track Open: 7:30AM
Practice and Sign ups: 9:00AM
Driver’s Meeting and Race Start: 10:30AM

$25 1st Class
$10 2nd Class
$10 3rd Class

We race On-Road and Oval Classes,
Message us if your unsure if we are racing your class,
All rules are posted on our website:
www.TheGroundPounders.com

MUST HAVE A VALID ROAR MEMBERSHIP
https://www.roarracing.com/websitesignup.php
Membership is valid for an entire year (from date of purchase)

Message us with questions, we hope to see you at the 1st “warm up” race.
This is a great time to test out your cars, setups, new kits, also if you’ve never raced it is a good time to get used to racing in a less competitive atmosphere (as the warm up race is a non points, non featured/award event).

For this event we will provide award decals to 1,2, and 3rd in each class.

Hope to see you at the track!

13/01/2024

Thank you to everyone who came out and raced with us in 2023. It is because of your support that we are able to keep this RC racing program going and thriving.

We had our 2023 season award banquet last night. Photos shown in this post, -and being uploaded to our website:
https://www.thegroundpounders.com/

We have a lot of exciting stuff planned for the 2024 race season. Including an updated website which will be updated with the most up to date rules, photos, race results and other event information. We have already made a lot of updates so please go check it out.

We hope to have announcements for the 2024 race season including race dates and classes in the next few weeks.

Hope to see you racing with us this year!

-The Ground Pounders

12/01/2024

We are meeting at the Mountain Mike's on Commerce Blvd! Tonight at 6:30.

11/01/2024

FRIDAY 1/12/24
Ground Pounder Award Banquet

6:30PM
Mountain Mike’s Pizza
Rohnert Park

Awards, Pizza, Drinks and Award/Merchandise Raffle

See you there!

04/01/2024

Looking for some VTA racing??? Our friends at 707 are holding a VTA event that looks pretty cool. Details below:

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=815413017057606&set=a.545221094076801

Mark your calendars for the "Northern California VTA Carpet Champs" race at Ukiah's 707 Raceway.

Metal print plaque awards for top 3
2 rounds of qualifying 1 main
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When: Saturday January 20th
Time: Doors open at 8AM, practice til 10:15AM, racing starts at 10:30AM
Where: 707 Raceway, Ukiah CA
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We have a well stocked hobby shop on the premises
We race rain or shine as it is an indoor carpet track
Snacks and drinks available for purchase
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Professionally designed and printed awards for top 3
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US Trans Am VTA rules as stated in the link below will be followed:
https://www.usvintagetransam.com/rules/TransAmClassRules4-4-2021.pdf

We will be tech'ing all entrants, a couple of things we will be especially looking for:

-Correct weight (1425grams)
-Driver figure must be in car
-ONLY protoform VTA tires allowed (Sorry, Gravity VTA tires will not be allowed at this event)
-6000mah battery is largest capacity battery allowed
-ONLY ROAR approved 25.5t motors (Trinity Slot Machines not okay).
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We are racing on-road and oval with the VTA event layout this coming Saturday 1/6 and next Saturday 1/13 (so come out to get practice and your gearing correct for the new layout).

Hope to see you at 707!!

03/01/2024

REMINDER
2023 year end GP'er award banquet is coming up. Awards arrived (they look great) ! Raffle prizes have been purchased (we got some great stuff this year)!

2023 GP YEAR END AWARDS BANQUET!
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When: Friday January 12th, 2024
Where: Mountain Mike's Pizza, Rhonert Park
Time: 6:30PM - ??
What: Free Pizza + Fountain Drink, Raffle for RC prizes
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High quality, professionally designed awards presented to top 3 finishers in each class.
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We hope to see you at our year end party, it is a lot of fun to get together, talk about some of the races we had while enjoying pizza!

19/12/2023

Please RSVP to our year end awards banquet. The post is a few down on this page, You can message us directly if you are coming and if you are bringing someone(s). We hope to see you there!

17/12/2023

Congratulations to Dave Ivey, Brian Gilson, Rob Burns, Justin Senn and Dave Lucas who all made the A main in the 17.5 Spec Sprint event at Delta RC last night. 8 Racers made it to the A-Main, 5 of which were Ground Pounder members. Way to go GP team!

Dave Ivey and Brian Gilson finished in the top 3, finishing 1st and 2nd. Great job guys!

12/12/2023

If your looking for some racing this coming Saturday, 707 Raceway is having a 1/12th scale "GT12" featured event. Other classes including VTA, FWD, and oval classes will also race throughout the day. Check out for more details.

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=802325275033047&set=a.545221094076801

SATURDAY 12/16/23 - FEATURED EVENT - GT12!

GT12 is the featured event this coming Saturday 12/16
Doors open at 8AM, practice open from 8:30-10:15
Racing starts at 10:30AM

Indoor pits/Indoor track/Hobby Shop/Snacks+Drinks/Pit Tables
No matter the weather it's on at 707!

2 Rounds of qualifying, 1 Main event. Decal awards for top 3.

BRING AN UNWRAPPED BRAND NEW TOY AND GET $5 OFF YOUR RACE ENTRY. Your toy supports our Toys For Tots Fundraiser.

See you Saturday!
Oval racing is on after On-road finishes. Oval practice usually starts around 3:15-3:30

09/12/2023

Want to check out MiniZ? Or looking for a place to run your MiniZ? Check out N8IV Drift in Rhonert Park. They are starting up a MiniZ program!! Head over to their FB page or better yet show up w/ your MiniZ! Hope to see you there. Wednesday evening 6-8PM 12/13 and 12/27

29/11/2023

2023 GP YEAR END AWARDS BANQUET!
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When: Friday January 12th, 2024
Where: Mountain Mike's Pizza, Rhonert Park
Time: 6:30PM - ??
What: Free Pizza + Fountain Drink, Raffle for RC prizes
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High quality, professionally designed awards presented to top 3 finishers in each class.
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We hope to see you at our year end party, it is a lot of fun to get together, talk about some of the races we had while enjoying pizza!
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Please RSVP -Just send a message to our FB group. Click the blue "Message" button on the top and right side of our FB page (under the main ground pounder banner image). Let us know if you are attending and how many are coming with you.

15/11/2023

If you are looking for some racing this coming Saturday, 707 in Ukiah is having an F1 single day event. They race on an indoor track so no worry about rain (they race rain or shine). RC hobby shop on premises, snacks and indoor pit tables and electricity. Details about the event can be found on the 707 Raceway and Hobby website

31/10/2023

Year End Points, -we are still going through everything but here are some photos I took of our year end points (sorry for the low-res way of photographing the computer).

30/10/2023

Club Race #7 is in the books and that is an end to the 2023 Ground Pounder RC Race Season.

Featured race was 125 laps of Slash Street Stock!
This was one of the cleanest Slash oval races we have had, -Great job on keeping it clean racers.
Rob Burns had TQ and pretty much dominated the entire main keeping his 1st place position for all 125 laps. Most of the movement happened in the rest of the positions, Chuck and Dave Ivey battled a bit during the first 25 laps with each moving back and forth between 2nd and 3rd. The big move was new-comer to Slash Street Stock Phil Bourne who started in 7th, yet through consistent driving worked his way up to the 4th spot.

You can view the results, lap times and consistency here on LiveRC:
https://groundpounders.liverc.com/results/?p=view_race_result&id=4654208

This was the last race of our season. We will be posting final points very soon, in addition we’ll have information on our year end club party where we also hand out season points awards. We have some very nice awards this year, we really went all out.

We would like to thank each and every one of you who attended a race with our club this year. Without YOUR support we would not be able to keep this going. We are one of the oldest running RC clubs in existence. Really! -We owe that to our racers. We have big plans for the coming 2024 race season which we will be sharing as we get closer to the next season. We will typically begin the ’24 race season with a “warm-up” (no points) race in March. This is a chance to try the new cars you got for Christmas out, shake the dust off and have fun. We encourage anyone looking to get into racing or joining our points series to come out for that first warm up race. We also plan to update our (very out of date) website in the next few months www.TheGroundPounders.com

Check our FB page often as this is where we communicate with all of you.
More coming very soon!

Congratulations again to our top 3 winners who each took home a nice plaque in Slash Street Stock!

18/10/2023

Current points are listed, sorry but I wasn't able to get a proper export of the points ...I got these from another GP'er board member and took these via my phone. So a bit low-tech. But you can see the current points for each race class. Top 3 finishers will get a very nice award at the end of the race season future award banquet. If you look at column 2 you can see total points, the points are based off your best 5 race day performances. Technically the best you could get would be 505 points (that is 100 points for each 1st place finish and 1 additional point for every TQ). So 505 is kind of like an A+ finish. -Hard to do! LAST RACE IS SUNDAY 10/29 -see you there! Featured is 125 laps of Slash Street Stock.