Welcome to The Florida West Coast Racing Association.
Radio Control Boat Racing on Florida's West Coast and Central Region.
2009 News Articles
The BMBI club hosted the #3 WCRA race at its home pond located in Dover, Florida. This was well attended with 12 classes supported by over 75 entries. The recent rains had the pond at an excellent level and was great for racing.
The weather held off and let the races get completed. There were 36 prized medalions for First, Second, and Third place awarded.
Electrics were not supportd by lack of entries. Your editor was the sole entry - and I lost!!
Carlos Suarez
achieved a first place in his first run race. Beginner's luck??
OR is he dangerous......
Race results will be posted in the WCRA Reports section as soon as provided.
Editor
7.08.09
W.C.R.A. Race
# 2
Race
# 2 was completed as of March 29. It was sponsored by the
Tampabay Model Boaters Club and held at their new pond. The race
site facilities were near complete and excellent to use. The new
driver's stand is wide and has GR8 open access. There were 143 entries
in spite of the rainy day but the rain delayed the event activities.
Additionally, a race-clock failure caused delays so that the
racing finally completed at 8:00 P.M. "Check the little RED light, TMBC".
Jay Halbrender started a new class of racing??? Lost Submariners!!
The
WCRA
season opening race, hosted by Brandon Model Boaters, Inc.,
February 8th,
has been completed.
The weather turned perfect and a 100 boat entry in the classes
turned out for some great racing. Visitors from
several out-of-town locations filled out an enthusiastic race group.
There were some exciting crashes and very heated competition. Even
ELECTRICS ran in an "open" class. This is quite a break through.
However, I have to admit that the big GASSERS provided the hot
excitement, best crashes, and photo subject material. Although, the
electrics did have a FIRE
underway during the race. Go Herb!!
Frequent comments about the "one-day"
race venue being a sensible race event in the advent of current
economic conditions were observed by this editor. I agree. This was fun
- hot-n-heavy - and over in one day. GO
West coast Racing Association. Five - (count 'em) more
races to go for this year. See the schedule, guess where, under SCHEDULE, at your left.
The 2008 WCRA
Race season Class Winner Awards were presented by Don Riek and
Rod
Hendricks. WOW, what nice plaques, AND, so many of them. There were a few of
notable recipients. Multiple
winners: Rod Hendricks, John Otto in particular. I know I forgot
someone - sorry - just remind me, and two of our prominent ladies,
Barbara and Sheila. And, not to forget the most notable recipient, Ed Knudson - TOP GUN overall winner
with the most points. Funny, He does not look a bit like Tom Cruise. More distinguished!
NOTE: The awards' photos,
so lovingly taken during the ceremony, are ready and posted, guess
where, in
the GALLERY, at your left.
The race
photos (to be selected from 700 of them) are planned to be available
in the same gallery (at your left) by the end of next week.
My personal thanks are extended to Don Riek, BMBI President, for
securing appropriate handicapped parking privileges for the race
attendees. BUT, lets not
abuse them. Thanks go out to those who cooperated so fully with
the parking regulations.
WCRA race season for 2009 is now open. The first race will be held this weekend, February 8th, at Dover Park and will be hosted by the Brandon Model Boaters, Inc. Some very cold weather has promised to leave for the weekend, as reported by channel 13, and make for an excellent start of the season. Report to follow next week. Visitors very welcome.
Editor
2.06.09
2008 News Articles
W.C.R.A. Race in Brandon
September 7, 2008
by Tampa Model Boat Club
WCRA race was completed on a very hot day situated in between two hurricanes. The water was smooth, the sun hot and bright, and drivers were busy racing, flipping, and sinking their boats The Tampa Model Boaters Club did a very nice job of keeping things going smoothly and quickly. Even BMBI's rescue boat, newly refurbished, was quick to respond and retrieve/save the numerous errant model boats.
A good turnout of RACERS occurred and some very exciting racing took place. Some east coast and central Florida boat clubs were represented and as always, brought strong competition with them. It was also interesting, to this writer, how most of the races had "good clean starts" with the Start-Camera watching. Improvements to the monitor system have been done to make the captured start image more clearly viewable.
Editor
8.08.08
Announcement
The W.C.R.A. website information, i.e., scoring records, has been moved to this site. As most already know, the photo gallery and activity reports/articles were already located on this site. In the future, unless things change again, all WCRA articles, activity announcements, and scoring will be reported on this BMBI web site. The gallery will be maintained as before. This has been done to better support WCRA with more up to date information.
WCRA is still very much a joint effort of West Coast model boat clubs. All participants are welcome.
Editor
7.12.2008 Update
WCRA Race #4 was to be run 7/08 but, it was CANCELLED Due to lack of entries.
Editor
6.23.2008
WCRA Race #3 was completed (June 1, 2008 - Dover Pond).
It was hosted by the Tampa Model Boaters who are still having a problem with their home pond, too many vegetables growing in it. The activity was very well run and moved along nicely. The Start-Camera continues to do a great job of policing the starts and keeping the race starts fair.
There was a very good turnout with approximately 61 boats entered. As is typical, there was some HOT N HEAVY competition as well as lots of just plain fun and laughter between drivers/competitors. Not too many crashes to photograph, come on guys and gals, let's rock at the next one. Hank forgot to bring his charcol grill, and he is such a good cook, and Rod forgot the burgers so all worked out well.
There are some good shots, especially of the "driver's stand" loaded with drivers, what else? There was one very near miss with the Navy but both boats escaped unscathed and the race continued. W.C.R.A Race #3 photographs have been posted. See the GALLERY on the BMBI site.
Editor
6.05.2008
May 4th W.C.R.A. Race, Update
Race #2 was completed. There was a very good turnout and participation. Pictures were taken of much of the event, see GALLERY on BMBI site. There were 33 drivers registered with 68 boats entered in 39 heats. AND, Herb Stewart's ELECTRIC tunnel finished a heat. Cool!!! Herb.....
Steve Bell showed up with a pot of home made wild pork barbecue that was a smash hit with those lucky enough to partake of it. Unfortunately, I had "corner judge duty" and missed it. Oh well. I wonder where he got that piggie. It wasn't roadkill, was it Steve?
One note about the Start-Line monitoring camera. There were a few "jump starts" but fewer, percentage wise, than at the last District III race in March. A couple of weak protests about the CD's call of the jumper's line violations were quickly settled and agreed to by the errant race drivers and activities resumed nicely. Operation and use of the camera as a CD backup went very smoothly as a second time use in a race.
Editor
5.07.08
February 10, 2008
SEASON OPENER: The new racing year for Tampa Bay was kicked off with a West Coast Racing Association sponsored Fun Run. WCRA held this gathering at the Dover Park pond, BMBI's racing location. Numerous participants from other than the BMBI membership were there to enjoy the opening model boating activities. Very nice turn-out!
The Fun Run was a family activity with many youngsters (young and not-so-young) more that willing to have a great barbecue and informal non-points open-water race meet. A very capable and partially willing chef, Hank Schneider, presided over the HOT grill and kept the barbecue moving along nicely. Volunteerism isn't very catching, right Hank? The food was good!
Awards for the race year 2007 WCRA High Points were handed out by Tommy Cardoso. It was interesting to see the wide range of people receiving the awards, "young and not-so-young". Rod Hendricks was the recipient of the over-all high-point winner. Nice trophy!! Well done, Rod.
Don Riek manned the PA system and orchestrated the procedures, so he had to receive his three (3) plaques after all was done.
Photos of the gathering are posted in the GALLERY area of this site. I hope they bring back some memories worth bringing back.
Editor
Complete 2007 race results are posted.
- Grand Total tally
- Individual's race results
- Race # 6 was cancelled
Last 2007 WCRA Race
On December 16, the West Coast Racing Association (WCRA) held its final race of the year. WCRA is a group of west coast and central Florida R/C model boat clubs that have joined together to create an annual series of one day races and it does adhere to the NAMBA rules and safety regulations. On this particular day of racing, Florida presented a very challenging weather environment with some of the highest winds of the year. For the light weight and extremely fast model boats, it became a day of driver patience and expertise to not "turtle" the little speedsters and win by actually completing each race.
It was a day of SURVIVOR = WINNER, more often than preferred.
Fun_Run
Fun Run was just a gathering of boaters at which time there was running of boats and maybe some pickup races during the day. There will also be food supplied and awards for 2007 will be given out. See WCRA Schecule.
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