29/07/2026
My take on LCRC Raceway’s R/c Academy.
The most frequent questions I got were:
“Was it worth the cost? “
“Would you go back?”
“Did you get faster?”
In short, yes on all fronts.
There’s not many places where you have nearly unlimited access to professionals of your sport combined with hands on help, track time, and a well stocked hobby shop like you do at this event.
Instructors included:
Adam Drake (Mugen)
Jason Schreffler (Sparko)
Paul Ciccarello(Xray)
Billy Papenberg(AE)
Vin Manchanda (AE)
Taylor Delosa(Mugen)
Aydan Manchanda(AE)
Mike Pavia(Sparko)
Mike Eglberger(Tekno)
The instructors were all great and professional. If they couldn’t come up with an answer or solution they pointed you in the direction of someone who could and were able to explain things in detail that you usually can’t get through in between rounds on a race day.
During the registration process you rate yourself on knowledge of different topics, explain what you’re looking to get out of the course, and what you’re trying to improve on the most. This information was used to tailor the experience for the student.
Saturday morning I was greeted with a prepped pit table space, binder, grab bag full of LCRC merch, and Cow RC cleaning products to use through the weekend.
Binder contained my prelim survey, Blank setup sheets for each car, course documents for each of the different topics, a SoDialed Cheat sheet, and a Shock oil cross reference sheet.
A major part of the academy was a comparison of each student running a 3 lap stint at the beginning and end of the academy to visualize your improvement throughout the weekend.
(Let me just say I’ve been racing these things a while and usually don’t get nerves- until I tasked with driving 3 clean, fluid laps with the entire facility watching, not to mention Adam Drake and others directly beside taking notes. )
Jitters and 3lap out of the way, students were broken up into groups and rotated between all the different classes while getting a half hour of track time every 3rd rotation to apply your findings.
I went into the weekend hoping to gain knowledge and confidence in my nitro program and was not let down. I ran a Novarossi Legend 7, and OS AD3 throught the event.
With the help of Jason, Mike, and Adam we polished out alot of the issues I was having. I learned about the ins and outs of pinching engines, bearings, clutches, plugs and pipes. By the end of the event both engines were running great, fuel milage and power improvements on both.
Mayako cars ran great all weekend, I went through a few rounds of changes that left me with pretty stable safe feeling cars that could drive hard.
At the end of the weekend we recorded our final 3 lap stint and played them side by side and reviewed them as a class. To my surprise there was a big gap.
Not a few hundredths, not a couple of tenths but 5 whole seconds off my 3 lap pace.
Was it a fluke? Have a peek at hotlap, and average lap through the weekend and let me know.
3 lap comparison can be watched here:
https://youtu.be/bReFkd-DwMg?is=na0Wa2bRmrwlVlhR
Meals were provided all weekend, hours of track time and access to professional help at every turn. Well worth it, I will be back to learn some more.
Special shout to Kevin and Christa and the track crew for keeping the track race ready all weekend.
Thank you to my sponsors:
ProMotion
J/T bearing company
REDS racing
SpeedzoneLLC
