Well after a few days of recuperating from the past week in Arizona, I thought I would let you all know how my week went at the Nitro Pit for the 11th annual Dirt Nitro Challenge! After doing 1 lap on the track I think everyone knew we were in for a looonnggg week! The track layout was one of the most difficult tracks any of us had ever raced on. And if you were watching the first round of practice I bet you could tell. Even the best of the best were crashing 2-3 times a lap.
By the time they got to the truck main Saturday night the track had about a 2-foot lane that was decent, anything outside of that wasn’t pretty. But it was the same for all of us. I was up to 4th in the first 5 minutes of the race before getting hammered by another driver, (won’t say any names), but it knocked me wayyy down the standings to 8th, I battled back to the top 5 and then my steering servo started going out, ran about 20 mins with very little steering, eventually pulling off at the 36 minute mark and ending up 12th overall. =/ But I was still very happy about even making the big show with all the tough competition. In truck, I ran M3 Hole Shot VTR’s in qualifying and for the main event.
Sunday rolled around and yet again, we arrived to the track and it was a total mud pit, they even changed the layout a little to avoid some of the muddy sections. But we still raced in it and by the time the Buggy A came around the 2-foot groove was back and the show went on. I worked my way up to 5th again was in a good battle with 3 other drivers for the 5th spot until I made a mistake and got pushed back to the battle for 8th. I ended up finishing 13th after the 45 minute final. Not exactly how I hoped my mains would have gone but all in all, it was a very good weekend.
For buggy, I ran M3 Hole Shots in the first 2 rounds of qualifying, for the 3rd round I ran M4 Hole Shots because it was at night and all the moisture came back to the surface. In the main event I ran M3 Bow-Ties because the length of the main and the track conditions were a little different with all the rain.
Pro-Line tires were by far the fastest tires on the track all week long. My cars were hooked up from day 1 and I felt I had the edge in tires over other competitors all weekend long and it showed on the track!
I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all my sponsor’s who support me with what I need to be competitive at these races. I could not do it without you! I can’t wait to see how the rest of 2010 turns out.
Thank you for your support,
Levi Jackson
