Perfect weather, amazing rock and some good people are what make any RC Crawling event memorable. The 2010 Northwest USRCCA National Qualifier in Goldendale, WA was just that and a podium finish with the Pro-Line Chisels in G8 compound was icing on the cake.
Names like John “Super Dave” Ripplinger-first place at the 2010 AWCC, Jason Veal-third place at the 2010 AWCC, Brian Parker, Ryan Gerrish and others all showed up to battle it out for the top spot. The 2.2” class continues to be the dominant class in crawling and this event showed why.
Day 1 (Saturday)
All together there were 4 courses on Saturday. If after the 4 courses you were not happy with one of your finishes, you were allowed to run an optional course. I had two not so great courses and opted to run the alternate course. It was somewhat of a catch 22 running the alternate course because no matter what score you received it would replace the poorest score on your scored card from one of the previous 4 courses. In my case, I was able to only have one reverse after 10 gates making my alternate course score of -19. This was just what I needed as I replaced the +22 I had. That’s a 41 point spread better! I think the most amazing thing was I was able to receive the lowest score on the alternate course over anyone else. This spoke volumes for Chisels and Axial’s new XR10.
Day 2 (Sunday)
If you placed in the top 20 you went on to day 2. I ended up 3rd from Saturday and because they were running reverse order, I was 3rd to start the top 20 course. Only 3 competitors from the top 20 finished the top 20 course. I was not one of them but made it a couple of feet before the finish line. I maintained my 3rd position going into the top 5 shootout.
The top 5 shootout each driver pulled straws to see what the line-up would be. I was second to go. After watching Brian Parker run, I knew that I had my work cut out for me. He was only able to make it to gate 5, halfway through the course. I was lined up and ready to go. Being the first guy to gate 6 was nerve racking. No one knew what to expect out of gates 6-10. I charged through each gate and made meticulous decisions at an instant so I could get through the course. I knew if I just finished that I would secure my 3rd place position. The Chisels found their way through each gate successfully. I did have to “take” a few gates to get though but it was not enough penalty points to point me out. In the end only 3 out of 5 people finished the top 5 course.
My first podium finish at a big event felt good. I continue to find that the Chisels are an excellent compliment to my XR10. Again I chose to sipe the treads excessively on the front end while leaving the rears stock. Standard size PL memory foam in the front and dual stage memory foam in the rear.
‘Till next time – SH
