JBRL Round 5, Controlled Chaos Raceway
Palmdale, CA
6/30/ 2012
By Chris Blais:
Round 5 of the JBRL series would take place at Controlled Chaos Raceway in Palmdale, CA. The CCR group would put together an excellent track for us to race on. The outdoor track was fast with lots of traction. Our Pro-Line tires would have us hooked up all weekend.
The Blais Racing Team would spend all day Friday setting up our cars and doing some tire testing. I found that I really liked the M3 Suburbs on my PRO 4 truck, M3 Scrubs on front, M3 Suburbs on rear of my B44.1 4×4 buggy, and M3 Suburbs on front, M4 Suburbs on rear of my B4.1 Stock buggy. I had all my cars pretty dialed in for the qualifier heats.
On Saturday, I had pretty good qualifiers this time in both buggy races. We were all really close on time. I would end up qualifying 7th in Expert Stock buggy and 5th in Expert 4×4 buggy. In stock buggy, the top 10 were only about 7 seconds apart. This was my first time racing my 4×4 B44.1 buggy and I had a great time. I was fast with it but was being a little too cautious.
My Pro 4 qualifier went great as I was able to get the TQ (Top Qualifier) in my 2nd qualifier a couple seconds over 2nd place. This was my first TQ ever in the JBRL series, thanks to my Pro-Line tires and Pro-Line Chevy Flo-Tek body for having me so hooked up and flying today.
Chris Blais mounting up some Pro-Line Tires
In the 2wd buggy main event, I moved up to the front of the pack pretty quick but just kept getting mixed up in wrecks with everyone. I usually get around the crashes pretty well but this time I just had a bad race. I kept catching back up passing guys then getting mixed up with other drivers. I ended up 7th in the main.
In the 4×4 buggy I had a great race with some really fast drivers. At one point I was up to third place but was just a little off the pace of the other drivers. I finished up in 5th place which was good for my first big race in my new B44.1 buggy.
The Pro 4 main was awesome. My Blais Racing/ Coyote Hobbies/ Pro-Line / Venom sponsored Losi SCTE was just hooked up and working great. I made one mistake during the race giving up my first position but put in a hard charge to make up the lost time. I pulled back a couple of seconds but was unable to get back in the race with 1st place. I finished up 2nd place.
This was my best finish in the JBRL so far and taking the TQ was an incredible feeling. I can’t wait until the next race in San Diego at SDRC Raceway on July 28th.
Martin Blais would finish up the weekend 5th Place in the Sportsman 4×4 SC A- main and 2nd Place in the Expert Stock SC B-Main.
1st Matthew Olson, 2nd/ TQ Chris Blais, 3rd Ryan Dunford
2012 JBRL Round 5, Pro 4 A Main with Chris and Nick Blais at Controlled Chaos Raceway
JBRL Round 5 Controlled Chaos Race Videos
By: Nick Blais
When I arrived on Friday for practice, I was pleasantly surprised that the track was pretty nice looking. It had some pretty small jumps more directed toward the 1/10 racers. After getting the first battery on the track, I realized that there was so much traction that you really had to drive around the corners with caution. After the second run I realized that I was running on slicks. Being on a tire budget, I elected to run those tires the rest of the day, with mainly working the set up.
On Saturday morning, I got in one practice with each one of my race vehicles. They did some track maintenance overnight to fix some small potholes that developed. The qualifying heats started at 9am and I had three pretty good rounds with Pro-Line Blockades on all my 2wd and 4wd SC trucks, along with my 1/8 scale buggy. Those three first runs would hold my positions the rest of qualifying. During Round 2 in qualifying, everyone seemed to be going faster except for me. The track didn’t even blue groove it was so hard, but I think as the track temp got hotter, the tire selection changed to more of a clay type tread pattern, as I was to run Pro-Line M3 Suburbs in the mains.
In Race #23, Pro 2 Short Course, I took off in full swing with a super tight starting grid. I gassed it hard, shot outside of the grid and drifted wide in the first turn and the guy behind me was charging hard in the first turn and took out the guy that started ahead of me. That was an easy position to pick up. I drove hard from there with minimal mistakes and ended up 4th place in the main just missing the podium. 1st and 2nd place were gone, with the starting totally favoring the top qualifiers.
In Race #30, Pro 4 Short Course, my brother Chris took the TQ in this race and was off and charging. It was follow-the-leader for the rest of us. There were about five of us getting tangled up on the para-style. There is really no way down from this unless you jump off of it. My truck fell to the bottom of it and ended up last at the end of the first lap. Well, thinking I was going to put on a charge since I had nothing to lose, a battle broke out between me and Chad Panek. It was fun as it always is to race with him, but by the time we got to battling, the leaders were starting to lap us. I believe at the end of the race I was in 8th place, worse than my qualifying position. Like I said before, that’s racing. I’ll get them next time.
In Race #33, 1/8 scale ten minute main event, I qualified in 4th place. I took off smooth and remembering that I had open wheels now, I was to keep it smooth. I was doing good until a roll-over and a scared turn marshal not wanting to stick his hands in between the 10 lb. cars, I got passed by a few people. It was a long race and I was able to catch up to a 4th place. Kind of a bummer that I didn’t get a podium all night. I still have to get the beginner shakes and jitters out of me so I can concentrate on putting together some good races. See ya at SDRC Raceway end of July!
Thanks to our awesome team sponsors:
Coyote Hobbies Raceway in Victorville, CA
