Cody King Race Report – Worlds - Pro-Line Factory Team

Well, we had quite a day. We completely rebuilt the car yesterday and entirely changed the set-up based on what Elliot Boots was running. We had one chance to still get into the final, and it means Pro-Line‘s Cody King had to run as perfect as possible to make it all the way. It was a big challenge, but if anyone could do it, I think it’s Cody. I think we had a good car to do it.

In the 1/8, Cody crashed early and went all the way to the back. He slowly made his way back to the front and won, bumping up to the 1/4. For the 1/4 he would start 9th on the grid. After the start, Cody quickly moved into 7th, then jumped up into 4th. Cody would run in 3rd for much of the race and had quite a good pace, but Ryan Lutz would get past, and then it was a battle between Billy Easton and Cody. Cody was in front and Billy chasing, but on the last lap Easton would make a mistake on the back sweeper giving Cody some breathing room to finish the race in 4th. Into the semi!

Cody now had car number 12 in the semi. By the time the first lap was over, he was quickly into 8th, and then 7th. After several laps and passing a few more cars, Cody was in 3rd place. He dropped one more position and battled with Lee Martin for the 4th spot. Those two went at it for almost the entire second half of the race, 18 laps swapping positions. In the end it was Cody with the #4 spot and Martin in 5th. Cody was not far from the leader Robert Batlle, just over 20 seconds behind. Based on his time, Cody was car #6 on the grid in the final. The final step was complete, and Cody was in the main!

Well, I wish we had better news to report, but all we can say is we finished the main without any mechanical issues, and Cody captured the 7th spot. Not too bad considering where he started the day. It wasn’t a win, but we tried our hardest! We left everything out on the track. I can’t say enough about Cody’s effort on Saturday. On the stand nearly 3 hours total! Running the semi practice to test tires, even though he was exhausted.

He was so tired after the hour main.. spent. On the equipment side.. just wow, what can we say about that. Near 3 hours on the car and not a single glitch on that brutal rock infested track! The engine was just rock solid the whole way. I never touched the needles on Sunday.. no joke. Couldn’t be happier the way the engine and fuel preformed, fantastic. Thanks so much to our supporters, believers, and the people who helped us though this monumental challenge of Cody’s attempt to repeat as World Champion, which still has never been done. Robert will have that chance in 2 years time, but we will be there trying to upset his plans… super proud of Cody taking on the challenge with courage, determination, and grace. It hasn’t been an easy two years. He has been hacked and hammered on the track, and people have done just about anything to try and be in front of him, or show any result in front of him. The stigma of “can you repeat?” is very difficult. It’s been a tough two years and now Robert will get to feel that..

From Cody:
“My dad and I really struggled with setup on the car early in the week. Everything we learned from the warm up coming to the race didn’t work. We didn’t really know if the track condition would come to our car, so changes were risky. We slowly started to go back to what we run at home, but it still wasn’t quite right. We were making changes on the car and it was getting better, but it was still not where we wanted it. After qualifying, my Dad got together with Mick Cradock (Elliott’s mechanic) and we set up the car like Elliott’s. Looking at how things went on Saturday, the car was better. Still we could have tweaked on it a little more if we had time, but it was really good. I can’t say enough about the durability for all the track time and the engine was really good. After my poor qualifying I was in the 1/8^th final. With the new setup and my car being very fresh and prepared right I was able to do something many people maybe doubted I could do. After 2hours and 45 minutes of running, and a poor start to the final, I was able to battle back to 7^th. It’s not the result I wanted, but we did what we could. I want to say thank you to everyone that has got me to where I am, and all my sponsors Team Kyosho, Team Orion, Pro-Line, Byron fuel, Kopropo, Amain Hobbies, Stick it 1, Lunsford, Kustom RC Graphix, and Live RC. Also a huge thank you to my dad! He has done so much for me. Everything he does is behind the scenes and I can’t thank him enough for everything he does. Sicily 2014, I’m on a mission.”