Cade Whitenton Wins at ROAR Region 9 Championships

This past weekend I attended the ROAR Region 9 Offroad Championships in Porter, Texas, at Gulf Coast Raceway. This was also the venue for the RC Pro Finals held just a few weeks ago. Although it was a small turnout of only about 100 racers, the region’s best were still in attendance. This event called for 3 rounds of 7 minute qualifiers, using rocket round, and then 30 minute A-Mains.

Truggy

My XT8 was awesome from the time I put it on the track with M3 Blockades hooking up on the moist clay surface. In the first round of qualifying, I ran a fast, consistent run and got the TQ ahead of Robbie Darby by about 10 seconds. In the second round of qualifying, I got off to another good start and was on pace to better my first round TQ by a couple of seconds. Mark Morrow was also on a good run just a few seconds behind. I ended up getting caught up in lap traffic, and gave him the lead, but he flamed out with just a few seconds left, so I took the TQ again. In the third round of qualifying, I got off to another great start and was on pace to better by first round TQ, but about halfway through the run I blew out a left rear shock, so my truck was hard to drive, and I ended up getting 2nd overall for the round behind Morrow.

In the 30 minute A-Main, I was starting out front and I just wanted to get off to a good start and check out from the field. I did just that, and ended up winning by about half a lap in front of Mark Morrow and Robbie Darby. I was very happy with my run, I didn’t crash once during the whole main, and my XT8 and M3 Blockades were awesome from start to finish!

Buggy

I decided to try a lot of new things on my buggy on practice day, and my buggy was feeling really good for qualifying. In the first round of qualifying, the track was very loose, and I made a lot of mistakes, which resulted in a 5th overall. For the second round of qualifying I decided to try M3 Blockades. My car was much better and I finished 2nd overall, behind local fast guy Jake Dellinger. For the 3rd round of qualifying, I didn’t make any changes to my buggy, but I made a few mistakes and finished 3rd overall behind Dellinger and Roger Ayres.

In the main, I was starting 2nd behind Jake Dellinger, and my plan was just to stay behind Jake and pressure him into mistakes, but I didn’t get a chance to do that because my steering servo broke during warm-up, so I had to retire from the race before it even started. I was bummed, but that’s racing!

I would like to the Nick Lefebve, Jeremy Cupps, and the whole Gulf Coast Raceway crew for putting on a great race. This was probably my last big race of the year. Looking back, it was a great year, I learned a lot, met a lot of new people, and had a lot of fun doing it!

Thanks for all the support and awesome products Pro-Line!

See everyone in 2013!

Cade “Young Gun” Whitenton