This past weekend I attended the ROAR Fuel Offroad Nationals in Porter, TX, at Mikes Hobby Shop/Gulf Coast Raceway. The crew at Mikes built a fun, fast, and technical track for the Nation’s best racers. I had the advantage of being close to home and knowing this track well, as I race here almost every month. My goal was to finish in the top 30 in both classes and qualify for the worlds in buggy.
PRACTICE
Wednesday was the first day of practice. Everyone got one practice run in the morning for each class where you had to turn in a ticket to run. Then they made a heat sheet and you ran two more 7 minute practice sessions per car. The heat you were in would also be the heat you were in for Thursday’s seeding practice. I didn’t make any changes to my cars on Wednesday, as I was just trying to learn the layout and the track was still very slick from the rebuild. On Thursday we got one more untimed 5 minute practice run in the morning, then we went into seeding practice. These practices would take your best 3 consecutive laps to seed you into heats for Friday’s two rounds of qualifying. The track was finally starting to gain grip on Thursday, so I made a couple of changes to my cars, but I was mostly trying to decide what tires to run for qualifying. I settled on M3 Ions for buggy and M3 Holeshots for truck.
QUALIFYING
The qualifying format was 4 rounds of 7 minute heats, using your best 2 runs to seed you into mains. In the first round of qualifying, I just wanted to get some good clean runs in. In truck, I ran a clean consistent run with just a couple of bobbles and got 38th overall. In buggy, the track really gained a lot of grip between my truck qualifier and my buggy qualifier, so my car was very edgy and I made a lot of mistakes, but I flamed out just a couple of corners before the loop anyway, so that was a throw away round. In the second round of truck, I ran the same set of M3 Holeshots, and they were really good. I was on a fast run with about 2 minutes left to go and a truck flamed out right in front of me coming onto the double-double-double section, so I got tangled up with that car, and that ruined my run. In the second round of buggy qualifying, I tried some M3 Blockades, just so I could push the car. I could push the car a lot, but they just lacked the speed that you need in qualifying. I had a clean, safe run, and finished 36th for the round. After two rounds of qualifying, I was 46th overall in truck and 49th overall in buggy.
Saturday was scheduled for two more rounds of qualifying and some lower mains that night. In the third round of truggy qualifying, I tried to push my car way too hard and made a lot of mistakes, resulting in a 49th overall. In the third round of buggy, I had another clean run and finished 26th for the round. In the fourth and final round of truck qualifying, I had a fast, clean run and finished 30th overall. In the final round of buggy qualifying, I tried to push too hard and had some trouble with traffic, so that was another throw away run. After qualifying was over I was set to start 3rd in the E-Main in truck and 1st in the 1/8 Odd main in buggy.
MAINS
In my truck E-Main, I was able to get a fairly good start, and dropped back to sixth after lap one. I was able to fight my way back up to second by the end of the 15 minute main, and bumped up to the D-Main. I would have to race-marshall-race which required a lot of help from my dad and some of my friends to get my truck ready while I was marshaling. This being my first Nationals this was very new to me. In the D-Main, I got a bad start and just didn’t have enough time to get up to a bump spot, so I finished 8th, and 38th overall for the event.
Now on to buggy, which was the class I was really focused on all week. In the 1/8 Odd Main, I started on pole and never relinquished the lead for the whole 15 minute main, so I bumped to the 1/4 Odd main. I would have to marshal the 45 minute truck A-Main, then after that would be the 1/4 Even main, which would give me 20 minutes to get my car ready. In my 20 minute 1/4 main, I got a bad start and was dead last after 1 lap. I pushed hard and tried to get into a bump spot, my M3 Blockades and Xray XB9 were feeling awesome, but with the level of competition in the race, and the amount of time I had, I couldn’t get into a bump spot, and finished 5th, just a couple of spots out of bumping to the semis. I ended up finishing 34th overall for the event, which I was very happy with!
This being my first ROAR Nationals, I felt I did a good job. Everything was new to me, from the ladder system type mains, to the vests we had to wear while marshaling! I had a lot fun and learned a lot of things that will help me in the future! I have a lot of time left to get better, as I am only 15 years old!
I would like to thank Daniel Adams from Pro-Line, who helped me out tremendously all week! I wouldn’t of done as good as I did without the help from him! I am honored to be part of such a talented team. Pro-Line was on top all week!
Till next time,
Cade “Young Gun” Whitenton
PRODUCTS USED
Truggy-
-Yellow Wheels
-MBX6T Bulldog
-Pro Bond Glue
Qualifying-
-M3 Hole-Shots
Mains-
-M3 Blockades
Buggy-
-Lightweight Yellow Wheels
-Pro Bond Glue
Qualifying-
-M3 Ions
-M3 Hole-Shot 2.0s
Mains-
-M3 Blockades
