“So this summer has been a crazy year it seemed like there was a trophy race every weekend, so I had to pick and choose what races I could do. One of them was our King of North East point series (KONE for short). This was a four race series between two tracks RC Madness in Enfield ct and Wolcott Hobbies in Wolcott CT. There were no drops so I knew I had to make every race count.

Round one was at Wolcott Hobbies and I was happy with my outcome taking 2nd over all. Round two was at RC Madness at I had a good run but not super happy finishing 4th overall. Round three was back at Wolcott hobby and qualifying was ok but with some good luck and some other peoples bad luck I ended up wining the race by over a lap.

So this was leading up to the final race of the season and going into this race I had a total of 292 points having a 2,4,1 for finishes. Also going into the final race was factory Kyosho, Orion and AKA driver Jimmy James and he had a 3,1,3 for points that put him at 292 points also  so it was a dead even tie.

Round one of qualifying goes off Jimmy is in heat one I am in heat two he run a 12 lap 5:17.492 so I knew what I had to do to get TQ and hopefully make it stick, well I had a great run but ended up running a 12 5:17.911.

Round two goes off and I notice Jimmy was still in pit lane and I hear the race announcer call the start of the race so I put my head down and figured I would see how hard I could push the car. Unfortunately, I made a small mistake on the first lap so I pushed it even harder as the tone went off for the end of the race ended up running 12 5:17.199 taking TQ overall by .3 sec. I was happy for getting the extra bonus point but with a 2 point spread I knew I still had to beat Jimmy over all to win the series.

For the main I did all my normal prep; new tires, new plug, new air filter and checked all the screws and nuts on the car. The one thing that I was hung up on was tire choice I ran M2 Hole Shot tires in round one and the car was great then switched to M3 Blockades for round two as the track got dusty and dried out and car was still good but not as stable as the Hole Shot tires so I looked in my tire bag and saw some M2 Tazers and knew that will be my tire for the main.

The main went off and it was a 25 minute final. Both Jimmy and I took off and opened a small gap on the field, then a small mistake from Jimmy gave me a 2 sec lead and it stayed like that for about the next 6 minutes first round of pit stops. I came in and Jimmy was right behind me, my pit guy threw me down and Jimmy’s guy was very quick on his fill so now the gap was back down to 1 sec. I knew as long as I didn’t make any mistakes I could take this down so I relaxed and drove my race. Jimmy made a few bobbles here and there which gave me a 6 sec lead going into the last round of pit stops. I came in and went out, still with a good lead, but his pit guy shaved off another 2 sec putting him back into the hunt 4 sec back but I knew he would be pushing it now with 4 minutes to go and this cost him big time crashing one time where a marshal was out getting another car then again the next corner so next thing I knew I was right on his bumper putting him a lap down.

So when all the points were totaled up it was  Mark Smyka 393 points / Jimmy James 390 points / Lester B 385  points

I would like to thank Pro-Line for making the best tires and rims out there, Advantage racing for the best bearing and air filter and last but not least Reds Racing for the greatest motors on the market.”

– Mark Smyka