Event: Short Course Showdown Nationwide Tour
Location: R/C Excitement Fitchburg, MA
Dates: March 21-23 2014
Classes Entered: Modified 2wd Short Course, Modified 4X4 Short Course
This past weekend I attended the second stop of Scotty Ernst’s Short Course Showdown Nationwide Tour held at R/C Excitement in Fitchburg, MA. For the past 3 years Scotty has chosen R/C Excitement for the Northeast stop for its great track, hobby shop and staff. The best racers from New England, as well as a few from Colorado and California, were in attendance, so the competition was tough with 189 total entries.
A new layout was put down for this event the week before. It featured a few tricky sections that kept the racers on their toes and made racing even and fun for all. The new layout didn’t dry as it typically does due to the weather, so traction varied on different parts of the track. The back straight was the wettest part of the track and also had the lowest bite, while the rest of the track was a little dryer and medium bite.
Three rounds of qualifying were run on Saturday and one on Sunday with the mains immediately following. Scotty did a great job keeping to the schedule so we were done by a reasonable time Saturday night and finished around 6:00 PM on Sunday.
One thing that is unique to the SC Showdown Tour is that all qualifiers have live starts so it’s important to get a clean start to ensure you don’t hurt your qualifying time. Six cars qualified directly into the mains with 2 bumps from the lower mains.
In 2wd short course, I was qualified 6th after the first day of qualifying, but 2 people ran faster times in the 4th round which bumped me to 8th overall. In 4wd short course I was able to put in consistent runs all weekend and was on a TQ pace in round 3 when I clipped a clamp holding the pipe down on the last lap. Needless to say I DNF’d that qual, but qualified 5th overall.
In the modified 2wd B main the 1st place driver and I were able to break away from the pack early on and cruise to victory. We swapped places a couple times, but didn’t pressure each other knowing that the top 2 bumped to the A. I ended up starting 8th on the grid in the A-main and was able to avoid a few crashes that let me advance. At one point I was in 5th place, but a small bobble dropped me back to 6th, where I finished.
While I started 5th on the grid in the 4wd SC main, I dropped back to 7th on the first lap. I was able to quickly move into 3rd on the second lap by avoiding a pile up that involved trucks 3-6. I stayed in 3rd for most of the race, but fell back to and finished 4th after a slight issue on the slick back straight.
In 2wd short course I used the Flo-Tek Ford F-150 Raptor body with M3 Suburbs on the front and M4 Suburbs on the rear. In 4wd I also used the Flo-Tek Ford F-150 Raptor body with M4 Suburbs on both the front and rear. All tires were mounted on F11 wheels using Pro-Bond glue.
