On May 17th and 18th I attended the annual “The Big One” race hosted at the LCRC Racing Facility in Oakland Mills, PA. Both of my sons Cody and Ethan, also attended the two day event. The event used four rounds of qualifying based on qual points from each round to decide the starting position for each of the feature event races on Sunday afternoon. A $1000 purse was on the line for the 1:8th Nitro buggy class which helped bring the total entry count for the event to 166 entries.
Arriving at the track on Friday evening, racers were taking to the track to get in some practice time. Central Pennsylvania had received well in excess of 3 inches of rain the previous day which was followed by a cold front causing the temperatures to stay in the 65 degree range for high temperatures through out the weekend. The crew at the facility had the track in excellent condition considering the previous nights torrential rainstorms. We brought both M3 and M4 compounds to event based on the outdoor temperatures. Saturday’s morning qualifiers, we all stayed with M4 Blockades while getting used to new track layout. Round 2 in the afternoon was the same and for the final round of the day, the boys wanted to try some changes. Ethan moved to the M3 Blockades on his Mugen MBX-6 electric buggy and Cody changed over to the new X4 Hole Shots on his Team Associated RC 8.2 electric buggy. The electric buggy class was largest of the weekend with 64 entries. Both of the boys were happy with the feel of their cars in the the third round of qualifying with the new tire selections and they would both qualify into the B-Main qualifier after four rounds of qualifying. Ethan would start from the number six spot on the grid with his brother, Cody, starting in the number 7 spot. Ethan would continue in his normal fashion and finish 2nd to bump to the final qualifying position for the A-Main feature.
Here is video of the B-Main battle
Ethan would battle his way up to 7th in the A-main feature and with a few mistakes would still finish 9th overall out of 64 drivers.
I ran in the 4wd SCT class to ease my race directing responsibilities over the weekend. Round 1 of qualifying I was on pace with the leader and had the gap down to 1 second into the race when my new speed control would begin to thermal at about the 5 minute mark in the 6 minute heat. We found the the fan had failed on the new speed control and it was corrected for round 2. Round 2, my Tekno SCT 410 was dealing with some loose conditions which would only allow me to finish 7th in the heat. Setup changes in the ride height were needed for Round 3 to help lock in the traction. Round 3 the truck felt the same as round 2 and resulted in another 7th place finish. I was stumped on the traction problem and why my change had not affected my truck. I have to rely on my son, Cody, to make my changes while I continue to help host the event. Guess what? Someone forgot to make that change for his father. At least it explains why the truck still felt the same. The following morning I was able to get those adjustments made in practice and get the truck locked into the racing surface. Round 4 of qualifying I finished second in the heat. I now felt better for the main events coming up in the afternoon.
With 18 main event races to run, I was scheduled to run at race 13. The air temperatures were still only about 65, but the track surface began to groove up quite well into a blue groove. I decided to stay with the M4 Blockades for the feature event. The tires were now locked into the surface and maybe a little too much. Hindsight, I probably should have used the M3 compound. Starting 7th in the main, I was able to begin to work my way up through the field to a solid 4th place at about the 8 minute mark of the 10 minute race. With 41 second lap times, a 10 minute race, and large amounts of wide open throttle, most racers were aware of the possibility of not having enough battery to make it to the end. I was fortunate enough to be able to make it the entire 10 minutes finish for the final podium position in 3rd and just missing the number two position by ten one hundredths of a second.
Thanks to Pro-line for the support to the Mackanick’s racing team.
