Factory Team / Race Events

Race Report: The Dual with Cody King

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The second annual “The Dual” is in the books and it was a wild one. The race format is unique because the drivers are racing every time they get on the track. Its done in the Reedy Race format, with random combinations of drivers drawing numbered ping pong balls for grid positions. Every heat is a race, and each position is a point. For the invite class, each driver runs Buggy and Truggy, with 3 heats and one throw out in each class per day (6 heats per day). Adding yet another twist, the race is run on TWO tracks, the Pro-Line Test Track in Banning on Saturday, and Thunder Alley in Beaumont on Sunday. Each morning you get 5 minutes of practice in each class on the fresh layout, and then race. Pretty cool..

I have to say, we limped into this race with being a bit sick, and ran some practice cars because our recent busy schedule has taken its toll on the cars. Cody’s stuff was pretty beat up from all the running at Thornhill. We had a decent practice buggy, and we freshened up his truggy from Texas, and away we went. The first round Saturday was real rough with the chassis settings a little off, but in round two Cody won a tough buggy heat, so we felt good about the direction we were going. For round 3, they sorted the lowest points together, so all the fast guys were in one heat. After an early tangle in traffic, Cody was shuffled to the back. Our fuel economy was real good earlier in the day, so I decided to go the entire 12 minute main without fuel. It turned out to be a good gamble as Cody was battling for 3rd and took that position with only a few corners to go. It was impressive that his Reds R7 EVO went 12:10 on fuel and still had 10cc fuel remaining. Impressive. It was approaching 11pm when we left the track Saturday, and we had to be at Thunder Alley at 6:30 am Sunday, so we rushed to the hotel for 5 or 6 hours of shuteye.

Cody again started out slowly and improved, with 2 seconds in buggy, and a 4 and 1 in truggy. We had unfortunate luck in both 3rd heats with dnfs… Cody would finish 4th overall and collect $170 in prize money. Not too shabby. Big congratulations to Cody’s Pro-Line teammate Ty Tessman on a strong performance and the overall win. I give those guys credit for traveling so far and being well prepared each time they come out. It’s tough to have fresh cars all the time for so many races, and their good preparation pays off. Big congrats to Cody’s Kyosho/Reds teammate Colin Herzig with the dominating expert buggy class win. He posted just 4 points each day to take the victory. Also, Kyosho/Reds driver Mikey Bustamante, hitting the podium in 3rd. Great job guys!

Big thanks to Pro-Line and Thunder Alley putting on this race, and congrats to Rob Jackson for such a fun and different event. Levi Jackson outdid himself once again with two great layouts. All the drivers raved about how much fun they had and how race-able the tracks were. Great job to Jimmy Babcock and his tech crew as well, running things and keeping the program rolling.

Two more weeks of testing and then it’s Nationals! See yall in Texas!

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