The Alabama Manufactures’ Shootout brought in a total of 600 entries this past weekend. Being an indoor event, the weather went crazy and changed temps and humidity quite often but didn’t effect tire choice too badly.

PRACTICE:

I went out in nitro buggy with M4 HoleShots. As the track began to come around, a little after lunchtime on Thursday, tire choice was still M4 HoleShots and they hooked up tremendously. In truggy, I went out on M3 HoleShots later Thursday evening and the truggy felt great as traction wasn’t an issue at all.

QUALIFYING:

In Pro Buggy qualifying, I chose M4 HoleShots for all 3 rounds. The same set of M4 holeshots lasted all 3 quals. These tires kept me glued to the track, and allowed me to stay VERY consistent throughout all 3 rounds. This would seat me 3rd overall for the start of the 45-minute A-Main event.

In Pro Truggy, I went with M3 HoleShots as in practice. These too, would keep me hooked up throughtout all qualifiers. Traction not being an issue, I then went on to qualify 5th overall.

MAINS:

The 45-minute A-Main event in truggy would be short for me. I ran a new set of M3 holehots for all 12 minutes of me being on track. Temperature was much higher and it rained much less therefore, traction stayed pretty constant throughout the day. During the 12 minutes on track, my truggy felt great and tires worked very well. Due to a loose camber link screw, this would throw me out early.

When Pro Buggy finally came around, I knew tire choice was key. M4 HoleShots would have been ideal but instead I chose M4 Blockades because it was such a long main event and I had to keep some pins until the end. M4 Blockades, had the most traction EVER. Little did I know, these tires were a dramatic change from running HoleShots as I did in all of qualifying. In the opening laps, I was still trying to adjust to the tires, as they were so stuck to the track. Running in 4th, I continued traction rolling a few times and as time passed I fell down a lap to the 2nd and 3rd place cars with only 15-minutes remaining. Knowing I had my work cut out for me, I had to sprint to regain my lap. In the closing 2 laps of this 45-minute A-Main event, I went on to make the pass on Ryan Lutz for 3rd place, this left the 2nd spot only 2 seconds from me at the finish line!

Huge thanks to all my sponsors!

-Cole Ogden