Factory Team / Race Events

Race Report: Race for the Cure with Mark Smyka

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So last weekend kicked off the 5th annual Race for the CURE this race used to be put on by pin shop hobbies and it is run during a fair in the town of Goshen, CT. With Pin Shop Hobbies closing the doors the owner of the shop got a hold of Lester from Wolcott Hobbys and airsoft to see if he would be interested in running the event for him with help from the owners of the old Pin Shop store.
The track is layed out in a grass field with some dirt thrown in for jumps so it’s more of a euro style track where you go from hard packed dirt and clay to grass and back again.
Pits opened Friday around noon to get trailers or your stuff you needed for the weekend in before the fair opened at 5. That night I loaded my trailer and grabbed a few of my friends and headed down after work.

Saturday was three rounds of qualifying and one more LCG on Sunday and mains. My car was good from the start, I just needed to find that right tire that would work on both grass and dirt I went out with M3 Calibers for first round but a mistake over the back double ended that early for me but the tires felt really good. I fixed my car and watched some of the races and noticed most of the grass was coming up and more and more dirt was showing so I mounted up some M3 Blockades and went out for next round putting in a solid run that put me 4th overall which is all I wanted, to get into the good heat for reshuffle. The last round of the day went into the night and we paused half way during the round for the fireworks show (all I will say is this is a great way to spend the day at the races) after the show was over, we finished the last round. I had a really good run going for 4-minutes till I made one huge mistake and could not better my time from round two. We picked up our pits, loaded the trailer and made our way to hotel for the night.

Sunday AM came way too fast as we didn’t leave the fair ’til midnight Saturday. We arrived at 8AM to work on cars and get ready for LCQ. The track now had become really ruff and everyone knew the times from the day before would be hard to beat so most of us changed setup for a super ruff track to get ready for the main. I ended up bettering my time but not enought to move me up on the grid.

The main was going to be a good race with the top four running super close in round four. I was fourth on the grid with Blockades and their was two Jconcepts drivers ahead of me and TQ would go to another Pro-Line driver Kyle Rhodes also on Blockades. At the start of the race the top two took off and I made a inside pass on third and tried to chase down the leaders but a mistake three laps later put me a half track down so I just tryed to pace them and hope the battle up front would slow them down but that never happened all it did was speed them up.

At the end of the race I had finished third. All in all I had a great time and this was a really fun race to attend.

All proceeds and donations go to a great cause to find a Cure for Cancer. I would like to thank everyone that showed up and donated time and money to make this race happen.

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Top 3:
Kyle Rhodes: Pro-Line, Kyosho, Top
Alex Kosciuszek: Jconcepts, Associated, OS
Mark Smyka: Pro-Line, Hot Bodies, Reds

I would also like to thank all my sponsors for there support! I could not compete at the level I do with out their help!

Pro-Line Racing, REDS Racing, Hot Bodies USA, Futada, O’Donnell Fuel, Advantage Racing Products, Trinity/Rev Tech, Viper RC

My Stuff:
Hot Bodies D812
Pro-Line Tires and Wheels
Futaba Servos and Radio
REDS Racing R5 Team
Advantage Racing Bearings and lubs
Trinity Batteries
Pro-Line Type R Body

– Mark Smyka