Saturday August 16th was the 4th Annual Karsyn’s Krusaders Off-Road Challenge held at LRT Raceway in Evansdale, IA. This is the track that my Dad and I own and maintain. I built a pretty tricky layout for this race and the back jump section gave everyone fits and made clean runs very difficult. 63 racers filled up the myriad of classes and I choose to race 1:8 Electric Buggy and 1:8 Pro Nitro Buggy. Both cars were very good through practice and we mainly just worked on getting the right tires as the track evolved throughout the day. We decided on X3 BIG BLOX as our tires for both cars for the Mains. I would line up 3rd in both the Electric and the Nitro Mains.
As we approached the two Buggy finals I went out to volunteer marshal the Sportsman Buggy Main so they would have adequate marshal help. I went after a wrecked car and I stepped on a loose rock or dirt clod and broke my foot! I hobbled to the drivers stand for my two back to back Mains and basically had to stand on my one good leg for over a 1/2 hour of racing.
The 10-min E-Buggy Main was a 3-way dog fight between Mike Murphy, Tony Bacon and myself with all of us leading at various stints. Tony and I tangled while racing to catch Mike at the end, letting him get away for the win, with Tony in 2nd and I came home in 3rd.
We started out the Nitro Buggy 20-minute Main, I jumped quickly into 2nd and set chase on the TQ driver Aric Seffrod. Aric had been extremely fast and consistent in qualifying and both of us set a blistering pace early on and opened up a gap on the field. Aric made a small bobble on the tricky back jump section which allowed me to get into the lead but with him still right behind me. About 4.5-minutes in, Aric’s engine flamed and that gave me a pretty comfortable lead, but I crashed 2 laps in a row in a bit of a no man’s land and had long marshals. This brought Tony Bacon back into contention as we entered the first round of pit stops but Tony’s engine cut out after his fuel stop and it was pretty much clean sailing from there as I cruised home for the win with a lap and 1/2 gap over 2nd place.
We put on the Karsyn’s Krusaders race for a local charity that raises money to help families affected by cancer, particularly childhood cancer. While our contribution through the RC event isn’t their biggest fundraising event. I take a lot of pride in “our” racers stepping up for such a worthy cause. This was the 4th year we’ve held the race and it is one we always look forward to. BUT there was 1 missing trophy from my collection and that was a Pro Nitro Buggy win. I finally was able to accomplish that goal this year!
I could not have done that without a great handling car (that’s tough as nails) a great engine and fuel combo and the best selection of tires out there!
I am really happy with our current race package and feel I can be competitive whenever I go racing!
Thank you for the continued support,
Danny Bartholomew
