September 20th, 2014 1/8th scale racers gathered at The Tiltyard in Dayton, VA for the Virginia State 1/8th Off-Road Championships sanctioned by ROAR. As region director, I started out the day by leaving Shippensburg, PA with my son Ethan for our two and half hour trek south to the track. Arriving just after 7:15 AM on Saturday morning, we would begin prepping our vehicles for practice.
The track is clay with several elevation changes supporting its namesake.
Being free of race director responsibilities, I would enter into the 1/8th Nitro Buggy class with my Kyosho MP9 TKI3 powered by an OS Speed Spec 2. I used Hole Shots in the X3 compound in practice while the surface was still moist and shifted to X3 LockDowns for the qualifiers and main event. Round 1 of qualifying went well and I had few mistakes while in lapped traffic and was sitting 13th out of 35 nitro buggies. Round 2 went even better with only one mistake which moved me up to starting 8th now in the A-main.
I was on a pace to start 4th but with the mistake lost a few seconds. Round 3 pretty much matched my round 2 and I would qualify on the number 8 spot on the grid for the feature event. The 30-minute nitro A-main was held under the lights as daylight had diminished with the late summer days getting ever shorter. At then end of the 30-minute, I finished 6th.
The car and tires worked great. All could have been better if not for my vision when running under the lights with the shadows.
Ethan would enter into the event in the 1/8th Electric buggy class with his Mugen MBX6 Eco on Pro-Line M3 Blockades. While in practice, Ethan tested out the different combinations of the new Trifecta wing and found the wider wicker bill to be more suitable to his liking. After the first two rounds of qualifying he was sitting 7th in the A-main feature. Round 3 came in qualifying where he laid down his best error free run of the day to move his starting position to the 4th on the grid for the double A-Main features. With two good runs in the features, Ethan would finish 4th overall after the double A-Main features were completed.
Thanks to Pro-line for their support in the event.
