This past weekend was the first round of the Central Florida Off-Road series. It was held at YuperMotors RC Complex in Lakeland, FL. With over 140 entries from drivers all over the state and a fresh new track layout, it turned into the event to be at in the State of Florida.

Landen Lewis was on site competing in Pro Nitro Buggy, E-Buggy and Nitro Truggy. In Nitro Truggy, Landen was able to set an easy 1st Round TQ but had a camber link issue in qualifier #2 which caused a DNF and Kyosho Teammate, Justin Fales took advantage to take the overall TQ from Landen by .03 seconds on this 2nd round run. In the 20-minute A-Main, Justin and Landen pulled away early from the rest of the pack. 3 laps in, Justin had a little bobble and Landen was able to make the pass. By the end of the 20-minutes, Landen was able to take the win by 2 laps over 2nd place.

Pro-Line took the podium sweep with Ricky Layman and Freddy Villalona taking 2nd and 3rd. M4 and M3 Holeshots were the tire to have all weekend.

In E-Buggy, the competition was tight and the A-Main was stacked with top drivers. Landen started 5th on the grid and was able to move up to 2nd place after a few laps into the Main. John Bernard started 1st on the grid and was able to get away early. Landen fought hard to try and catch up but when the tone sounded, he fell short of catching John and took 2nd place on the podium. It was a great race and Landen’s Kyosho MP9 was stuck to the track on his Pro-Line M3 Holeshots.

In Nitro Buggy, Landen was battling with 2nd place when the air temperature dropped very quickly as the sun was going down. Landen went to dodge a buggy upside down and was hit by another buggy which caused him to flip over. Before the turn-marshal could get to him, his buggy had flamed out. A quick re-tune and fuel, Landen went back out determined to catch back-up. With 3-minutes to go, Landen had caught 3rd place and was able to get around him with 2 laps to go. The tone sounded and it was a fight to get back to the line for the last podium position. Landen hit the big jump and landed it perfectly only to find several buggies upside down. Landen unfortunately got tangled up and before the turn-marshal could get it all straighten out, 4th place passed him to take 3rd. To finish 4th overall was a victory after being a lap down from the leaders 5- minutes into the race.

Landen ran M3 Holeshots in the main which had as much traction at the end of the race as he did and the start even in the Florida sandy clay with high tire wear.

The 1st Round of this 5 race series was a huge success and Landen would like to thank all of his sponsors for helping make all of this possible:  Kyosho, Pro-Line, Airtronics, Murnan Modified Motors, Trinity, LFR, Schelle Racing,  MIP, CRAP Grease, and Kustom RC Graphics!

Landen will be attending the 1st round of the JConcepts SuperCup and then it’s off to Phoenix for the Dirt Nitro Challenge.