This past weekend was the Winter Indoor Nationals held at a local indoor track dubbed “SmacTrac“, this race brings in some of the fastest racers from the Missouri and Illinois area to compete and often marks the first ‘big event’ of the year for regional racers. This time around the event was a little different for me personally, as I would focus more on helping out Tekno, Pro-Line, and Hobbywing customers than solely on my racing. This approach proved to be far more rewarding, less stressful, and definitely more fun!

In addition to my Tekno SCT410, I chose a B5m to fill my second class. Running 2WD recently has made a noticeable difference to the smoothness of my lines and has started to get rid of the some of the bad habits created by solely running 4WD vehicles, that’s good in my book! As this is my home track, practice was far less of a worry than when traveling to other tracks. Without all the Tire testing, I could focus on making simple adjustments to my rides and learning the layout. I quickly became acclimated to the extremely tight and technical course and as always, decided to run M4 Electrons on both vehicles to take advantage of their great forward and side bite.

My rides were hooked, and I was set and ready to go!

Qualifying day went just as smoothly as practice. My Short Course was super dialed from its first run on Friday, and it showed on Saturday! I was able to TQ all three rounds of qualifying by a pretty comfortable margin. My Tekno truck was absolutely glued to the track and was very easy to drive. For 2wd qualifying, things went a little more slowly but I was happy with my results given I only had two previous weekends on the car. I qualified 3 overall in the E-main out of this very stacked class. With some help from Hobbywing Team Manager Ron Schuur, I was able to do a little speed control tuning to my V3.1 ESC to all but eliminate the wheel spin everyone was fighting in this class. I steadily bettered my results as the day went on but I just didn’t have enough luck with traffic on the tight layout to get a far better run in.

Again, Mains day was all smooth sailing. Starting out with 2wd was a little bit of a struggle as I had no practice before my main, but I was able to slide past second place early on in the main and follow Mr. Xfactory himself around to take a bump spot into the D-main. The D went very well, and after a bit of battling I was able to work my way up to third place. I began closing in on the 2nd place driver, but just didn’t have enough time to catch up and settled with 3rd.

Then came the 4wd SCT main, and I was relieved to be back with a vehicle I was actually comfortable with. I was able to lead the main from tone to tone with almost a lap up on the 2nd place driver, a very satisfying result!

I had a ton of fun talking to some people I met and definitely learned a little bit about speed control tuning. It was great to be able to relax a little at an event like this and just have fun, and honestly I think this attitude improved my results! Hopefully this marks the start of a successful 2015 racing season! Throughout the event my Tekno SCT410 performed flawlessly, and my Hobbywing speed controls and motors provided the power and smoothness to compete with some of the best regional drivers all while staying cool. And of course, my Pro-Line Electrons gave me the awesome grip I needed to feel confident and get some fast laps!

Equipment used:

SCT410: Pro-Line M4 Electron SC Tires, Black Renegade Wheels, Hobbywing SCT PRO esc, Hobbywing 4700kv 4-pole motor

B5M: Pro-Line M4 Electron 2.2 Tires, Velocity Wheels, Hobbywing V3.1 esc, Hobbywing V10 7.5t motor

Thanks to all my sponsors: Tekno R/C, Pro-Line Racing, Hobbywing North America, and Andrew Boston from Dialed Photography!

Good Racing!

-Carter Flotron