So straight after Montpellier it was home, swap clothes in the bags and off to America for us.
Day 1: Feb 17th
10-hours 40-minutes of flight time and we touched down.
Colin Herzig met us at the airport and chauffeured us to the track (thanks bud).
We had a quick look at the track and then spent some time meeting people we hadn’t seen in a while, then headed to Quick’s RC to collect our Byron Fuel. Back to the track after, and Daniel from Pro-Line had arrived, and had a little something for us.
The new Pro-Line Fuel Stick!!! Awesome looking piece. Thanks Pro-Line.
Shortly after, it was time to head to the hotel for some well needed rest and sleep.
Day 2: 18th Feb – Practice
The format was supposed to be 2 x 7-minute runs, which would give us a chance to try different setups on both cars. However the reality was that we ended up with 1 x 7-minute practice only! Possibly PC issues, we’re not really sure. This left us no time to test and check options for setup, going into qualifying blind and hoping the cars would be good with our practice setup.
Both cars felt really good in practice with what we had put on as a starting point so we felt confident about qualifying.
Day 3: 19th Feb – E-Buggy Qualifying
So the first day of qualifying and it was to be E-Buggy up first. They had planned to do 3 rounds today, but in the end we ran 2 and would do the last one the next morning.
Run 1 – It was a case of learning the track again as it had changed a lot since the practice run, and all the other guys had been out on track with Truggy. The car was really good but a few little bobbles cost us, giving us 10th overall.
Run 2 – We made a small change to the car for this run and the car felt great. The pace of the car was great but an issue with traffic cost us a good result placing us 11th for the Round.
Run 3 – Knowing the car felt good it was a case of trying to find some clear space on the track. We managed to find this and finally show our pace, with a 3rd Overall, which would place us 8th on the grid for the Main.
Day 4: 20th Feb – Nitro qualifying
Run 1: We had copied the changes we had found to work over onto the Nitro Car and felt positive we were in good shape for Top 3’s. Run one began and our pace was great, however we suffered an issue with another driver doing some unsportsmanlike behavior which resulted in a long crash for us. Giving us 13th for the round. Not a great start but the car felt fantastic.
Run 2: Knowing how good the car had been in the last run we set out in some space and were setting good pace. Lead was switching between us and Ty for the whole race, with Ty taking it in the end by 0.02-Seconds . Happy we had finally showed the pace we had all weekend was great. Onto the final round.
Run 3: Once again we found a bit of space and were once again sitting top 2 in the time sheets. We caught some traffic and passed one car, but were then we were taken out by him at the next corner! Ruining our run. We managed to take 10th for the round. Which would give us 7th on the grid for the Main. Top Kyosho.
Day 5: 21st Feb – Electric Final
We had a 7-min A-Main warm up, which we used to test a different tire to what we had used all weekend. We tried Big Blox and the result was good so we decided we would use them for the Main.
A Main: the final began, corner one over the jumps then bang. Someone made contact with us sending us off the track and onto our roof. Dead last on the first lap with a big gap. It would be a case of trying to make as good a comeback as possible. Passing cars, and the car working well. 10-mins was not long to get back up to the front though and we ended in 6th. One more lap and we could have challenged 4th and 5th place. A shame that the driving standard wasn’t great with no punishment, but we did the best we could after it.
Day 6: 22nd Feb – Nitro Main
We would have a 10-min practice which we used to test two different tires for the main. After the practice, we decided that we would run Big Blox once again, just like we had on the Electric.
Main: Hoping for a clean start unlike the previous day…… once again someone made contact with us at the same point as the Electric main. Dropping us back down the field. Keeping in touch with the field later round the lap a large collection of cars came together and we managed to make it past clean. Getting into 5th place in the process. Going into the whoops section Lutz was in front and got slightly out of shape, putting a move on him. However we were then hit by a car from behind and put onto our roof. The Marshall was unable to get to us due to all the cars. Once again it would be a fight back through the field. Keeping our head down we managed to fight back to 8th place. A good result for us, but once again poor driving standards and no punishment for it really hurt our race.
We were still pleased to make both Mains directly and to finish top ten in both.
Thanks to all the The Dirt crew for a great track. Thanks to Joe Pillars from Kyosho, USA.
As always a big Thanks to all sponsors who make it possible:
Kyosho, Pro-Line, Tekin, Reds, Byron, Sanwa, BittyDesign, Maugraphix, LRP Batteries, SMD, Inside Line Racing, Ghea, Racer, Rudebits, RDRP, Racers Design Products.
Next up for us will be practice for our first National of the year which will be on astro.
Till next time, have fun all and enjoy your racing. If you see us trackside come and have a chat, were always happy to help.
Thanks
Team Boots
