Factory Team / Race Events

Mackanick’s: Round 2 of the PA Turnpike Tussle

On March 7st Kickin Dirt RC held the 2nd round of the 2015 Turnpike Tussle in Somerset, PA with another fast paced off-road layout and a record setting 124 entries. The racing would be tight all day on the clay track.

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Pro-Line drivers, Jason and Ethan Mackanick were in attendance running the competitive 4WD Mod SCT class with a Tekno SCT410 and their Xray XB4 4wd Modified Buggies. The short course truck was equipped with a set of MC  (Front / Rear) Electrons and the Toyota Tundra body. The buggies were both equipped with 2.4″ MC compound Transistor tires on the front, 2.4 MC compound Electron tires on the rear, and the latest 1/10th Trifecta wing.

With 28 entries, the 4wd modified buggy class was the largest class at the event.  After two rounds of qualifying, Ethan would put his Xb4 buggy on the number two qualifying spot splitting the Team Associated drivers of Mike Gay and Matt Stoltz. For the first few laps of the race Mike Gay and Ethan would pull away from the rest of the field. Mike would continue to pull away from the entire field while Ethan would battle it out for a few laps with Stoltz and Buckland both making hard charging attempts to overtake the youngster. Ethan would hold off those attempts and begin to pull away from both of those drivers to finish with a solid second place finish.

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The 4wd modified short course truck class provided some challenges to work through for Jason. The first round of qualifying the truck was on TQ pace but after some shenanigans while fooling around with some of the other racers during the heat, he was only qualified 7th. Heat number 2 was time to lay down the serious laps and that was the mission as Jason was on TQ pace with a minute to go when the steering servo began to slow to a crawl. With only 2 heats of qualifying and 6 cars straight to the A-Main with 2 bump-ups, Jason would have to start at the front of the B-Main. Unsure of the exact problem with the servo or a battery, Jason made the call to try the servo one more time. It began to overheat again at about the 4-minute mark of the B-Main, but he was able to hang on for the win and bump to the A-Main. A fellow friend, Pat Risser installed a backup servo into the truck while Jason did his time turn marshalling. Coming from the 7th place starting position after 3 laps, Jason moved into the 3rd place position. He would then overtake Ed Godula for 2nd and move on to put the pressure on Ethan Ross to take over the lead. Mackanick and Godula would keep the trucks one and two until the final lap and 2nd to last corner. Mackanick would run into lapped traffic pile up with no where to go and his truck would lock bumpers with Max Roland. The vehicles had to be freed by a marshall and that was enough to let Godula slip by for the win.

A tip for racers when selecting bodies for their trucks. The EVO body has better turn in as compared to the Toyota Tundra while sacrificing some rear end stability.

For high speed tracks with sweepers I would recommend the Toyota Tundra to keep the rear end locked in.  If the track is tight and no sweepers, then I would advise staying with the EVO body.  Having the two bodies with the same setup on the truck allows you to tune quickly for the track conditions.

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The Trifecta Wings are still holding up strong after 2 months of use in the 1/10th buggy class.

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Thanks to Pro-Line for the support, Seth Williams for the photos, support from LCRC Raceway Kevin and Christa, and Pro-Lines Chad Segner for organizing the series.

– Jason Mackanick