Well, AMS 6.0 is in the books! What a great few days of racing with some of the best drivers in the nation, meeting up with old friends (and some new ones), and just plain fun. AMS has quickly become one of my favorite events every year because of the more casual attitude and the very organized race program. After some Maintenance and the confidence gained from the Hobbyplex, I was set to do my very best at the race that wasn’t too friendly last year.
Practice went pretty well. It was apparent right away the track would be quite different than last year. Instead of being the hard packed sandy track with dust all over the place, it instead was extremely smooth and had almost no dust (thanks to the track crew) and it started to groove up pretty quickly.
I started out with M4 Hole Shot 2.0s which were good on the developing surface, but quickly switched to M4 Electrons as they had far more all around grip and were easier to drive consistently fast.
Once I settled on the right Tire, I made a few tweaks to the Nitro car in hopes it would improve a little bit, but ran out of daylight and practice time to test everything I wanted. Both cars were feeling pretty good at that point so I was confident going into the quals.
Nitro qualifying was a little rough as I had some bad luck and just some less than spectacular driving on my part. Getting used to the feel of the Nitro car has been a bit of a struggle but I was slowly improving! I had a flameout during my second run, so I had to rely on my first and third for any decent spot in the qualifying order I ended up with a 19th overall for the first run, and on the second run I believe I was on an 11th overall pace before making a bonehead crash which dropped me down a little bit. I qualified towards the pack of the pack in the B-Main, which was disappointing because I knew the car had more speed but I still met my goal!
E-Buggy qualifying on the other hand went very well, thanks in no small part to the awesome Hobbywing power I was using. The back straight went a little faster for me than with everyone else it seemed. With this class being far more familiar in feel I was able to manage a 4th in one round and a 7th in another which set me up for 6th overall on the A-Main starting grid.
Going into the Mains, both Tekno cars felt pretty good and was confident I could make a charge in both classes to move up the order a little bit. When we arrived on Mains day, the track had definitely developed even more of a groove and the track was far more abrasive.
For the Nitro Main, I decided to run Hole Shot 2.0s in M4 to hopefully combat the conditions. For the first half of the B Main, my car felt great and I was able to slowly pick off positions until I made it into 5th. Around the halfway point I could feel the Tires start to go away, and realized the track was far more abrasive than anything I’ve ever driven on. I kept the 5th position for only a couple laps until I came up to a back-marker and passed them, but collided after landing a following jump sending my car off the track and causing my engine to flame. This somehow only set me back to the 6th position, and I got back out and ran laps as cautiously ran laps to hold my position, but a crash near the end put me into the 7th position. Not too shabby for only my second ever long Nitro Main!
My Tires were very worn after that race but after looking at one of the cars that had bumped and seeing their large pin Tires were almost completely balded,
I realized how amazing it was that I even had pins left on my small pin Hole Shot 2.0’s. Great Tire right there!
For the E-Buggy Mains, I pulled out a backup set of used Electrons and hoped they would make it through the double A’s. The first Main was a little crazy as a crash high!er up in the pack caught a lot of guys both in front of and behind me. I got through it with a minor spin-out from a driver trying to recover his spot and was back into 6th where I started. The rest of the Main was pretty uneventful, aside from a stupid crash coming off the front triple that let both Billy Easton and Shay Brand past me. I would finish in the 8th position. The second Main went a lot smoother, and I had a good battle with Shay Brand up until the end of the race where he finally got me and I had to settle back for 6th. Both these Mains together put me 6th overall! Good thing this event only used two Mains for the electric classes, as by the end of the night the track had almost turned to sandpaper and while my Electrons still had great grip, one more 10-minute run and they would be completely gone. Very happy with my finish, there were some very fast guys that ended up behind me in the final results.
Extremely happy with my entire package now! Tekno cars were working great the entire weekend and setup changes were very predictable, my Hobbywing ESC and motor were just insanely fast down the straight while keeping the smooth feel they’re known for, and of course my Pro-Line Tires kept my cars glued to the track for the entire event with much less wear than some of the other brands. My Phantom Body looked great also!
Equipment Used:
Pro Nitro Buggy:
Chassis: Tekno NB48
Tires: Pro-Line Hole Shot 2.0 M4/Electron M4
Wheels: Velocity Lightweight
Body: Stock Tekno
Pro E-Buggy:
Chassis: Tekno EB48.2
Esc: Hobbywing 150A
Motor: Hobbywing 2200kv 4274
Tires: Pro-Line Electron M4
Wheels: Pro-Line Velocity Lightweight
Body: Pro-Line Phantom EB48.2
And as always, HUGE thanks to my sponsors for their amazing support: Tekno R/C, Pro-Line Racing, and Hobbywing North America.
