2015 Futaba Nitro Challenge held at Dirt Burners R/C Club in St. Louis, MO has come and gone once again with great racing in hot and humid weather. This year we were lucky enough to not have any threat of rain which has been a norm this year. The racing action was poised to be close with a great track build by Levi Jackson of Sik Track Designs. The layout was busy with a perfect amount of technical sections and great jump spacing. The track was ran dry past the Thursday practice causing the race line to groove up and become slick in some corners while other corners blew out to give way to moon craters. This required a firmer tire such as Pro-Lines X2 and X3 compounds.
From mid morning to afternoon the track saw full sun with temps in the low 90’s and the humidity continuing to rise made the X2 compound the one to run. With a slight amount of powder or fluff on the race line perimeter Tire Choice was key. Hole Shots were good but Blockades were the safe Tire if one found themselves In this fluff. Going into practice my TLR 8ight 3.0 and 8ight-T 3.0 felt good with Drakes standard setups on both. The track was becoming slick so I went up in front diff oil from 5000 to 10000. This really helped pull the Buggy around the corners with the front overdrive. this would be the only change I would make to the Buggy beside adding weight to the rear of the Buggy.
The Truggy didn’t rotate very smoothly. The cornering was very squarish which is normal on the Losi when running in the C hole on the hub. So I moved to the B hole and cornering was much smoother. Off power steering was a bit lacking so I decreased front caster and helped. I wanted a little more overall rear traction so I moved to the low rear roll center suspension mount. These small tweaks really gave me a great handling truck. As qualifying started I knew the first round was going to produce the best runs. My truck was decent with M3 Hole Shots but with the long rear camber link the cornering was not as smooth as I liked. So for the 2nd round I tried X3 Suppresors and the trucks was good but with the high temps I decided to run X2 Hole Shots change the rear roll center lower and reduced the caster and the truck had a good balance of off power and on power steering. At the end of the day Saturday I qualified 3rd in the Expert Truggy A main. In buggy running M3 Blockades for the 1st qualifier the car was really good. Very good on power traction with steering when I needed it. The following day as the track started to breakup buggy became a little loose on power. I went with suppressor tires in X3 which helped the car from catching a rut in the corners but created less sidebit. I would go on to qualify 1st in the B main in the Expert buggy class and 4th in the 40 over buggy class. The expert buggy main was going to be fun since I was BQ. I knew I had a chance to bump to the A. So I decided to just run a safe and clean 20 minute race I made a couple early bobbles and my good friend Larry Stone assumed the lead and I just ran a clean race behind him. We would bump to the Expert A main. I was excited going into the Truggy main as I had a great handling truck. Running X2 Blockades for the 30-minute Main the truck was great. I was able to get past the 2nd place truck halfway into the race and stay there until a crazy mishap with a turn marshal. Going into the triple which I had been double singling I flipped over the single. The marshal ran to flip my truck but slipped and was not able to flip my truck over before 3rd place would pass me. I was on my lid for about 5 seconds before being flipped as time expired as I passed the loop. I was not able to catch now second place. So finished 3rd with frustration to have held 2nd for so long only to have it fall through my fingers. But in everything give thanks,
40 over buggy was up next after marshaling from my truck race on my mind still I was not at the emotional state I would like to have been in. Running X3 Blockades the Buggy was a little of a hand full with the track going away. Becoming rough and inconsistent. After a few bobbles and 2 flame outs I finished 8th overall. This was a good main that lead me to add 20 grams of weight to the rear of the buggy and run M3 Blockades. This was a money setup. The car had not felt this planted and fast all weekend. Starting 12th on the grid I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me. After a few laps I was able to make my way to 4th then to second. My car was really feeling good. I decided to try a 10 minute pit strategy with my OS B2101 engine. I was able to get to the 20 minute mark on one pit. A couple of bobbles had me running in 4th again. A few more bobbles would position me to 6th. At 29 minutes I ran out of fuel. Darn it! Almost made it. Lol. I know I could had ran a little leaner but it was fun to try. I ended in 7th position.
The weekend was extremely fun and refreshing.
Some of the highlights,
Earning a podium finish with Pro-Line Tires that worked perfectly was awesome!!! #proline
Great weather and track layout.
Lastly a huge thank you to everyone at Pro-Line Racing for your hard work and dedication to producing the best tires in the business. #prolineracing
Until the next race “Stay thirtsy my friends”
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