Last weekend marked the first Nitro race of the year, the CRCRC 1:8 Midwest Championships. It went pretty well all things considered, and I gained a lot of confidence in my overall race package for this year. Really looking forward to a great 2016!
Practice started off pretty well, with the remaining water in the track from the previous weekend slowly drying out as the larger cars and un-burnt fuel from the exhaust continued to attack the surface. Mostly everyone started out on a bar type tire, this time around I chose Pro-Line Electron in M4.
The Electrons had great grip on the clean surface and felt great as I learned the layout and made a few tiny changes to my cars and lines.
As the track started to get dusty and break apart slightly, I moved onto Hole Shots in M4 which felt just as good as the Electrons but handled the dust outside the groove better. With the groove coming in we wrapped it up for the night and prepped the cars for Qual day.
Qualifying went just as well as practice, as I was able to safely get both my NB48.3 and EB48.3 into both of the Pro Buggy A-Mains. I quickly figured out through the rounds how important staying clean on the technical high speed track was; one mistake and you could drop up to 5 positions with all the close racing. With this in mind I setup my cars and chose Hole Shots once again, as they helped me stay super consistent and run clean laps in the unique Rocket Round format usually only seen at smaller races.
The night before Mains day was a bit of a journey, a fire alarm going off in the hotel at 5am definitely meant I had my work cut out for me through the long Nitro Main. During A-Main warm-up both cars felt great, trying Blockades on the Nitro Buggy this time around just for a safer car on the increasingly slick surface. For the 10-minute E-Buggy Main, I got off to a decent start just trying to stay clean and not get caught up in any wrecks as I worked my way towards the front. Unfortunately on the 4th lap a car that had jumped a lane came back onto the track jumped over the tube flipping my car over, making me race from the back of the pack. I still managed to keep my head down and race through the field, eventually getting up to 4th as I chased down the 3rd place driver. A big crash from lapped cars later in the race caused a bit of chaos and everyone was jumbled up, so as we raced to the line I found myself in 5th where I finished.
The Nitro main went a little better as I got off to a good start and slowly worked my way up to 5th, and maintained the spot as I was on a 9-minute pit strategy which proved to be a big advantage on the fast track. I was able to work up a pretty sizable gap over 6th until I misjudged the triple jump casing the downside, which unfortunately caused a dirt clod to stop my fly wheel and cause a flame-out. Once I got back on the track I had dropped down a few spots, but I worked as hard as I could to put in clean laps and was able to finish in 7th once the smoke settled.
Not too shabby of a way to start off the new year! Thanks to Pro-Line for the great products and tires for keeping my cars glued to the track!
