I recently attended the 2016 Roar Nationals in Omaha, Nebraska at the HobbyPlex. This was my first time being there so I wasn’t really sure what to expect and I have to say that the facility is pretty awesome. The layout that they put in was extremely fun and it was kind of different than anything I have really ever run on. The drivers stand is little different from what we are used to at most tracks as well and for me it took some time to get used to and really had to rely on someone to watch your car and see what it is doing just because the stand was so high up and you couldn’t see anything.
Starting out there was two full days of practice and I came with pretty much the same setup from what we had learned at the shootout with some slight changes. As we ran through the day of open practice and moved into the second day with timed practice I was feeling pretty good with both my cars. I seeded towards the front of the B-qualifier in the 2wd class and about mid pack in the 4wd b-group as well. After all of practice I was pretty confident with both my cars I felt like they were pretty easy to drive and really only made some minor adjustments through the rest of the weekend.
The biggest thing for me when I go to a 1:10 race is trying to get my tires right and think I did that with some help from the Tessmann it was then a decision between the normal electron and the electron lite. I felt that through the whole weekend my 4wd had plenty of grip so I stuck with the lite on that car and started with the lite in the beginning of the week and went to the normal electron in 2wd when I felt I needed more grip. Unfortunately once qualifying started I could not drive my cars what so ever just like something clicked in between practice and qualifying and I started having problems. I focused so much I driving conservative that I think it hurt me and I really ended up with what I would consider no good runs in either of the cars. The track was difficult at times with this huge drop off coming on to the straight away that pretty much made your car chassis slap and really upset the car if you weren’t patient. With that being said I did make slight changes to each car throughout most of the runs trying stuff like link position, ball stud heights and shocks pistons. And with that I did not make the goals I had set for myself and ended up in the C-main for 4wd and E-main for 2wd. I wish I could say that I did better since it was almost an embarrassment how I did but on the bright side I learned a ton more about our 2wd and also roll center and how much it can affect a car. Every run with the 2wd it gets better and better and I am really starting to understand it.
I’ll take this experience and use it as motivation and work harder for the next one race which I believe is the 1:8 Worlds now. I would like to say thanks to all my sponsors that help me out with everything and make this possible as well as special thanks for all the help from the Tessmann’s and the Pro-Line crew. Overall it was a great experience, I wish I could have done better but I learned a lot and we will move on to the next race knowing what I need to practice.
– Tanner Stees
