Chris Cristo at Motorama on Pro-Line Electrons

This past weekend I attended Motorama held at the Farm Show Complex & Expo Center in Harrisburg, PA. Motorama is truly a unique event in that it is held in a 1 million square foot facility that host a car show, go kart racing, arena cross racing, quarter midget racing, robot wars and two R/C tracks all at the same time. The best part about the event is that 50,000 spectators pass through the facility and are exposed to R/C racing.

This year’s event had over 700 total entries with 359 on the smaller 1:10 track. 1:8 Buggies, Truggies and 4WD Short Course raced on the larger track while all other 1:10 classes raced on the smaller track. The large track was about 250ft X 150ft and made of what looked like a top-soil/loam material. The size of the smaller track was increased this year from previous years and was roughly 140ft X 100ft and made of clay. The track crew did an exceptional job building a layout that was both fun and challenging while making sure it flowed well. At night they took care of any maintenance that needed to be done to ensure the surface stayed consistent for everyone.

Scotty Ernst was the race director for the large track while Charlie Suangka took care of running the small track. The days were long, but Charlie kept the program running without a hitch and didn’t waste any time. Practice was Friday morning followed by on qualifier at night and 2 qualifiers on Saturday.

I raced on the small track and entered modified 2wd short course, modified 2WD Buggy and modified 4WD Buggy. After 3 rounds of qualifying I was 8^th(out of 46) in mod short course and 28^th (out of 91) in mod 2WD Buggy. Unfortunately my 4WD Buggy suffered irreparable damage in the 2^nd qualifier that forced me to retire it for the weekend. Both my 2WD Buggy and short course were good were good all weekend and easy to drive on the low bite track. Qualifying was super tight and one small mistake would drop you 3-4 places. The qualifying order in most mains were separated by about 5-seconds from 1st through 10th place. After all was said and done I ended up finishing 8th in Short Course and 6^th in the Buggy C-Main. Given the amount of entries at the race I’m satisfied with my results.