This past weekend I attended the 3 day Novarossi Challenge at Barnstormers in Chester, NY which brought out some of the big guns like Lutz and Drake which is always exciting.
It was my first weekend with a brand new chassis in both Nitro Buggy and Truggy so there were some learning curves in the first qualifiers but the cars had great traction with a variety of Tires all weekend but it was going to come down to which tread would last during the long nitro Mains because the track was on the abrasive side.
After a rough qualifying day adjusting to a new car and track on Main day
I went with X3 LockDowns and Pro-Line Type-R Body and Trifecta Wing in Pro Nitro Buggy and I was able to move up through the odd 1/4 finals to the odd Semi-Finals.
The Semi-Final race was a blast and I did my best but unfortunately I missed the bump to the Final by 2 spots which would put me around 14th over all. Personally I was very happy with my finish, there were a lot of fast guys and I was on a new chassis and I had not raced in over a month because of a new adventure in my personal life so I was pretty excited to make the semi.
In Truggy I would do well all weekend even with a brand new chassis, I tried Hole Shots, Suppressors and Blockades during qualifying and although the Hole Shots seemed to have the most traction it was almost too much making the truck very touchy and I additionally I was concerned about wear during the long 30-minute A-Main so
I decided on X3 Blockades for the Main.
After qualifying I was 6th over all behind some legends so I was just happy to be in the A-Main which made me more relaxed than I would usually be if I was TQ and had to hold the lead the entire 30-minutes. After the first few laps I made my way up to 4th where I would stay the majority of the race behind Ryan in first, Adam in 2nd and Anthony in 3rd. I ran a very clean race up until about the third to last lap when I clipped a pipe which allowed Frank who was pushing hard to get by me and that is where I would finish in 5th.
Over all I am very happy with my results and it was some of the most fun I have had racing in a while, great guys and very clean racing and a very smooth program. Kudos to Rohan Grant for hosting a great show.
