This past weekend, the boys and I attended the Georgia State Championship at Phil Hurd Raceway. Huge shout out to Roger Cowart who had the track in amazing shape with incredible traction throughout. He puts in countless hours to maintain the track for the club. Patrick Rossiter Jr. ran an incredible race program and entertained on the mic throughout. Drew Singer did a great job with the behind the scenes work to make the event possible and picked out the best looking awards we have had in a while. Also, a big thank you to all the SCORE Members who helped make this event a huge success.
Ronan ran his EB48 2.0 with great success in the novice class. He TQ’ed every round and won the main easily. He has improved his lines but needs to work on throttle control before moving out of novice. His car was hooked up on VP Pro Gripz SSLW/VP-813-M2 all weekend.
Aidan made the switch the Xray XB8 for this race and had only driven 2 battery packs with the car prior to the event. He adapted quickly to the quicker turn in, but still piped the car a few times adjusting. He qualified 13th overall in Ebuggy which was the biggest class at the event and 3rd in 15u Ebuggy. He started the B-Main in 4th and mayhem ensued by the second turn in the ebuggy race with him going to next last. By the end of the second lap, he was in second. He continued to battle for the final bump spot the rest of the race and was able to come out on top making the bump to the double A-mains. Unfortunately, a few races later we had a huge downpour that ended the event prior to the electric buggy mains. He raced good in the 15u and finished in the same position he qualified in, 3rd.
I ran 40+ nitro buggy and open nitro buggy with my XB8. The 40+ is always full of fast racers and ran it mostly for extra track time. I qualified in 6th and finished the main in 7th after a freak flameout when a car landed on top mine after the tabletop. Despite this, I still did not have the speed or consistency to make it on the podium. After the race, I was able to make a quick change to the car for the nitro buggy race. The car was much better with the small change.
I had my best run in Q2 with the nitro buggy taking TQ, but due to a couple of poor runs I qualified 4th. In the main, I made some mistakes at the start and fell to seventh. I continued to battle back gradually picking up positions in the 25 minute main. Sometime around the 15-20 minute mark, I got squeezed tight going over the dragon back and hit a concrete turn marker. I caused my car to pull to the right the rest of the race which made it hard to control in the air leading to a few crashes. Despite this Michael Kuntz and I had a good battle for second until about 5 laps left when I passed him and maintained the position until the end. Congrats to Bubba High on the win.
My XRAY XB8 was incredible all weekend. I ran it in two back to back 25 minute nitro mains without any issue. It is by far the best car I have ever owned.
VP PRO tires from Dialed-RC Hobbies hobbies were great all weekend. Rainmaster/VP-811 tires in a soft compound were great for early morning qualifiers when there was still lots of moisture in the track. Once the calcium did its thing and the traction went up, Turbo Trax (SSLW)/VP-804-M2 and Blade (SSLW)/VP-809-M2 were great for the rest of the day depending on the dust level. In the mains, Turbo Trax (SLW)/VP-804-M1 and Blades (SSLW)/VP-809-M2 were both great.
Thanks to Roger Cowart for allowing me to pit in his awesome race trailer again. He did an awesome job in the pits and our pit strategy worked perfectly. I stopped running out of fuel when I started listening to him. His son Wilson is now the one to beat in Ebuggy.
Thanks to the Wests (Mark West) for keeping us fed all weekend. Congrats to Mark on the podium finish in Nitro Truggy.
Thanks to Adam Drake for providing a clinic Thursday and Friday for the club. He helped me set the brake linkage dead band and another small change which made my car drive even better.
English