3-15-10

Up, down, good, bad, fun, windy! What a crazy week of racing in Las Vegas Nevada. Joey from the 'Dirt' was brought in to build this track and he got it done just in the nick of time as weather held up the process in the beginning. But come Thursday morning we were racing and doing our best to figure out layout. In general the track was pretty simple in theory. Just a lot of doubles all around. The difference maker was going to be the whoop section which started as easier whoops and and gradually got deeper as you went through them. This is where races could be won or lost.

In Truck qualifying it was a tale of extremes for me. In my first qualifier there was a sudden delay at the 'loop is live' call. I guess the announcers michrophone went out and he had tried to say loop is live. Anyways I guess in that 30 seconds I had crossed the loop and thus when the call of 'the loop is live' finally rang out I figured I was just starting from the bak of the pack like normal. My first couple laps with my 801Xt were great feeling but I never heard my name on the leaderboard. I lost my mental edge as I'm tryign to listen for my name and eneded up making mistakes near the end of the run. All in all though it wasn't a terrible run. So after I marshal I went to check the results and find that my firfst lap was 14 seconds slower than my average lap, and my first lap was clean. So afer finding out the reason why they credited my time and I ended 7th for the round. In round number two I had a DNS due to mechanical failure in warmup. So it was up to round number 3. The track had started to groove up and traction was very high in the groove but there was also very loose marbles just outside of the line to where if you missed you were skating around! Well I'm still struggling with my high bite set-up and thus was only able to manage a top 16 run. So my 23 points put me 3rd in the B-main.

Buggy qualifying was a little bit better. In the first round the track was a challenge as it still had some looseness to all the corners as they were still watering every once in a while. I went to put down a clean run and did the best I could. I had a great line through the whoop section and was able to take TQ for rd #1 with my 801X.  In round two and round three the Whoop section began to change and my line actually got a little blown out in the back end of it. I was still able to put in top 10 runs with an 8th and a 7th respectively. Overall I was to start 4th on the A-main Grid.

Truggy main was up first. My starting position would be the closest I got to bumping up. From the start I began to fight the surface and got pummeled by other drivers. (whom apologized after the race). I took many bad tumbles and with the track in a high bite surface with loose edges I just never got the feel. With all the crashing and tumbling about 12 minutes in I lost a steering servo and it put me out of the running. (Looking forward to my next loose track!) :-)

Buggy main was the last main of the weekend and the track was probably at its hardest. Not only was there a groove but a lot of the edge fluff made it's way onto the driving line in certain sections of the track. As the tone went off I had a good first couple of corners and then got punted to near the rear of the pack. I was never able to make much of a charge but in the middle I began to put in as consistent of laps as I could. My line through the whoops from earlier in the week was all but gone so lap after  lap I was searching sor something else. My consistency through the whoops never materialized and I just had to do the best I could. After the dust cleaered and the 45 minute A-main was complete I was in 8th place.

All in all it's been a grueling last 4 weeks. Traveling all over the country to all different types of tracks. It's been great to meet so many people and hear a lot of the interest they have in the Tamiya products! The buggy is about a month away from it's one year aniversary and we have made some good progress with it already. The truck also has the new arms now which helped both Jimmy Wright and Ricky Racer take Victory this past weekend in the 40+ class and Open class respectively! Great job guys!

Next up for me will be the Neo-Buggy event in England! Hopefully I can take what I learned there last year and turn it into victory this year!

In the words of team GFD, lets go TA TA TAmiya!