While I'm waiting for my local carpet track to be finished with construction, I ventured out to R/C Excitement for their 5th annual Gobbler Indoor Offroad Championships.  It has been a long time since I ran my 1/10th 4wd electric competitively.  My 501x was had some rear diff issues and was not ready for a race.  I took my Baldre for the event since it was wired up and ready to go.

The track surface was smooth and had plenty of traction with a groove that formed towards the end of the day.  The tires to run were Losi pink compound front taper pins and rear BK-bars.  The Baldre hooked up well but I needed a lot of adjustment to my driving since I have been running 1/8 nitro all summer long.   I ran pretty much a stock out of the box setup on the Baldre. I felt the Baldre could have used slightly more rear traction.   I moved the rear arms forward to put more weight on the rear end for more rear traction.  I also changd the shock oil to 30 weight in the front shocks and 25 weight in the rear shocks with red springs in the rear and yellows in front.

There were 3 qualifyers and with each qualifyer I ran faster lap times.  My 3rd qualifyer was my fastest but with a few slip ups my time fell off an a-main run.  I ended up qualifying 3rd in the b-main.  I had a great holeshot off the starts with the inside line for 2nd place at the start of the b-main.  First place made a mistake and I was able to take the lead.  I made a mistake and 2nd and 3rd took over the top two spots.  The race was tight since the three of us were all close together.  With the top two battling for position, I was able to get by for the lead once again.  Lap traffic was tough and I was able to keep the lead for the final few minutes of the race.  At the finish I crossed the line for 1st place.

Overall, I felt the weekend was great.  I did well for dusting off the electric buggy and dragging it out of retirement.  I was glad to see that I was not the only Tamiya out there.  A local racer had a 501x that looked totally hooked up on the track.  I know for next time I will have both buggies ready for the next time I venture out to R/C Excitement.