Much like NASCAR, we start our season off with the biggest race of the year. The Canadian Indoor Offroad Shootout is held every year in Tillsonburg, Ontario. Where is Tillsonburg? The best answer would have to be just west of no where! (infact it is actually 2.5hrs west of Toronto) This year the race had over 400 entries, and the competition was more fierce than ever.
I ran the prototype 1/8th electric buggy at this event as well as truggy and buggy. At the start of the weekend my electric 1/8th buggy was the center of attention as many people stopped by to talk about it as well as take a few photos of it. I made 4 practice runs with the new E-Buggy and had 3 motors blow up on me. I ended up borrowing a motor from somebody for the first qualifier and with only about 20laps on the car in practice on that layout I was off. I set TQ in the first round over Barry Baker, Dave Henry and Tamiya Canada's Abiye Birku. Round 2 I made the wrong tire choice and ended up not improving my time, but Barry had beat my TQ. In round 3 my car was dialed and set some very fast, impressive laps with the car! Going into the last minute Barry and I were both on new TQ runs, but he ended up going a little faster than me in that run and took TQ - the main was definately going to be exciting!!...or so I thought. When the horn sounded to start the main I got tagged a number of times allowing Barry to sail off to an easy, uncontested victory and I had to settle for a very disappointing 4th! However the car ran great, and I can't say enough about how awesome this new electric buggy is!

In truggy, it just wasn't my weekend. Between lap traffic, bad tire choices, and stupidity on my part I just couldn't qualify for the A main. I ended up in the B main with Frank Calandra and knew we both had the best chance of bumping up if we could run clean races. We both ran clean races and Frank ended up bumping up. On the other hand, I did not have such great luck. With 10 seconds to go in the race I had a drive pin fall out and ended up on 3 wheel drive. I got passed by Hot Bodies driver Rick Endler and ended up 3rd.
In Buggy there was some instense competition all weekend long. Dakotah Phend set TQ with a diverse field of manufactures represented behind him all hungry to take the win! In qualifying, my goal was to put in 3 solid runs which should put me in the A. However after breaking in the first round, I put in a conservative second run to make sure I was in good position for the re-sort. Unfortunately I didn't better my time in round 3 and ended up qualifying in a stacked B main with Frank Calandra, Scott Cramer, and a host of other extremely fast drivers. When the tone sounded I got mixed up a little at the start of the race and ended up in DEAD LAST by about 1/4 lap. Being already upset about the truggy main prior I was out to prove something. I drove like I never drove before picking off each car 1 by 1 in the 20min B main to come back and pass Scott Cramer to take 2nd with just over 5min to go. Praying to the RC Gods for the last 10sec to go smoothly this time, they answered my prayers. I ended up bumping up with Frank Calandra to the A Main. The fun had only just began!

In the A main I drove a smart, clean, hard race out to prove that I belonged in the A main. Another bad start, this time as a result of a personal error left me with a huge deficit to make up again right from the start. I turned some crazy fast laps the entire race trying to catch back up and with some great pit strategy from my Dad and Tamiya's Tom Wright I was able to pass cars both on track and in the pits! The funny thing I have always found about offroad in the short time I have been running it is that with 15 cars in the A-Main...being that 15th car means you have to pass 14 others to end up first ! (I know genious math right?) well I felt like I had passed more cars than I had ever passed before and I was STILL in 5th!! I ended up picking off 1 more car in the final minute to end up 4th, still on the lead lap! The final results in buggy were as follows:

1. Dakotah Phend (Losi)
2. Dave Henry (Losi)
3. Mike Morales (O'Donnell)
4. Steve Bortolotti (Tamiya)
5. Derek Guidery (Associated)
6. Jerome Treignier (Kyosho)
7. Frank Calandra Jr. (Losi/CRC)
8. Chris Rogers (?)
9. Ben Wheeler (Associated)
10. Daniel Yachin (Losi)
11. Jimbo Kuidera (O'Donnell)
12. Mark Calandra (Losi/CRC)
13. Barry Baker (O'Donnell)
14. Abiye Birku (Tamiya)
15. George Stilliadis (Losi)