Oct 4, 2009 -

   This past weekend headed out to Thunder Alley to attend the inagural Pro-Line Gas Champs. The turnout was a bit light but the competition was fierce and the new format proved to provide exciting racing action throughout qualifying and the mains!

Every Qualifier was heads up and even practice seated you for qualifying as to where you would start on the grid! It was exciting racing action every race and made it a good show for spectators throughout the weekend! I heard a rumor of the Gate start being reintroduced at this race next year! :-)

 As for how the Tamiya vehicles fared!? I had a decent weekend. My 801X Buggy started off strong but as the track got a little rough I started to struggle. Extreme temperature changes throughout the weekend kept me off balance and I never did gain full comfort. I was able to Qualify 4th for the main event and that's where I would finish as well. I felt my 801X buggy was pretty dialed at the very start of the main, but my diffs heated up and went to water it seemed by the end of the main making the car a handful. I was able to hold onto 4th behind Cavalieri, King, and Amezcua. All in all it wasn't to bad considering and I was also able to do 2 of my 10 min qualifiers without stopping for fuel!

As for the Tamiya 801XT, it fared a little better. It wanted it's weekend to shine and that's what it got. Throughout the weekend my 801Xt was throwing down the fastest laptimes and it was the only vehicle to break below the 31 second lap time with a 30.9 for the whole weekend! In the first round of qualifying I started 4th from the seeding from practice, but quickly took the lead and never looked back, taking a comanding victory. In round 2 I again pulled away to a nice lead when my rear shock screw broke! I ran 5 minutes with my rear shock not working and faught for the lead on the last 2 corners but spun it out. Relinquishing the lead to Cav and Bradley at the very end! So I would need to win the 3rd round for TQ. I tried different tires for rd. 3 but they weren't as good because I couldn't slide the car the way I wanted to. So I settled for 3rd in the round and 2nd qualifier behind Cavalieri overall. 

In the main event my 801Xt was on rails. For about the first 12 minutes Cavalieri and I put in an epic battle swapping positions and having a great race. Then he made a couple mistakes and I was gone! I already was doing 10 min pitstops to his 8 min so he would have to do one more stop than me. I started to stretch my lead over him and when he came in for his second stop, on exit he flamed out! This put me a lap ahead of him as he fell to 4th. My goal now was to lap the field. With about 4 minutes to go I came up on Amezcua and Wheeler as they were battling for 2nd. As I got close and the race was winding down I decided to just let them race for it. Cavalieri had also caught up to them after his flameout so it was going to be a 3 way battle for 2nd. I let Cavalieri go to try and catch them and I just cruised with my 801Xt behind as I watched the battle unfold in front of me! It was cool to have a front row seat to the battle whilst leading! :-D

So in the End my 801Xt shown bright and won the inagural Pro-Line Gas Champs with AKA Gridiron kicks! It was a fun event and I can't wait until next year!

Next up off to the Nitrocross World Championships where I will be veiing for my share of the $25,000 purse! Let's Go Tamiya Power!!

-Lutzinator