This past week I attended the Silver State Nitro Challenge in Las Vegas Nevada along side my Tamiya team mates Ricky Racer, Brad Shearer, Ryan Lutz and fellow Track Star driver Pres Ilog. 

Pres and I set out at 1pm on Wednesday to arrive in Vegas sometime before dark. Well....... That didn't happen. We didn't get set out until 2pm and with all of the running around we had to do we didn't arrive at the track until 11:00pm....... So we promptly set up camp and made our way to the hotel.

All day Thursday was practice. Two full rounds and all of us were ready to get this event started. I set off first in the 40+ (Masters) truggy class. I spent all week and then some prepping and primping my 801XT to make sure it was ready for this event and in practice it paid off. It felt great! Next up was my practice in 40+ buggy. The buggy was OK but wasn't yet right as the track was grooving up and they were watering after every heat which made it slick. To combat this problem I switched to AKA's Super Soft "V" compound and that helped quite a bit.

Friday once again started off with Masters truggy and I was ready! During the warm up all was fine and I crossed the loop only to have the truck run down the straight and lose radio power. The positive lead on the battery became dislodged and that ended that run. Buggy run was cut short when I flat landed a jump and the engine quite from the flywheel hitting a raised spot on the track. I got refired but was already two laps down.

Second round of truggy didn't fair well either as the track was in between traction and zero traction. This not only played havoc with my setup but everyone else and that round looked more like a mosh pit rather than a race track. Tom Wolfe sewed up TQ by winning the second round as well as the first. (Congrats on your TQ Tom!) Buggy also was another horror story as I broke a steering servo arm. Steve Hale walked away with two wins and the event TQ.

Saturday we would see one more round of qualifying and being that TQ was out of my reach I just concentrated on putting myself in the best position I could for the A mains (That is if I could now make the A.....?)  The day started with truggy and I started to tip toe around and found myself out of everyones way and set off to win the heat and I did taking TQ for the round planting myself 2nd on the grid in the A. 

In buggy I set out to do the same but three laps into the heat the left front upper shock mount snapped off and subsequently broke the lower shock eye and the shock came completely off. I pulled into the pit and told Pres to just throw it back out and I drove as fast as I could with only 3 shocks. (Hey why not? I drove it without any front shocks a few weeks ago :) I finished 3rd for the round solidifying me a 6th place grid position in the A.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!!  Armed and ready for the mains once again truggy was up first. Warm up went well and I was very happy with my gamble on tire choice of AKA Soft City Blocks. At the tone we were off and with a clean start I was going to follow the TQ until I could hopefully make my move. Then in the 3rd turn he hit the inside pipe and got spun around I took the lead and never looked back. Taking the "W" by two laps.

In buggy I started 6th and followed the freight train around for a couple of laps and picked off 5th, then 4th. 3rd and 2nd tangled and I found myself 15 seconds back from the leader and closing. Several laps later the leader started to make a few mistakes and I caught him and made the pass. A few laps later I heard the announcer call out that he had broke the front end of his car and I pulled out a comfortable one lap lead and held on for the win!