The 2nd annual Grass Roots series kicked off this past weekend at Palm Desert Raceway. This would be my first race running the Tamiya 801x and 801xt. Having minimal track time with the vehicles I knew I would have a lot of work to do.

The buggy was basically the same set-up from my practice session the prior week with the exception of higher diff. fluids in the front and center, 8-6-3 from 7-5-3. The morning of the race I spent most of the time practicing getting use to the track lay-out. The buggy was handling very well and I knew it would be competitive with my current set-up. There must have been a gremlin in the buggy that day because there were several mishaps. First qualifier I didn't get to run because during pre-race warm-up the clutchbell seized. Apparently the flywheel nut backed off. Second qualifier went well, landing me in the middle of the pack of the A-main. The main started off well working up to 4th in the early part of the race. I flat-landed a very large triple jump that caused the motor to flame out. During the race I noticed the motor leaning out and was running a little erratic. I discovered that the exhaust pressure line had torn off at the exhaust pipe nipple. Overall, I was pretty happy with the performance of the buggy. Next time, I will take more precaution to prevent any more gremlins.

Truggy was a handful at best. To set things straight, the truggy was a rent-a-ride that I put together the day before the race. Just from installing my electronics and motor I could tell the truggy needed a lot of TLC. Shock set-up was a shot in the dark but ended up up working very well around the track. It jumped and landed well, but I couldn't get the steering I needed to lay down some good lap times. I went thru all this diffs throughout the day putting 5-5-3 as a baseline and would work from there. Things got better but steering was still lacking. It seemed as I wasn't getting 100% steering throw. I will be going over the truggy this week hopefully getting the steering I need. From the little run time I have with the truck I could tell it has a lot of potential. I am looking forward to getting the truck dialed in.