AMS (Alabama Manufacturers Shootout)

This past week I went to the sold out 16th rendition of the AMS event in Alabama. The track this year was very fun and I think most really enjoyed the layout put in by Bobby. I ran my primary 3 classes and looking at the past years to guage tire choice brought primarily clay, pink and SLW compounds. As has been the case a few times this year though, the track wasn't in quite the same condition as previous years and the grip was a little lower and it left me scrambling to make due with what I had when I wished I would have brought at least some softer compounds. Such is the struggle the first year learning a new tire and trying to make the right decisions for each event. But all in all I fared ok and had some decent highlights for the weekend.

Practice/Quals:

During practice I was primarily running clay Triumph's which is RawSpeeds brand new tire that proved to be very easy to drive and I think will be our new swiss army knife at a good number of tracks. As the track dried out through each day I would dabble with some Pink (Gumball) compound as well with some success. I did try a set of soft Yellow one run but it didn't quite have the pace of the white and pink compounds for me. With the 2 runs of exception of trying the triad and the mach one each once, I also stuck with the new Triumph all week on the buggies. For truck I ran 1 set of Clay Radars the whole of practice and qualifying and the super pole and 1 set for the A-main. They weren't the best choice for the morning runs when the track was a bit more 'dirty' but in the afternoon and evening runs they had great pace and I actually got the hot lap in Q2 and Q3 over the entire field so that was a highlight!

All practice was controlled with 2 open practice runs and then 1 round of seeding. Then once qualifying got underway we had 3 more rounds of qualifying in which my best runs came in truggy where I got a 6th and 7th in Q2 and Q3 (due to a mistake in each) which would qualify me 8th overall into the A-main. In Ebuggy I gave myself a chance to make the main with a 7 in rd2 but had nothing to back it up making to many mistakes in traffic and qualifying a dissapointing 20th overall or 8th in the B-main. Nitro buggy I was just a little off the pace I needed, wanting a touch more steering but overall my new MP11 was comfortable and easy to drive but with some mistakes the best I could muster was a 13th and 14th putting me 15th overall or 3rd into the B-main. So I had my work cut out for me to make the A's this weekend in this stacked field of racers.

Super Pole:

Saturday brough the super pole which was a 10 minute race for every class with 1 person getting the direct bump to the A and the rest having to start their respective main where they finished the super pole. Truggy was up first and it was still a little early in the morning so I didn't think I had a great shot with my bar tires but I was limited on tire selection for truck. I had a good start though and stayed in the battle and thought I had a decent shot at moving up. I was driving conservative and made the choice mid race that I was going to go for the no pit stop strategy and hopefully gain some positions. I believe I had a shot at top 3 or 4 but I tagged another drive over the left double and had to wait for them to be marshalled and that eliminated my no pit stop advantage in the end I settled for 7th which at least moved up 1 position for Sunday's main.

Next was Nitro buggy and I went with clay Triumph again and my car felt the best it had all week. I started 3rd and quickly moved into second on the first lap. I had a small 1.5 second bobble on lap 2 and that put me about 3 seconds behind Rose and we ran the remainder of the race fluctuating between 2-3 seconds apart and I would have to settle for 2nd which would start me on pole for the B-main on Sunday morning.

Finally it was ebuggy time and I ran pink Triumph in this one and had some good battles and some bad luck hitting crashed cars knocking me back in the pack. Starting 8th I fell as low as 10th on lap 13 but fought back and into 6th on the last lap allowing me to start 5th in the double B-mains on Sunday morning.

MAINS:

As you can see we had a lot of track time and Sunday was about to provide me with 3 more hours on the track between my 3 cars! It started early at 8:15am with a 30 minute Nitro buggy B-main. I didn't have the compouds I would have liked to have tried on this one and so I deferred to another rawspeed driver what they were doing for tire prep and I allowed him to do his sauce protocol for wet tracks to a set of pink Triumph's. I usually wouldn't have used pink on a wetter track but it's what he had been using and so I just went with it. I wish I would have had a set of blue commpound to run this weekend on these early morning runs.

Well I ran clean and pulled out to about a 3-5 second lead going into the first pit stop and held it through the second stop. But then as I maintained pace, the field started to find more pace and they were catching up! It was nerve racking as I was doing all I could to stay clean and put in laps but after the second stop Bourdon was on my tail and very racy but he ran me clean as we turned lap after lap nose to tail. The next 3 or so drivers were also catching up and by the last 5 minutes or so it was a 5 way battle for those 3 bump spots into the Amain. Fortunately for me I was able to hold clean and make my car wide and hold on for a nail biter and make it into the A-main by winning the B.

Pro Ebuggy was next for B1. They were taking just your best single run so you basically needed to win or have the fastest 2nd place time in the two mains to make the final. The first main didn't go to well at the start doing what I did numerous times this weekend running into upside down crashed cars and causing me to be the one remaining upside down. Well I langished early and fell to 8th and battled in that range for a while before finding a groove and making some good passes on the last 2 laps to move up to 3rd at the end. Not enough to make the show but B2 to play for.

The second B-main was much better for me and I had a clean start and moved up the 4th then 3rd and got into 2nd behind Phi on lap 11. Phi made a mistake on lap 17 giving me the lead but Setser got under me 5 laps later putting me in 2nd. I knew our pace was faster than B1 so I just had to keep it clean and hold off a hard charging Phi and I was able to do so to finish 2nd and grabbing the final spot in the A-main!

I will sum up the 3 Ebuggy mains that would be done throughout the rest of the day. I was limited on tires and just used up some pretty used sets of Pink Triumph's. It's hard racing from the back of a 16 car field on a 25 second a lap track. The first two mains I kept from getting lapped and had some good battles but some ugly crashes again mostly into crashed cars especialy in the option triple single on the left or the tight 90 on the right that is blind when the marshal is there. My best two results starting 16th were a 14 and 11 and that would only get me to 15th overall. Not ideal but glad to have made the show.

Next we had the 45min nitro truggy main and my truck felt decent. It was a little twitchy on the steering but if I stayed in the groove it did well on the clay radars. Starting 7th I had a clean start and maintained for a while and was able to do a good pit strategy generally 1 lap later than the field and as they made mistakes in the pits after the second stop I was able to move up to 4th for a while with a pack of 6 cars right behind me. I had my chance but my tires were getting low on tread and on this track that mean be perfect or start drifting and I missed a couple marks under pressure and got knocked back and over 3 laps fell from 4 to 10 and langished there for the last half of the race taking a disapointing 10th overall.

Finally we had the 45min Nitro buggy main and my MP11 was feeling pretty good on Clay Triumph's. I solidly moved up from 14th at the start and step by step moved up to 9th by lap 17. Things were going good overall but another couple crashes into crashed cars in those same two locations lost me some time. Then at the end when the tires went away I was missing my mark and put myself out in the dust and I lost a potential position and would end up finishing in 9th.

Overall the results weren't quite what I would want but I was able to make the bumps from both Bmains and put all the cars in the Amain and battle it out. I got tons of tracktime and both Will Walker and I got it done in the pit lane this weekend with him pitting me getting the fastest stop of the weekend and me pitting him taking the third fastest! Pretty cool that they can keep track of those stats now!

Set-ups:

Nitro Buggy notes: I really geared down a bit for this event with a smaller tighter track with no long straight. I went with 60/16 on the gearing giving me a final drive of 12.4.

Ebuggy notes: I chose to try the MP11 rear arms and uprights on the ebuggy and it worked pretty well. If you want to give it a try you need 3 MP11 items:

IF736 Long Upper Arm Set

IF726 MP11 Rear Arms

IF734 Rear Hub Carrier Set

Then you just need a 2.5mm shim with a 4mm inner diameter (not something I offer) to space the rear arm forward and you can give the MP11 rear end a try on your MP10 vehicle.

Nitro Truggy: