ROAR Nationals

This last weekend was the first combined 1/8th off-road Nationals. For this year the event was split into two 3 day segments. The first three days were comprised of ebuggy and etruggy as well as nitro truggy. The final 3 days of course being just nitro buggy. Those first three days were some of the busiest ever at an RC race. With 12 runs a day over a 13 hour day with a track condition that kept going up on grip required a lot of adjustments. Let’s just say I was missing not having a pit guy at this one.

From what I’ve heard Thornhill has found a new build process that started with the LoneStar event and what ends up transpiring is a much higher grip surface that holds together much better over a long event. That higher grip translates into the highest diff oils I have ever ran at any track in America. I didn’t go quite as high as I did at the last worlds in Spain or in the Philippines or France, but I heard some people absolutely were higher than those numbers. I heard one top drivers pit man saying he did over 30 diffs for him in just one day. Let’s just say we were all frazzled by the long days!

Tire wise I was primarily on Pink Radars and started to incorporate yellow (soft) later in the event though wish I would have tried sooner. I also wish I would have brought our white compound (clay) because while it didn’t work during my testing 9 weeks ago, this new build style and higher grip could have made it a great choice. But I did the best I could with what I had and was able to make the Amain in nitro truggy in 10th and Etruggy in 11th. Ebuggy I would miss out on the A by 1 point and be BQ and with triple As that meant no bump opportunity.

Thursday brought the mains and we had some Etruggy mains to start. I had a good couple of mains finishing 7th in A1 and 5th in A3 but that only netted me 9th overall. In Ebuggy I would lead out utilizing soft RawSpeed Radars and would take a solid victory in the B main. Nitro Truggy finished the day with a 45 minute final and attrition was the name of the game in this one. I had a tough go of it at the start and was nearly last but worked up steadily and they some attrition and issues of others I managed to get in the 5 man podium in 5th position. A decent result after a trying 3 days of racing.

was the time we were all waiting for, an easier program. 😂 That came about by just having one class the last 3 days which was the glory, nitro buggy. 4 practice runs, 4 qualifiers, all 10 minutes in length kept us busy the first two days. In general I was just searching for comfort. We had settled on a lighter diff setup in the morning runs as the track was a looser condition after evening watering. So I would run say 15-15-10 in the diffs in the morning run. Then for the afternoon runs I would bump it up and was closer to 40-40-30 though I was utilizing a 3 gear setup in the front and center diff with 50k each. In the center hoping for a bit better bump handling (which were minor) and in the front to get more pull (steering) thru the mid and exit of the corner.

Shock wise I tried the 8 hole straight pistons but they were a little unsettled in the couple of uneven parts of the track. So I settled on 7 hole which I made by taking the 6 hole pistons and adding 1 hole to them. This seemed to offer me the best compromise of bump handling and pack for the jumps. Spring wise I felt I needed more support for the rear for some of the high throttle sweeping corners. So I opted for the front brown spring in the rear as a stiffer option than a rear black spring.

Other changes this weekend from normal were going to heavier bars than I have ran in a long time. Up to 2.5 front and 2.7 rear as I neared the end of the event. Also the biggest change for me was removing the kpi hubs in Q4 and going to the 19* hubs. The kpi hubs just didn’t initiate the corners quick enough and the car was always behind where I needed it to be causing me to get on throttle to force it around which created a step out of the rear on exit. Going to the 19* hubs gave a more natural feeling on this track and it was the biggest change I made that I wish I did sooner.

Qualifying started rough with a stripped wheel in Q1 that happened in the last practice lap but I didn’t know what it was so I limped it around the whole run just to get a result just in case. Slow improvement in Q2 before finally getting some results with a pair of 14s in Q3 and Q4 with Q4 finally finding some comfort. Those results put me 18th overall into the semi finals.

So I was running low on wheels and the tires I thought I wanted. I decided to glue up two sets of pink radars for the semi and the final if I made it. The semi started off good and I moved into 5th and I was feeling racy. But I was chomping at the pit to move into 4th but not wanting to hit the driver in front of me I shorted the back right jump and got pummeled by the cars behind. Then I was in the fray and had some more bad incidences with others making mistakes in front of me. I had to claw back but was sitting 7th and couldn’t make it up to 6th and thus was relegated to having to start first in the LCQ (Last chance qualifier). When I got to my pits I quickly used my last set of wheels to mount up a set of yellow radars for the LCQ. I felt great in the warmup and at the start was able to pull a good start and pull away with Frankie in tow. About 9 minutes in he retired and I had a greater than 10 second cushion which I held till the end to make the A and start 14th.

Now I had 30 min to scramble to get ready for the one hour final. I already had my pink radars ready to go but after the LCQ just had the wish that I had chosen the yellows as they were a little easier to drive on the surface. But I got the engine out and replaced clutch bearings and put in a fresh battery, checked the screws, and it was race time. Another decent start followed by some more tough luck in traffic and I languished in the 11-12 range for a majority of the race. I made a few too many mistakes throughout but overall was pleased with my focus and stamina during the final. I’ve been working on that and I felt pretty good the whole run. In the end I would move up a couple positions the last few minutes to take 9th overall. Decent especially for how tough the week was, but always seeking more!

I want to give a big thank you to Lance McDonald for offering to pit for me all week and to Ryan Daze for helping in the buggy main!

That may well have been my last race with the MP10. If it arrives as scheduled I should have the MP11 for wicked weekend.

Set-up Notes:

I Taped down the foams for most all the runs and also glued the sidewalls for the longer mains.

Nitro Buggy Kyosho MP10 TKI3: Camber was set on the set-up station. Probably closer to 1* front and 3* rear with a camber gauge.

Electric 1/8th Buggy Kyosho MP10e TKI2: (After realizing how much better the zero kpi 19* hubs felt for me on this track I would have copied my set-up from my nitro buggy.)