ROAR Nationals 2026

This past week was the ROAR 1/8th Off road Nationals held at one of America's best facilities, A-main Silver Dollar Raceway in Chico, California. The weather was great with temps averaging in the low 90's and abundant sunshine. The track was a very fun layout with a couple of useable berm corners and an angled inwards back straigtaway. The format was unique as we ran each of the 4 contested classes on their own days basically allowing us to focus on the class at hand.

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First up was Etruggy and I was off to a great start. Running Rawspeed Supermini tires in SS compound as they were watering for every heat. In the seeding rounds I would take a solid 5th, 3rd, and 2nd and be very pleased with pace. Unfortunately once qualifying started my weekend unraveled. Round one was a last lap mistake that knocked me from 4th to 9th for the round. Round two I still had top pace but mistakes mid run with once everything heated up resulted in a browning out effect where I would loose steering holding power and breaking power didn't feel consistent. In round 3 I had a DNS with an issue in warmup. This put me starting 2nd in the B-main and we had a last chance race. I wasn't able to resolve the browning out issue though and and early mistake knocked me back in the B1 and I finished 4th which caused me to miss the bump by 1. I had another mistake in B2 but was able to win B3 to win the Bmain overall but absolutely not where I wanted to be after the pace I showed in the class.

Next was nitro truggy and I had ok pace but not quite as good as I had in etruck. I would get a 13th and 7th in Q1 and Q3 to qualify into the Amain in 10th. In the 45min A-main I just didn't quite have the pace. Starting 10th I hit my high water mark of 7th on lap 15 before a long mistake knocked me back into the fray and I languished in the 10-14 spot the rest of the race. I started to get my fastest laps in the 31's at the end of the race and would finish out in 11th. Nice to finish another long main but a bit disapointed in the lack of pace.

Come Thursday we began ebuggy and it was decided to switch from running the track watered for every run to only watering once per round. This led to a dry track condition by the time the top guys were up and a whole new tire selection. I went to our soft and soft long wear compounds to tackle the dry conditions and 90*+ sun drenched track. I was only able to muster mid teens overall for top 3 consecutive laps never putting my best 3 laps together. I did a number of set-up changes including going up much higher in diffs which seemed to help as the grip was higher and grabbier with the dry conditions we were now dealing with.

For ebuggy we had 4 qualifers taking best two and I got off to a rough start with a broken upper servo saver in Q1 on the first lap. I came back with my best runs on a 14 and 6 in Q2 and 3. In Q3 I had a great run going but messed up allowing Phi by with just a couple corners to go and I jumped off track and lost over 4 seconds taking me out of a top 3 run for the round. That cost me as I missed out on the A and would start 2nd in the B-main. They had a stand alone last chance race for Ebuggy and I started 2nd and had a good start pressuring the leader. But I got on the pipe and hung up on a nail and fell to 6th and couldn't recover and would be relegated to another B-main.

In the triple B-mains I went with SLW Mach Ones with glued foams for the higher grip we were dealing with. B1 very early mistake had me chasing and I was only able to come home in 6th. B2 I had my most fun race of the weekend with Lime as we battled for the top spot. He got me in the end and I took a 2nd. The other highlight of the run was having the second fastest laptime of anyone in the second mains including the A. So my pace was there. Then in B3 I took another 2nd and overall would finish 2nd in the Bmain.

Finally over the last two days we had nitro buggy and also back to a watered track condition every heat to contend with. So much of the ebuggy set-up changes weren't applicable to nitro buggy due to the different water schedule. The seeding again resulted in mid teens every run seeding me into the B sort. Qualifying for nitro buggy was 10 minute runs and I just couldn't shake the mistakes until the final run and my results reflected that with best runs being Q1 and Q4 with a 22 and 20 leaving me 26th overall and into the 1/4 finals. That final would be mid morning on Sunday and should have been a straight froward afair for me and it was to start out. I pushed out to a 6 second lead by the first pit stop but on my out lap I lost connnection and later found my electronic switch had failed me. That was that, my weekend of racing over. Super bummed but I turned my attention to helping Phi.

Regarding some set-up changes I made I had been running my diff height in the MP11 in the middle front and rear and decided to copy Phi's setup of running high diff height for Q3. My car actually caught ruts worse and seemed a little more erratic with this change with the highish ride height we were running around 25/29. So for Q4 I decided to try fully low diff height and the car had more grip feel and was less catchy of the ruts and went through the bumps better. I was able to convince Phi's dad to try it on Phi's car and he also liked it better and found the same as I did. It does correlate to my initial thoughts that lower diff height for higher ride heights but it was interesting to feel the less catchyness and more grip feel that the lower diff offered on this track as well.

Something else I tried at a suggestion from another driver was 3 gear center diff which did seem to do what he suggested which was a smoother more stable car under breaking into 180* turns.

MP11 set-up notes: Please note diffs are heavier for the main than qualifying. For the Quals we were more in the 12.5 / 15 (3 gear) / 8 range.

Shocks were also a bit heavier for the mains. When temps were cooler in the mornings (60-70* we were 550/450. For quals 90* more like 600/500. Then mains around 90* about 650/550)