Race report U.S. Open Fuel Championship
This weekend we attended the US Open Fuel Championships at SCRC in Canutillo, TX. This is one of my favorite places to race because of the awesome hospitality of the Showers family, the facility is top notch as well, and being able to visit wth our good friends Tag and Bailee Georges, who also offer us amazing hospitality and treat us like family.
This year when we arrived at the track we noticed that the track wasn't packed as well as past years, so we knew from the start the surface would be different from other years, which we confirmed throughout the practice day. The track was very loose and loamy and started to break up very quickly similar to what a motocross track does, this would make tire selection very tricky, and we ended up on soft miami tires through out most of the practice day, and they worked extremely well. Towards the end of the day the track started to develop a groove in some sections while other sections will still very loose and loamy so we switched to soft Bangkok V2 which also worked very well. The track turned out to be very challenging but it was rewarding when you got around with a clean lap, you really had to be careful to choose your lines and you needed to have really good throttle response which my Hobbywing esc and motors and FX engines provided with no problems. We had a seeding round at the end of the practice day, I would seed 2nd in truggy and ebuggy and 4th in nitro buggy, and I felt confident heading into qualifying as I was more concerned about being able to put in a consistent run over seven minutes than doing the three fastest consecutive laps. As difficult and challenging as the track was it was a nice change from the tracks that I have been to lately that are very easy and don't provide enough challenge and everyone is doing the same lap times, this was definitely not that kind of track.
Saturday was three rounds of qualifying, and truggy would be up first, although my truck performed well, I felt we needed to work a little more on the car setup and the clutch setup but I would take second for the round. In ebuggy I made a couple of mistakes, my car felt good, just some driving errors and I would get third for the round. Through the whoops everyone was taking a very tight inside line, where the track was the smoothest but this was causing cars to trip the lap counting system before the actual loop, so they adjusted the pipe to take away that inside line to keep cars further away from the loop. This would force us to find a new line through the whoops which was a challenge. In nitro buggy I struggled with the pace to compete for the TQ even though my car felt good, I could have picked better lines and I would have to settle for 2nd.
Round 2 of qualifying, I made some adjustments for the truggy and my truck was better but still made too many mistakes and would have to settle for 3rd. In ebuggy, I would make a few mistakes throughout the race and get 4th for the round. In nitro buggy I changed to Bangkok V2 medium compound tires and my car felt really good and was very fast, and I just concentrated on clean laps and was able to take the TQ.
Round 3 in truggy I made some more adjustments and felt my truck was really good but I landed on a pipe hitting a nail and would break my truck. I would end up starting 3rd for the truggy main. In ebuggy, we didn't change anything on the car setup and ran the same tires as the nitro car, and my car was very good and I was able to take the TQ which would give me 2nd overall. Nitro buggy it was starting to cool off and my shock oils were a little bit on the heavy side which made my car hard to drive and I wasn't able to go fast enough to compete for the round TQ and would have to settle for fourth which gave me 2nd qualifying position overall and would have me starting 1st in the even semi final.
Saturday night after qualifying we rebuilt the cars, the dusty conditions were very hard on the bearings and we wanted to make sure nothing failed in the main.
Sunday it was a little bit cooler in temperature but very, very windy, and they tried to keep the track wet in the early part of the day but the wind made it impossible to keep it moist so they decided that in order to keep it the most consistent for everyone they would leave it dry.
First up was the truggy main, and at the last minute I made the decision because of the wind to borrow team mate Cody Taylor's bruggy body, on the first lap through the whoops section everyone was cautious and being respectful and I did my best to not run into Jared who started in front of me, unfortunately the driver that started 4th behind me decided to air it out and landed right on top of me flipping me over while he continued on. Luckily a quick marshal was able to get into the tangled mess and flip me over and send me on my way but I was now in 9th place. I was able to make up positions and catch the top four and I just felt it would be smart to keep pace with the leaders until we could get further into the race to avoid any more collisions. I came into the first pit stop too fast and hit the bar on pit lane breaking the bulkhead, it was a stupid mistake that should have never happened and was entirely my fault, I was able to complete one more lap after the pit stop before it let go completely. This was disappointing as my truck was really good and I felt I had the speed to compete for the win.
Up next was the 10 minute ebuggy main we had a good start, Jared crashed early on and I was able to get by to take the lead and held on for the rest of the race to take the win.
My nitro buggy semi was the first one up, I would make a mistake early in the race and Cole would take over the lead but a few laps later I was able to take the lead back and would finish the race in first. Having the fastest semi time I would start on pole for the hour long final.
At the start of the final I had some close racing but was able to extend my lead to 9 seconds when I would make a mistake in the whoops and had a very slow marshall which drained away that lead and allowed Rivkin to get ahead of me. I was driving a little frustrated and made mistakes and this allowed him to extend his gap a little from me, but i knew on a track like this everyone was making mistakes and I had to just concentrate on not making mistakes and I knew I would be able to catch him. I would continue to have some more back and forth battles with Rivkin, the extremely rough track conditions, wind and lapped traffic would make this very challenging. I was able to eventually extend my lead and put a lap on the whole field except for Tebo and Rivkin who were battling for 2nd so I decided to back off a little bit to allow them to battle without me getting in their way. I knew all I had to do was keep them in sight and I would be able to take the win, I was able to do this and finish in 1st place.
I want to thank the Showers family for opening up their facility for this race, it's always a fun race and their hospitality is awesome. Thanks to the organizers of the race for putting on a great event. Thanks to Tag and Bailee for opening up their home to us whenever we are in town and taking care of everything we need.
I want to thank my sponsors for giving me the best products to compete at the highest level Xray, RC America, Hobbywing, FX Engines, Hot Race Tires, MKS, A Main Hobbies, HUDY, VP fuels, Protek Rc, EZ Customs, Stickit1, Lunsford, Avid rc, OCRC and 110% Racing. Thanks to the team for working hard together and for all the help throughout the weekend.
Thanks to my family for all their support, help and the sacrifices they have made throughout my career, my Dad for always being at the races, knowing I can count on him is a huge blessing, thanks to my wife and most importantly I would like to thank my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, without him I would not be where I am.
This year when we arrived at the track we noticed that the track wasn't packed as well as past years, so we knew from the start the surface would be different from other years, which we confirmed throughout the practice day. The track was very loose and loamy and started to break up very quickly similar to what a motocross track does, this would make tire selection very tricky, and we ended up on soft miami tires through out most of the practice day, and they worked extremely well. Towards the end of the day the track started to develop a groove in some sections while other sections will still very loose and loamy so we switched to soft Bangkok V2 which also worked very well. The track turned out to be very challenging but it was rewarding when you got around with a clean lap, you really had to be careful to choose your lines and you needed to have really good throttle response which my Hobbywing esc and motors and FX engines provided with no problems. We had a seeding round at the end of the practice day, I would seed 2nd in truggy and ebuggy and 4th in nitro buggy, and I felt confident heading into qualifying as I was more concerned about being able to put in a consistent run over seven minutes than doing the three fastest consecutive laps. As difficult and challenging as the track was it was a nice change from the tracks that I have been to lately that are very easy and don't provide enough challenge and everyone is doing the same lap times, this was definitely not that kind of track.
Saturday was three rounds of qualifying, and truggy would be up first, although my truck performed well, I felt we needed to work a little more on the car setup and the clutch setup but I would take second for the round. In ebuggy I made a couple of mistakes, my car felt good, just some driving errors and I would get third for the round. Through the whoops everyone was taking a very tight inside line, where the track was the smoothest but this was causing cars to trip the lap counting system before the actual loop, so they adjusted the pipe to take away that inside line to keep cars further away from the loop. This would force us to find a new line through the whoops which was a challenge. In nitro buggy I struggled with the pace to compete for the TQ even though my car felt good, I could have picked better lines and I would have to settle for 2nd.
Round 2 of qualifying, I made some adjustments for the truggy and my truck was better but still made too many mistakes and would have to settle for 3rd. In ebuggy, I would make a few mistakes throughout the race and get 4th for the round. In nitro buggy I changed to Bangkok V2 medium compound tires and my car felt really good and was very fast, and I just concentrated on clean laps and was able to take the TQ.
Round 3 in truggy I made some more adjustments and felt my truck was really good but I landed on a pipe hitting a nail and would break my truck. I would end up starting 3rd for the truggy main. In ebuggy, we didn't change anything on the car setup and ran the same tires as the nitro car, and my car was very good and I was able to take the TQ which would give me 2nd overall. Nitro buggy it was starting to cool off and my shock oils were a little bit on the heavy side which made my car hard to drive and I wasn't able to go fast enough to compete for the round TQ and would have to settle for fourth which gave me 2nd qualifying position overall and would have me starting 1st in the even semi final.
Saturday night after qualifying we rebuilt the cars, the dusty conditions were very hard on the bearings and we wanted to make sure nothing failed in the main.
Sunday it was a little bit cooler in temperature but very, very windy, and they tried to keep the track wet in the early part of the day but the wind made it impossible to keep it moist so they decided that in order to keep it the most consistent for everyone they would leave it dry.
First up was the truggy main, and at the last minute I made the decision because of the wind to borrow team mate Cody Taylor's bruggy body, on the first lap through the whoops section everyone was cautious and being respectful and I did my best to not run into Jared who started in front of me, unfortunately the driver that started 4th behind me decided to air it out and landed right on top of me flipping me over while he continued on. Luckily a quick marshal was able to get into the tangled mess and flip me over and send me on my way but I was now in 9th place. I was able to make up positions and catch the top four and I just felt it would be smart to keep pace with the leaders until we could get further into the race to avoid any more collisions. I came into the first pit stop too fast and hit the bar on pit lane breaking the bulkhead, it was a stupid mistake that should have never happened and was entirely my fault, I was able to complete one more lap after the pit stop before it let go completely. This was disappointing as my truck was really good and I felt I had the speed to compete for the win.
Up next was the 10 minute ebuggy main we had a good start, Jared crashed early on and I was able to get by to take the lead and held on for the rest of the race to take the win.
My nitro buggy semi was the first one up, I would make a mistake early in the race and Cole would take over the lead but a few laps later I was able to take the lead back and would finish the race in first. Having the fastest semi time I would start on pole for the hour long final.
At the start of the final I had some close racing but was able to extend my lead to 9 seconds when I would make a mistake in the whoops and had a very slow marshall which drained away that lead and allowed Rivkin to get ahead of me. I was driving a little frustrated and made mistakes and this allowed him to extend his gap a little from me, but i knew on a track like this everyone was making mistakes and I had to just concentrate on not making mistakes and I knew I would be able to catch him. I would continue to have some more back and forth battles with Rivkin, the extremely rough track conditions, wind and lapped traffic would make this very challenging. I was able to eventually extend my lead and put a lap on the whole field except for Tebo and Rivkin who were battling for 2nd so I decided to back off a little bit to allow them to battle without me getting in their way. I knew all I had to do was keep them in sight and I would be able to take the win, I was able to do this and finish in 1st place.
I want to thank the Showers family for opening up their facility for this race, it's always a fun race and their hospitality is awesome. Thanks to the organizers of the race for putting on a great event. Thanks to Tag and Bailee for opening up their home to us whenever we are in town and taking care of everything we need.
I want to thank my sponsors for giving me the best products to compete at the highest level Xray, RC America, Hobbywing, FX Engines, Hot Race Tires, MKS, A Main Hobbies, HUDY, VP fuels, Protek Rc, EZ Customs, Stickit1, Lunsford, Avid rc, OCRC and 110% Racing. Thanks to the team for working hard together and for all the help throughout the weekend.
Thanks to my family for all their support, help and the sacrifices they have made throughout my career, my Dad for always being at the races, knowing I can count on him is a huge blessing, thanks to my wife and most importantly I would like to thank my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, without him I would not be where I am.
Class Offroad
Scale/Size 1/8