I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on the weekend which was my first time at one of the big indoor events in US organised by the Racetime crew. Great job to the organisers running this race, I had a great time!

The track was great, very big size, fast and pretty smooth with just 1-2 corners being a little rough. I really enjoyed driving on the surface👌🏼

Friday started out great, I felt like I had a great package and was able to hit good lines around the track! The track was a little damp during Friday and not so dusty compared to Saturday and Sunday when it dried out.

All cars worked great in practice and I was excited for the 2 qualifiers with the best point to count. I knew it was going to be very close as the layout was pretty ”easy” and fast. Lots of fast guys and with only one round to count it was sure to be very close on points!

I was trying a bunch of different tires and compounds and with or without saucing. So many combinations and I probably put too much focus into that instead of sticking to something that worked and then I could have fine tuned the car and got used to the driving feel, we live and we learn and it was my first experience so I will definitely take this with me for next time!👊🏼

Qualifying was up and down, I was on great runs in both buggy classes in Q1 but late smaller mistakes would cost me a top 3 finish in both. I was able to put in decent runs in Q2, as everyone was close on points I had to settle for 8th in Nitro Buggy, 10th in E-Buggy and 11th in Truck.

The mains were on a very dry track with a grooved line, right ouside of it was a fine layer of dust which made the conditions very tricky. First up was the Pro Truck main, my car was the best it was all weekend and I had a great race. After a first lap chaos I was able to work my way up to 4th for a while before some more chaos before the very end and I would end up 6th. My XT8 was fast and it was the closest I’ve been to the front runners all weekend on pace which felt great!👌🏼

In nitro buggy I was taken out on the first lap by the car behind. I know this can happen when you start mid pack so I just have to improve in qualifying to start up front and avoid this from happening. I put my head down, car felt good but it was a touch aggressive with the setup I went for in the main. The race was short lived for me as I had a screw for the front steering link back out on me 5min into the race.. We got it fixed and I drove the last part to learn what to do for the E-buggy main later on.

E-buggy main was an intense race. I started 10th and felt really good, was able to have a great start this time which quickly put me up in 4th right behind the top 3 guys. The changes I did to my XB8E after nitro was really working and I felt great out there. While following the top 3 I had a mistake coming onto the straight which dropped me down the field. After this I was able to come back to 7th before the time was out. It was an unfortunate mistake there in the rough part of the track as the podium was definitely in reach!

All in all it was another new experience for me and it showed in qualifying especially when track condition changed from Friday practice. I definitely have a much better idea on what to do next time I come to race at one of these indoor races. 👊🏼

Congratulations to all the winners! 👏🏻

A special thanks to the whole Xray Team for a great time in the pits and for taking good care of me when coming over to the states to race.

I want to make another shout out to Jared Tebo, Paul Ciccarello, Adam Curry for all the pit help during the weekend! It was cool to have Jared on the headset during the runs, thanks dude🤘🏼😎

Next up: Silver State ! ✈️🇺🇸

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