Oct. 31 was the kick off to the annual River Track Enduro Race. The River Track is located in Brazoria, TX, 50 miles south of Houston, right on the Brazos River. Owner Ken Wasak built the River Track on his own private land on the banks of the Brazos River which has now become one of Houstonâ™s premier race tracks. This was a 50/50, 4 hour âśrun what you brungâť endurance race open to any 4 man team who wanted to participate. The format was a 15 minute driver swap which left 1 man to marshal, 1 to pit, and 1 as the rover to help the pit man.
The format was really cool because you were constantly moving every 15 minutes which made the 4 hours go by very quickly. A total of 7 teams entered which brought a variety of vehicles which included 1/8 gas buggyâ™s and truggyâ™s, 1/8 electric cars, and various other monster trucks hence the âśrun what you brungâť rules. I was invited to be apart of MoSuga Racing team which consisted of Roger Kendrick, Rubin Samuel, Roger Ayers and myself. We chose to race Roger Kendrickâ™s XRAY XB8 EC, a Max Power 3 port sport engine, Ko ProPo Helios and Team Helotes battery packs.
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The race got off to an 11:00am start and from there it was fast and furious action as teams worked together charging batteries, tire swaps, engine changes, pittingâ¦..etc. The race stayed pretty tight between MoSuga Racing and the 2nd place team until the 1 hour mark when a tough and lengthy battery exchange allowed us to gain a couple of laps on the field. By the halfway point we had planned to make a motor exchange but the original motor continued to run great and with a 3 lap advantage we felt we could take our chances so we decided to go as far as it would take us. We managed to go 3 1/2 hours with out any problems and by this time we had built up a dominant 10 lap lead.
With 30 minutes to go and two drivers to go it looked like we would take the easy victory but thatâ™s when disaster struck. We had a bearing failure in the center diff and clutch bell but we managed to swap a center diff from another car, install the back up motor and still get back on the track with a 2 lap lead. With only 15 minutes left in the race all we had to do was hold off a hard charging 2nd place team and we did, barely with only a 1 lap cushion. It was a great race and to think after 4 hours that it would only come down to 1 lap.
Congrats to Team MoSuga for a great effort and the victory at the River Track Enduro.
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Final results
1. MoSuga Racing Team
Roger Kendrick XRAY XB8 EC
Rubin Samuel XRAY XB8 EC
Roger Ayers XRAY XB8 EC
Jason Branham XRAY XB8 EC
