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| This past weekend Team XRAY headed to HX Raceway in Bossier City, LA for the 2nd annual Futaba Nitro Challenge. Hobbies Xtreme Raceway is a first class race facility with an equally as nice race crew who made sure the program ran smoothly with minimal interruptions. There was a 30% chance of rain, which is a 100% chance in Louisiana, on Sunday (Mains day) so, as a group we made the decision to shorten the race program one whole day by running all of the truck qualifying and mains on Friday and all of the buggy qualifying and mains on Saturday. Needless to say, this was going to make for long, tiring race days where everyone was going to have to raise their level of concentration to do their best. Team XRAY showed up in full force consisting of: Josh Wheeler, Jason Branham, Ryan Lopez, Patrick Castleberry, Rocco Margiotta, James and David Green, Gary Haggard and Hunter Kinsey. |
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| Thursday Practice: |
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| The team showed up early Thursday morning looking for a productive practice session in order to dial in the ECâ™s and XT8â™s. As practice resumed it saw the XRAY buggies setting a strong pace to beat along with the new Associated RC8 driven by Richard Saxton and Kyle Skidmore. As for the XRAY trucks, they seemed to be setting bar for the others to beat with Wheeler, Branham and Castleberry setting the quickest times of practice with 30 second lap times. |
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| Friday Truck Qualifying and Mains: |
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In truck qualifying Josh Wheeler set the pace by taking the TQ position in the first three rounds but Branham was not far off taking second spot in each of the four qualifying rounds. XRAY was in good shape for the main with a total of five trucks qualifying in the top 10.
1 â“ Josh Wheeler â“ XRAY XT8
2 â“ David Joor
3 â“ Jason Branham â“ XRAY XT8
4 â“ Steve Hale
5 â“ Ryan Lopez â“ XRAY XT8
6 â“ Derek Guidry
7 â“ Quincy Hughes
8 â“ Rocco Margiotta â“ XRAY XT8
9 â“ Mike Battaile â“ XRAY XT8
10 â“ Justin Cranford |
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Castleberry was the story of the day in the early qualifiers when he bumped into the A-main from the C to make it a total of six XT8â™s in the main, which is half of the field!!!
Josh Wheeler used that TQ position to propel his XT8 to a commanding lead which he maintained throughout the race. After a rough first couple of minutes Wheeler jumped out to a huge lead and pretty much had it on cruise control for the rest of the race while OCMâ™s David Joor, Jamminâ™s Steve Hale, XRAYâ™s Patrick Castleberry, who went from 11th to 5th on the first lap, and Jason Branham would battle for 2nd-5th. This battle would continue throughout the main with Lopez slightly behind the bunch. Within the last nine minutes of the race, both Rocco and Jason broke leaving them to watch the race end with Wheeler on top and Castleberry in 2nd followed by Hale, Joor and Lopez, which gave three of the top five positions to the XT8â™s, making it the truck to beat that weekend.
1 â“ Josh Wheeler â“ XRAY XT8
2 â“ Patrick Castleberry â“ XRAY XT8
3 â“ Steve Hale
4 â“ David Joor
5 â“ Ryan Lopez â“ XRAY XT8
6 â“ Derek Guidry
7 â“ Just Cranford
8 â“ Jason Branham â“ XRAY XT8
9 â“ Rocco Margiotta â“ XRAY XT8
10 â“ T-Mizzle
11 â“ Quincy Hughes
12 â“ Mike Battaile - XRAY XT8 |
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| Saturday Buggy Qualifying and Mains: |
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Buggy qualifying again saw XRAY on top with Patrick Castleberry take TQ honors in the first two rounds with Jason Branham not too far off of his pace and did not qualify outside of the top 4 in any round. Ryan Lopez was also setting some fast times and would TQ round four to qualify 2nd overall behind Castleberry. Wheeler struggled, only finishing two qualifiers but they were good enough to earn him 7th overall which left four XB8 ECâ™s in the top ten at the end of qualifying.
Buggy Top 10:
1 â“ Patrick Castleberry â“ XRAY XB8EC
2 â“ Ryan Lopez â“ XRAY XB8EC
3 â“ Derek Guidry
4 â“ Jason Branham â“ XRAY XB8EC
5 â“ Kyle Skidmore
6 â“ Quincy Hughes
7 â“ Paul Coleman
8 â“ Josh Wheeler â“ XRAY XB8EC
9 â“ Chad Parks
10 â“ Mike Battaile |
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| The start of the main lead to some bad luck for TQ Patrick Castleberry with a bad crash leaving him in the back of the pack. Luckily, Ryan Lopez and Jason Branham got a clean start and would 1st and 2nd trying to put some distance between them and the field. Wheeler put on a charge from a rough start and would work his way to 4th behind Losiâ™s Quincy Hughes. Jason was unfortunate when he wrecked and the marshal fell trying to get to his car allowing Hughes and Wheeler to pass taking the 2nd and 3rd spots behind Lopez who was now stretching his lead while Jason caught up to this battle for 2nd place. Whilst battling Branham and Wheeler, Hughes caught a pipe allowing Branham to take the 3rd spot which turned into the XRAY show when these drivers began to dominate the field with the EC occupying the top three spots. |
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As the race went on, Branham got around Wheeler in the pits for the number 2 spot and started to run down Lopez who had a 20 second lead with 15 minutes to go. Branham turned it on and was running consistently faster laps than Lopez to chip away at his lead and would catch him by their last pit stop. With the final seconds ticking down, Branham was right on Lopezâ™s rear when Lopez got sideways coming out of a corner which allowed Branham by for the lead. Time ran out after Branham and Lopez crossed the finish line so they would both get an extra lap! As any good race should go, this one and the 00 first place prize went down to the final lap where Branham led until the final corner where hard charging Lopez took a gamble that paid off and got around Branham to take the win, which put the XB8 ECâ™s piloted by Lopez, Branham and Wheeler, respectively, 1, 2 & 3 on the podium!!!
1 â“ Ryan Lopez â“ XRAY XB8EC
2 â“ Jason Branham â“ XRAY XB8EC
3 â“ Josh Wheeler â“ XRAY XB8EC
4 â“ Kyle Skidmore
5 â“ Raymond Norte
6 â“ Derek Guidry
7 â“ Quincy Hughes
8 â“ Patrick Castleberry â“ XRAY XB8EC
9 â“ Chad Parks
10 â“ Mike Battaile
11 â“ Paul Coleman
12 â“ Richard Saxton |
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