This past weekend the RC Pro National race series was kicked off in Dallas, Texas at Indy RC World Raceway. There were a total of 200 entries for the 2 day event attracting the top drivers from around the region. The format used was a qualifying points system taking your 2 best round points out of 4 rounds. Team Xray drivers Jason Branham (myself), Roger Ayres, Brian Rickard, Kurt Kellum and Derek Buster were in attendance for the race.
The track was a blue groove, high bite track so it was very fast but also had tricky challenging sections to it as well. I spent Friday (practice) trying to free my 808 and XT8 up or take traction out of the car because with the amount of bite it made the cars very twitchy and hard to be consistent with. Most of the tuning was done with suspension, rear toe, tire and foam selection, and bump steer.
On Saturday for qualifying I had managed to get my cars locked in as I would go on to TQ all 4 rounds in both classes. Each qualifier my cars felt better and better as I would set new fast laps and times, especially with my XT8, which I ran the fastest time with the whole weekend.
In the Pro Arena Truck main I got off to a great start and stretched my lead early. After the first pit stop I began to feel a loss of power in my steering servo, it was getting really weak and sometimes I had no steering at all. I did the best I could to get around the track but my once big lead was now a battle for the lead. Because of this I just could not keep pace and Mugenâ™s Mike Battaile was able to make the pass and pull away. At that time I had to back off and get the truck around the track with no hard hits because I just didnâ™t know how much longer it was going to work. To my surprise it lasted the 45 minutes and I was actually able to keep it going fast enough to hold onto 2nd place.
(click to enlarge)
Pro Arena Truck Final Results:
1. Mike Battaile 2. Jason Branham â“ XRAY XT8
3. Hunter Kinsey
4. Denver Houghton
5. RJ Scadden
6. Gary Haggard
7. Pablo Tejada 8. Kurt Kellum â“ XRAY XT8
9. Josh Glancy 10. Derek Buster â“ XRAY XT8
11. Nathan Vivares
In the Pro Buggy main, again I was able to get off to a great start and found myself pulling away quickly. I had a couple of encounters with some lap cars that allowed Team Associatedâ™s David Joor to get close but after I got some clean running room I pulled away again. At about the half way mark I had managed to build up a lap lead over the field so I put it into cruise control to take the win and get off to a great start to defend my RC Pro National Championship.
