It was a beautiful weekend for the Byrons Nitro Challenge. There was approximately 160 entries with good talent.
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The truggy was really good from the start. I qualified 2nd overall and barely missed the overall TQ. I made very few changes to the truggy all weekend and it continued to be really fast and hold together well. During the main I took the lead early and never looked back. I raced a really good race and only had to be corner marshaled twice the entire 45 min main. The truggy did not fail me all weekend and everything turned out well.
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The buggy class started off really well. I TQâ™d the first round but then had a 2 and a 3 for the following rounds. It ended up having a 3 way tie for the TQ spot but the tie breaker put me 3rd. My car was faster than my time every run but some lap traffic cost me some valuable seconds. I started 3rd in the main and quickly got to 2nd in the first 1/2 lap. Ryan Lutz was in first and I was right behind him. At the end of the first lap Lutz stuck a tube and I had nowhere to go but in the back of him. This crash put me to dead last. After getting the car going I started to work my way through the pack but my receiver went out before the first pit stop.
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Overall it was an up and down weekend. Truggy could not have gone much better but buggy was plagued with some bad luck.
The biggest surprise of the weekend was my brother (Justin Wheeler) came out of retirement to race and would have won the main if it were not for his receiver breaking on him also. Justin raced a perfect race but his receiver broke ? through the race. I think he will be racing some more so hopefully some good finishes from him also.
