Last Saturday, Lake Park in Tampa hosted the third round of the Florida State Series. The event had 135 entries, proving that nitro off-road is still growing strong in Florida. The track crew decided to blow off the track every other race to allow the track to groove up and get faster as the day went on.
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In round 1, David Diehl took the early TQ with his XB8 with a 10/5:20 run. I was in the next heat and set a new TQ of 10/5:12. Ryan Eckert then took over 2nd spot with a 10/5:17.
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In Round 2, the track was now 1 second a lap faster. Anton Walton set a new TQ in the 1st heat with a 10/5:09 run. In my 2nd round heat, I was on a 11 lap run until I had a steering servo fail. Many went faster then in round 1, but no one over took my 1st round TQ. David Diehl held on to 8th spot to put 2 Xrays in the A-main.
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I was looking forward to the 30 minute main, since I was not TQ this time, I hoped that I would not have the TQ curse. At the start, I made a pass for the lead on the 2nd turn and started to mount a big lead. David Diehl came from 8th spot to 2nd shortly after. Around the 12 minute mark, I had a half a lap lead over 2nd and it looked like it was going to be a 1-2 finish for team Xray.
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But then my bad luck struck again. My switch failed and it sent my car off the track. I ran down to the pits and plugged my receiver pack directly into the receiver, but I lost 7 laps while off the track. David Diehl took over the lead and went on to a 10 second win over 2nd place Ryan Eckert. Jay Johnson finished 3rd.
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1. David Diehl XRAY XB8
2. Ryan Eckert
3. Jay Johnson
4. Jim myers 5. Gene Hickerson XRAY XB8
6. Luis Perez
7. David Davis
8. Anton Watson
9. Dave Bergtson
10. Bobby Moore
