Where: The Farm II, Charlotte, North Carolina
When: March 18-19
Race: East Coast Nitro Series(ECNS)
This points series is run exclusively at the farm II raceway. It is a series of six races that take you best four and total up the pionts. Last year i ran this series and won every race of the series. To kick off the season Lance Norric(track owner) decided to do a double header. One complete race on saturday(3-18) and another complete race on sunday(3-19). I decided to run unlimited monster truck(UMT) at for this series as well as buggy.
Friday was designated for practice all day and so i went to try out some setups on the buggy and get some run time on the UMT. The buggy was dailed right away, i tried some other setups and tires and ended up going back to my original setup. I then got the UMT out for some practice. The truck was much more chalenging to get setup and after quite a bit of testing i still wasn't happy with it. I did run it the previous weeknd in sumter sc and tq'ed and won with it but wasn't happy with the way it handled there either(i forgot to include that in the last race report, sorry). Practiced the truck for the rest of the day and it got better but still wasn't really happy with it. I then ran the buggy at the end of the day after the track had been practiced on all day and it was even better.
Saterday, first of my qualifiers up was the UMT. That went ok, nothing to really write home about. I put in a time to get me in the main but that was about it. The buggy on the other hand was just off the hook. I ended up tqing the first round in buggy. Second round, i went faster with the UMT but it still wasn't really all that good. That thing(hot bodies LSP) just will not turn. So, on to the buggy. I ended up going even faster with buggy and beat my previous tq. The mains came around the first up for me was the UMT. This was very frustrating to run as it was not handling real well to begin with. To make things worse, about 10-15 minuted into the main the handling got worse(pushing off power and very loose on power). I ended up finishing second but this was mainly due to several other competitors falling out. It was not fun to drive, i still have not found the problem.
The buggy main ended up being much better. The UMT had be so fructrated that it actually messed me up for the buggy main as the UMT main was right before the buggy. At the start of the buggy main i jumped right out front. But, i quikly worked my was to the back of the field due to some incredibly bad driving on my part. I think the UMT had me mentally messed up. I had made a 20 second deficet for myself by the haflway point. I finally got my act together and the second half of the race just put my head down and started making good laps. I caught the leader with just about one minute to go and made a pass for the lead. I was able to hold on to the lead for the rest of the race and won. This concluded the first round of the series.
Sunday, round two of the ECNS.
I decided not to run the UMT for this round as i think i have the diffs tuned wrong and i was not going to have the time to change the fluid and test out on race day. Saturday night was pretty late as they had a total of 152 entries so the races race a little late so i slept in and didn't get to the track untill about 8:30 am and racing started at 9am. So i had decided not to practice, sleep at this point was more inportant--LOL. The first round of qaulifying was pretty harsh as in a hack fest. At one point i pulled over and just let everyone go so to get out of the mess. So this first round was a waste. Second round went much better, i ended up qualifying second. So i mounted up some new tires and rebuilt the shocks and went on to the main. This main went much better, by the end of the first lap i took the lead and didn't relinquish it for the rest of the race. The race, for me, went accident free and was fairly un eventfull and this is the way i like it when i am in the lead-LOL.
Thank you for everyone's support.
Best Heat Lap/Time for 1/8 Gas Buggy:
Chris Crews with 10/6:08.55
Saturday mains
-- 1/8 Gas Buggy - A Main --
1 Chris Crews XRAY XB8
2 Jamie Grayek
3 Ryan Lopez
4 Scott Stahl
5 Corey Johnson
6 David Lindbert
7 Lance Norick
8 Glenn Harrison
9 Kenneth Rose
10 Jason Smith
11 Mark Christman
12 Jim Atkins
13 Brian Burnett
14 Daniel Aycoth
15 Kelby Roberts
Sunday mains
-- 1/8 Gas Buggy - A Main --
1 Chris Crews XRAY XB8
2 Jamie Grayek
3 Brian Burnett
4 Kenneth Rose
5 Patrick Rossiter
6 Jim Atkins
7 James Banta
8 Bubba Ryan
9 Scott Stahl
10 Lance Norick
11 Corey Johnson
12 Ryan Lopez
13 Daniel Aycoth
14 Mark Moore
