Hartson tops 4WD Buggy Q1 at Fall Indoor Nats

Chasing his fourth consecutive win in this year’s JConcepts Indoor National Series in 4WD Buggy, Steven Hartson got the fourth round of the series, the ‘Fall Indoor Nationals’, off to the perfect start as he took his Associated around the RC Excitement track in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in a fastest time of 20/5:03.910 ahead of last year’s Top Qualifier Mike Gay with JConcepts’ Jason Ruona third.

Setting the fastest lap of the round with a 14.658 compared with Gay’s best of 14.937, Hartson was overall pleased with his run despite twice parking his Reedy powered B44.1 in the corner pipping.  Running JConcepts blue compound Bar Codes all round, the 20-year-old Californian said his buggy benefited from the wider groove the track had developed since yesterday’s practice and other than trying to get a clean run he wasn’t planning any changes for this evening’s second qualifier.

Also running Barcodes on his B44.1 but in green compound on the rear, Gay said he found his buggy a little squirmy out of the corners this morning compared with yesterday’s practice.  The 23-year-old said he didn’t make the best of starts to the round with a few less than perfect laps but by the end of the heat he had settled into his rhythm and is confident he can be much closer to Hartson’s pace in Q2.  Not planning to change his buggy set-up he said he will watch the track over the day and then decide what way to go in terms of tyres but at the moment he feels a switch from the green to blue compound rear tyres is probably the way he is going to go to make his buggy a little more stable out of the corners.

Also running a B44.1, Ruona described his buggy as ‘awesome’. Having turned down the power of his LRP speedo for the first qualifier after finding it a little too powerful in the single 4WD practice run he ran yesterday, the Florida driver said it was very consistent to drive.  Making a couple of small mistakes towards the end of his run, Ruona said he needs to clean up his driving a little and overall needs to drive with a little more aggression which should allow him to be closer on pace to Hartson and Gay who where 8 and 1.6 secs faster respectively.

Setting the fourth fastest time, Gunnar Rieck said his LRP powered B44.1 was ‘pretty dialled’ but he lost a little time as he got ‘roughed up’ a bit in traffic.  His third annual visit to the RC Excitement track, making the B-Main last year,  the 14-year-old said this is one of his favourite 1:10 tracks.  Despite the event attracting a record 367 entries, to make it the biggest ever JConcepts Indoor National Series event, the Pennsylvania racer said he is confident that this year he can make the main show.

In 4WD Short Course, MIP team driver Matthew Olson set the pace in the opening qualifier just missing out on a 20 lap run.  Setting a time of 19/5:00.997 over Steven Harston’s second fastest time of 19/5:06.282, the recently crowned JConcepts Clash Champion said his truck is ‘working really well’ and without the two roll overs he had in Q1 a 20-lap run is easily on the cards in Q2.  Running JConcepts Pressure Points on his MIP Pro4-mance converted Losi, Olson said the only thing he needs to change for next run is to keep his driving clean.

Hartson, who ran Blue Barcodes on his Associated SC10 4X4, said his run was not perfect as he made a few driver errors and also had some issues with traffic.  Planning to follow Olson in terms of tyre choice for Q2, he said things should be a lot closer next time out.  Completing the Top 3 in 4WD Short Course was 14-year-old Damian Lamy at the controls of an Associated.

View our event photo gallery here.