June 19, 2014

Drake & Tessmann set early pace at ROAR Nationals

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Defending ROAR 1:8 Offroad Champions Adam Drake and Ty Tessmann got proceedings at the 2014 National Championships in Texas underway by setting the fastest time of their respective title classes. In Buggy Drake had the fastest 5-lap average of the first timed run with a 46.147 with Serpent’s Mike Truhe closest on a 46.183 pace with Team Associated’s Ryan Maifield third. In Truggy Tessman’s HB had a distinct advantage over the Mugen of Carson Wernimont and the TLR of Josh Glancy around the beautifully presented Thornhill Racing Circuit.

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Drake said he was really happy with how both his buggy and truck ran adding for his truck run he was at a little bit of a disadvantage as the track was heavily watered before the start of the round. In terms of the track, the TLR driver said its ‘really fun and different’ to what they normally race on in the US and he ‘actually like(s) the layout’ but added he wished ‘they could have made the obstacles more challenging’. Describing the layout as ‘so fast’ he said it should make for close racing.

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Commenting on the track Tessmann said it was a ‘little too easy of a layout’ adding while it would be easy to drive around it all day it was ‘hard to go really fast’. The Canadian said as it blows out it will get even more difficult because there are a lot of blind spots that will make it hard to judge any holes and ruts that develop over the course of the event. In terms of his cars he has been playing with gearing and tyre compounds. In the first untimed practice, which was operated by way of a ticket per car which drivers just queued up to use, Tessman said the gearing change suited his D812 but not his D8T ‘Tessman Edition’ truck. In the timed practice it then didn’t suit the buggy as the track changed so he will revert back to the original gearing he started out with. Running a few new parts on his buggy as part of their World Championship preparation he is also running a new soon to be released radio tray. The new unit which is nearly at final design stage will be included in future kits but will also be sold by HB separately for current drivers wishing to upgrade their buggy. In terms of tyres Tessmann has been playing around with compound choice of his Pro-Line tires saying they were still figuring stuff out.

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Truhe was very happy with both his TOP powered Serpents. Switching to a harder front spring on his buggy for the first timed run he said it worked pretty well as the track had been clean before the run but with conditions still overall rather dusty he will go back a little softer to make it a little easier to drive when the track is loose. Commenting on his 811T he said he is running the truck the same as he did at the warm-up and he’s really happy with how it feels. Describing the track as ‘fun’, he said hopefully tomorrow it will groove up and some of the dust with go away. For his next truggy run he will try different caster blocks saying it was for no other reason other than to try them as he has a set-up he is already really happy with.

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Despite his 3rd fastest time, Maifield was not happy with his opening runs. Pleased with the power of his Novarossi engine he can’t get to transfer that to the track. Describing Thornhill as a ‘cool facility’ he said the warm-up race layout was a lot more technical and the new layout is ‘too easy’ but added the big separator is going to be when the surface roughs up. The Arizona driver is having trouble with his timing of the jumps on the right side of the track with him either over jumping or chasing jumps and this is something he needs to work on. The Associated team are back running the RC8.2 with Team Manager Brent Thielke explaining the prototype they had been running was ‘not up to expectations’ and they are now working on a major redesign. In the meantime he said they will run the RC8.2 to keep their driver race sharp for the World Championships.

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Second fastest in truggy, Wernimont said his MBX7T felt really good and without traffic, the practice runs being unseeded, he believes he has the pace he needs. He was equally happy with the performance of his buggy but said with the traffic today its hard to truly gauge everyone’s pace. A ‘fun’ track, the teenager said its high speed layout makes it more of a horsepower track rather then a technical one and its going to be important to ‘keep momentum up.’

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Winner of the warm-up race, Kyosho’s Cody King reported himself pleased with his early runs despite breaking his truggy in the first practice after a heavy contact with another truck resulted in a broken front end. The former World Champion is running his Red Racing powered MP9 as he did at the warm-up opting to let the track come to the car rather than go after a set-up. Expecting it will take time for the track to get grip, he said he knows they aimed to create a layout that was ‘a little more mellow to make it good for racing but maybe they over did it.’

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Kyosho team-mate Jared Tebo reported a similar story to King about his runs. Using the same set-up as at last month’s warm-up event, he too is waiting for the grip to come up feeling tomorrow with be a much better indication of who is at what in terms of pace.  Describing both his Orion powered buggy and truggy as feeling good he also feels the track should be more interesting when it ‘chuncks up’.

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TLR star Dakotah Phend said he used the practice runs to get his Orion engines figured out for the layout along with trying out different tyre compounds. Making some small set-up changes, the 17-year-old said he didn’t want to change too much today as with more watering the traction is going to come up and he was happy for now to wait for that to happen.

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Heading the challenge of Xray is Josh Wheeler, the World Championship finalist declaring himself very happy with his early pace.  Liking the layout of the right side of the track, he said the left side is much too easy. Changing a couple of small things between runs, for his next practice he will try Xray’s weights for under the hubs which he said is stuff they would normally not use in the US but should give an advantage on the ‘wide open track’. Factory Xray driver Renaud Savoya has made the trip over to pit for Quebec driver Jérôme Treignier but should be able to offer strong support to Wheeler with set-up for the European style track. On Monday, Savoya, as part of his World’s preparations, will test for the day at the track.

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June 19, 2014

Chassis Focus – Ty Tessmann

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Chassis – Hot Bodies D8T “Tessmann Edition”
Engine – OS Speed
Fuel – Nitrotane
Tyres – Pro-Line Hole Shot X2
Radio/Servos – Airtronics/Savox
Body – ProLine Bulldog
Remarks – The defending champion in the class, here at the Thornill Racing Circuit Ty is running a production version of his very own “Tessmann Edition” D8T from Hot Bodies. In addition to that, his truck features a brand new molded radio tray that was designed to suit all the D8 platforms. The car is also equipped with a full set of Lunsford titanium screws.

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June 18, 2014

Track Focus – Thornhill Racing Circuit

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Track Name – Thornhill Racing Circuit
Owner – Chris Allison
Country – USA
Location – Hutto, Texas (28 miles North-East of Austin)
Direction – Anti-Clockwise
Surface – Dirt with block section

This week the ROAR 1:8 Offroad National Championship takes place at Thornhill Racing Circuit in Hutto, Texas, a beautifully presented track that is the vision of local racing enthusiast Chris Allison.  An r/c racer of more than 25-years, Chris’ inspiration for the track came while watching the 2012 World Championship’s from Argentina, which while as an event he said had its issues, presented a really nice track and this made him want to bring its European style flow to the US. Having previously had an indoor track in the area, last July Thornhill Racing Circuit became reality on the 14-acre site which Chris himself admits ‘does feel out of town’ but is in fact only a 30 minute drive from downtown Austin.   The name of the track, which Chris, a local businessman, operates just for fun, is an interesting one with the name reflecting what stood here before the building of the track and its facilities.  Situated on a hill, the land was covered by Misquite trees, used in the famous Barbeque State for it’s distinct flavour, which have a very large and dangerous looking thorns growing out of its branches.  Chris has left a number of the trees in place as a reminder to the track’s name origins.  Using Circuit in the title is a reflection on ‘Circuit of the Americas’, home of the US Formula 1 Grand Prix is only a 40-minute drive away.

The design of the track, which impressively is over a 1/4 of mile long, is a collaboration between Chris and world famous track builder Joey ‘The Dirt’ Christensen.  The third layout the track has undergone, Chris said for the Warm-up event, held here last month, the layout was more Joey’s signature style but now its his style reflecting the inspiration that was Argentina.  With a fast lap time in the region of a mid 40-second lap, the track itself which is nicely finished with astro turf infield, covers an area of 250ft by 150ft and took 1800 cubic yards of dirt to construct which Chris said required ‘a lot of dump trucks’ to bring in. A key feature of the track is the brick section leading up the large step-up. JConcepts’ Jason Ruona said while its not a very difficult track he expects it could produce one of the best races seen at a ROAR Nationals.

The track is bidding to host the 2016 World Championships and is taking that seriously.   Former electric and nitro Offroad World Champion, and now AKA frontman, Mark Pavidis said he has been to a lot of tracks but Thornhill Racing Circuit is for sure one of the most impressive he’s visited. One very impressive facility at the track is the large airconditioned pit area which due to the humid conditions today is being very much appreciated by the racers. Annually Chris said he aims to run 4 large events with the Thornhill Cup and the VP Racing Fuel Challenge two of the fixed annual events, VP Racing Fuel is an important partner of the track with them the key sponsors of this week’s ROAR Nationals event.

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April 14, 2014

Hartson 4WD Buggy win in Tacoma

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Steven Hartson has taken the top honours in 4WD Buggy at the JConcepts Spring Indoor Nationals which was making its first visit to Tacoma R/C Raceway in Washington State.  With local racers stamping their authority on Mod Buggy, in 4WD it was first time visitor Hartson who wrapped up his first buggy victory of the 2014 series thanks to a win in A3 over JR Mitch and Tyler Vik.  With all three drivers in contention for the overall win going into A3, the closing race at Scott Brown’s track would see Top Qualifier Vik have contact with both his rivals, the Xray driver fairing the worst of both A3 incidents to finish third overall behind Mitch.

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With Hartson and Vik coming together on the opening lap of A2, Vik coming away with the win and Hartson dropping down the field before pulling off to save tyres, in A3 the World Champion was taking no prisoners.  Running behind Vik for 2/3rds of the race Hartson would make a move down the inside of Vik that would see the XB4 rolling as the two buggy touched wheels.  While Vik felt he was clearly hard done by in the move, Hartson saw it as just hard racing.  Finding his B44.2 a little edgy in A3, which stopped him from pushing as hard as he would have liked, the Californian driver said he still had the faster car, as highlighted by him being the only driver to do a 13-second lap in the race, and had the inside line for the corner and went for it.

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Dropping to third after the incident as Mitch got through, Vik would have further woes in the race as he tried to get back passed the Team Losi Racing driver. Closing on the winner of the season opener held in St. Louis, Vik would connect with Mitch at the start of the triple as the battled over 2nd.  While Mitch would go to the right of the jump losing a small amount of time, Vik would fly off to the left of the track just under the drivers stand losing 4-seconds he wouldn’t recover.  Mitch said he just tried to hold his own in the race adding that Hartson was ‘on another planet’ in terns of his lap times this weekend.  Admitting to having to block to keep Vik behind him overall he was happy to come out the event with second overall.

4WD Buggy A-Main Overall Result
1. Steven Hartson – Associated – 2 pts
2. JR Mitch – TLR – 4
3. Tyler Vik – Xray – 4
4. John Walentia – Associated – 6
5. JC Johnson – TLR – 7
6. Luke Smith – Associated – 8
7. Brent Thielke – Associated – 12
8. Anthony Honstain – Associated – 13
9. Tanner Denney – Associated – 14
10.Evan Margeson – Associated – 17
11.Chris Gould – X-Factory – 20

4WD Buggy A-Main Leg 3 Result
1.(2) Steven Hartson – Associated – 22/5:14.650
2.(3) JR Mitch – TLR – 21/5:04.440
3.(1) Tyler Vik – Xray – 21/5:05.820
4.(5) John Walentia – Associated – 21/5:09.031
5.(4) JC Johnson – TLR – 20/5:02.731
6.(6) Brent Thielke – Associated – 20/5:09.555
7.(8) Anthony Honstain – Associated – 20/5:10.296
8.(11)Evan Margeson – Associated – 20/5:16.479
9.(10)Tanner Denney – Associated – 17/5:12.847
10.(9) Luke Smith – Associated – 14/3:26.345
11.(7)Chris Gould – X-Factory – 13/3:27.741

4WD Buggy A-Main Leg 2 Result
1.(1) Tyler Vik – Xray – 21/5:08.131
2.(4) JC Johnson – TLR – 21/5:09.089
3.(5) John Walentia – Associated – 21/5:10.879
4.(9) Luke Smith – Associated – 21/5:11.794
5.(3) JR Mitch – TLR – 21/5:14.027
6.(8) Anthony Honstain – Associated – 20/5:02.097
7.(10)Tanner Denney – Associated – 19/5:00.378
8.(6) Brent Thielke – Associated – 19/5:02.583
9.(2) Steven Hartson – Associated – 18/4:44.931
10.(7)Chris Gould – X-Factory – 18/5:01.218
11.(11)Evan Margeson – Associated – 18/5:04.174

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