JConcepts Spring Indoor Nats underway in Dallas
Round 2 of the JConcepts Indoor National Series got underway in Dallas, Texas, today with drivers taking advantage of a day of open practice at Mike’s Hobby Shop which plays host to the ‘Spring Indoor Nationals’ for a second year at its impressive and extremely large facility. With entries up on last year, the event has also attracted a much more competitive field setting the stage for an exciting weekend of racing which is set to get properly underway tomorrow with the first of three rounds of qualifying.
Heading the entry is defending series champion Steven Hartson who took a clean sweep of wins here in 2012 claiming victory in 2WD & 4WD Buggy and 4WD Short Course. Switching his 4WD Short Course for 2WD Short Course this year, the factory Associated driver was complimentary of the track created by Mike Darnell and his crew saying it had a much ‘better flow’ than last year’s layout with the jumps also ‘better built’. Spending most of his day working on tyre combinations, the Californian driver said he was happy with how all three of his cars are working and he is looking forward to the rest of the weekend.
One of Hartson’s biggest challengers this weekend is going to come from within his own team with Ryan Maifield making his first ever visit to Mike’s Hobby Shop. Winner of 2 & 4WD Buggy at Round 1 of the series, the Winter Indoor Nationals, back in February at SmacTrac in St.Louis, Maifield has been very impressed by the facility describing it as a ‘real nice building’ adding that the ‘rocking hobby shop had way too much nice stuff in it that he would like to go play with’. Winner of the recent Cactus Classic at his home track in Scottsdale where he has been doing all of his recent running, Maifield said the ‘dirt in Arizona is not even close to the type of dirt they are using here’ and it took a bit of getting used to. Racing 2WD Short Course alongside his buggies, he said in terms of set-up his main focus for the day has been ‘figuring out’ shocks and tyre choice.
Associated Team Manager Brent Thielke, who last weekend was over in Germany racing on a carpet surface track at the season finale of the Euro Offroad Series, is also in action this weekend but said most of his day was spent helping his drivers who are running three cars each. Racing 2WD Buggy and Mod Truck, having built a brand new T4.2 kit for the weekend to replace his previously updated T4.1 truck, he said of the runs he did do both cars ran decent. Having raced here last year, taking a podium finish in 2WD Buggy, he echoed Hartson’s thoughts on the track saying it flowed better adding that already the grip was better than it reached last year. Describing the event has having a much more competitive feel to it he said it was ‘cool’ having more fast guys here this weekend and he was particularly looking forward to battling it out with TLR’s Dustin Evans and JR Mitch.
Evans, who dominated the final round of the 2012 JConcepts Indoor National Series at the RC Excitement track in Massachusetts last October, was happy with how his practice went, saying ‘everything was good’. Having raced here once previously when he took part in a round of the Short Course Showdown Series, he said the track for this weekend is fun to drive and the layout & track conditions should make for good racing. Happy with his 2WD Buggy and Short course truck he said most of his focus today was on improving his Mod Truck.
TLR team-mate Mitch said he was familiar with the track having raced here in March at the Bigfoot Extravaganza. Taking the TQ in 2WD Buggy and the win in 2WD Short Course at that event he said today was a very productive day as he was able to work with Evans on trying a number of different set-ups leading to him improving both his cars from when he last ran here. Also competing this weekend for TLR is Cody Hollis. A 2WD Buggy A-Main finalist at the Winter Indoor Nationals, Hollis won Mod Truck at the recent Bigfoot Extravaganza and will be looking to try repeat that form this weekend.
One interesting entry this weekend is top US onroad racer Paul Lemieux. Better know for racking up wins for his Xray team in touring cars, the release of the European manufacturers’ XB4 4WD Buggy has seen him pop up at a number of offroad meetings this being his biggest event yet although around 10-years ago he did race at the US Nationals and the Cactus Classic where he says he qualified 4th in the A-Main. Making the trip out from Milwaukee for the race, Mike’s Hobby Shop is somewhat of a local race for his sponsor RC America, who look after Xray’s distribution in the US, which are based just 5-minutes away. His first time to race offroad at Mike’s Hobby Shop, Lemieux has tasted success here before becoming the 2012 US National Onroad TC Champion on the facility’s carpet track. Asked what target he had set himself on his first outing against some of the biggest names in offroad racing he replied that it was ‘to have less than 5-seconds of mistakes at the end of each qualifier’. Enjoying driving offroad he added he still has to get used to the racing as compared to onroad its not as easy to keep your rhythm while running along side others on the track.
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