This past weekend we attended the final round of the AKA Spring Series at Chula Vista RC Raceway in Chula Vista, CA.
My competition for this race would include Barry Baker, Brian Sullivan, Felipe Martinez, Don Vinkmulder, Gil Alontaga, Pres Ilog, Jimmy Wright, Tyler Brown, and a number of other fast local racers. I competed in two classes this round, 1/8 Scale Expert Buggy and Truggy.
8th Scale Expert Buggy
For the first round of qualifying, the water crew watered the track every other race, so I got the watered track in my first qualifier. Earlier in the day, I had practiced on a wet track, using a set of AKA Super Soft Motos. I couldn’t believe how hooked up the car was. I was tempted to use the Motos for my first round of qualifying, but decided instead on a set of AKA Soft Impacts. I had a good qualifier, and managed to TQ over Barry Baker, who raced in the heat right after mine. In the second qualifier, I broke a front camber link on the final lap, and Barry took the TQ.
In the main, I got a great start, but unfortunately, I ran out of fuel before my scheduled pit stop. My pit man got me refueled and started, and I left the pits a couple of laps down. My Kyosho MP9 TKI3 on Super Soft AKA Impacts could not have been better, but the deficit was too much to overcome. I finished up in seventh place in a field of twelve.
I want to give a special thanks to AKA’s Pres Ilog for hooking me up with a set of Super Soft Impacts for the A Main.
8th Scale Expert Truggy
I bolted on a set of AKA Soft Impacts for the first round of Truggy. I would have the dry track for my first heat, but the Impacts hooked up well. I made one mistake trying to single-double a triple roller, and was left at the mercy of a timid turn marshal. Despite that, I qualified fourth.
For the second round, I had the wet track, and the truck rotated a little better than in the first round. I took the TQ by .07 seconds over Mugen / Radio Post driver Brian Sullivan, and would start on the pole in the A Main.
I took the advice of Track Star RC’s Jimmy Wright and raised my inner rear camber link, lowering the truck’s roll center. This helped the truck rotate better through the turns. That small change to my Kyosho ST-RR Evo proved to be just the ticket as the truck was consistently turning laps almost a half-second faster than in my 2nd round TQ run.
I took a gamble and stretched out my fuel stops as far as I could in the 25 minute A Main. I was less than 2 seconds behind the leader Brian Sullivan when he had to pit for fuel, and I took a 5 second lead by the time he came out of the pits. I knew I would be low on fuel by the end of the race, so after my final pit stop I was driving conservatively, trying to maximize my fuel mileage. I drove mistake-free for a 2-second win. I pulled into the pits with no fuel left, other than what was in my fuel line! Props to my pit man for yelling up to me to conserve my fuel in the last 8 minutes.
I would like to thank Mugen / Radio Post driver Brian Sullivan for an awesome race, and would also like to thank my pit man (Dad) and all my sponsors who make it possible: Kyosho, Tekin, AKA, DE Racing, Track Star RC, Upgrade RC and TTN Racing. A special thanks goes out to Jimmy Wright of Track Star RC for his setup help.
Here is the first 15 minutes or so of the race:
Here is the last part of the race:
Thanks to CVRC Raceway and FangsCPO for providing the video.
