Main Day – Part 1, the results are in the books
By: Jason Ruona
Wow, I have the biggest race hangover right now and no alcohol involved. There is no way we are making our flight today. 7 straight days of full throttle racing excitement going from 6am-11pm each day. My hotel room is a total disaster with JConcepts boxes everywhere. It’s going to take hours to make some sense of my boxes and get things packed for the shipment back.
Another great Cactus Classic in the books. What a show put on by the drivers and for the first time in a long time I really had no prediction on the results and I could not predict or feel the outcome.
The first high of the day came during the Short Course A-mains. Ryan didn’t run particularly well in the first modified truck A-main so I was concerned about that first SCT A-main but there was no affect and Ryan just drove an awesome race and did what he had to do. What I remember most is how well his truck jumps that triple jump in front of the drivers stand. Unreal… For Short Course it was so predictable and better than his 1/10th truck which was so amazing. Moving on to A-2 I went through all my inserts and found a harder front insert and a slightly softer insert for the rear. The track was going to be really warm and he was going to need all the forward drive he could get.
A-2 started and he made a mistake and then flew off the track at the end of the main straight and I thought…man, he’s going to need A-3 now. Wow, was I wrong. It wasn’t a few more laps and he hunted down Tebo and made a great move to re-take the lead and seal the first victory of the day. I threw my tires mounted for A-3 in the bag and put the truck on the trailer. 2wd SCT was a wrap.
I ran up to the track to catch A-3 of 4×4 SCT and after some bad luck for Jörn Neumann all weekend he was right where he wanted to be. Battling with Dakota Phend for the lead in A-2 and just looking super confident with the Durango truck. He made some great moves and was really just the fastest guy on the track in that class. I watched near the Quad section and watched the bodies on the trucks just get hammered lap after lap as guys were Quading the jump and if they missed, it just destroyed their trucks and bodies in the process. I couldn’t help but wait for the crashes and point to our Hi-Flow bodies for still holding up to the punishment. On the inside I’m saying to myself..see..see our bodies hold up so well…ha
Anyways, Jörn kicked some major behind and took the 4×4 class in 2 mains giving us our 2nd SCT win of the day. I don’t want to pat myself on the back here but Jorn won with the Pressure Points which came about after my experience the year before and watching the 4×4 trucks and just thought we needed that low-height and pin option. The Durango was on rails and through the S-turn and off-camber sections the truck had that controlled slide I was hoping to see from the previous year. Jörn also chose to run the Hi-Flow body which I think helped him over the Quad jump substantially.
Check back for part 2 of the main event day wrap-up day at Cactus Classic. Allison and I have a lot of boxes to pack up ASAP. 🙂
