2016 Red River Spring Fling

T&T Speedway in Shreveport, LA was host of the Red River Spring Fling. This facility boasts a huge, fully stocked hobby shop an on-road track and a high grip clay off-road track. This 3 day race brought together some of the best talent from Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

Spring_Fling_Track

In Qualifying, the high grip clay provided fast and extremely close qualifying in all classes. In Mod 4wd, Team Associated/JConcepts driver Tyler Keel was able to take overall TQ honors by setting the fastest time in both Round 1 and Round 2. In Mod Truck, it was a back and forth battle over the 3 rounds between Team Associated and JConcepts drivers Cody Avant and Tyler Keel. Avant made 2 consistent runs to Keel’s 1 and took the overall TQ honors followed by Keel. The closest qualifying took place in Mod 2wd with Tyler Keel missing Round 1 TQ by a few seconds. In round 2 Tyler Keel laid down the only 15 lap run in qualifying taking the TQ in that round followed by JConcepts drivers Mike Stoll and Drew Spurgeon. In Round 3, with Keel and Brian Henn having 1 TQ each, they would battle it out for the entire 5 minute qualifier. Swapping back and forth throughout the race it came down to the final lap where Keel edged out Henn by a few seconds to take the overall TQ honors in Mod 2wd.

In the mains, it was set up to be great racing in all 3 classes after the close qualifying the day before. In Mod Truck, after some early battles between Team Associated/JConcepts teammates Keel and Avant, Keel would take advantage of a few bobbles by Avant and take the wins in both A1 and A2 securing the overall. In Mod 4wd, the racing was close in A1, but Keel was able to take the win. In A2, after making early mistakes, Keel put the power down to catch Marcus Williams and eventually pass him with less than a minute remaining taking the win and the overall victory. In Mod 2wd, A1 was a 6 minute battle between Keel and Brian Henn. They swapped the 1 and 2 position throughout the race, but, Henn was able to make 1 less mistake and took the win in A1. In A2, Keel took off to a small lead before a mistake would let Andrew Clark pass for the lead. Keel would eventually put his head down and catch Clark, making the pass and not looking back taking the A2 victory. In A3, it was all Keel taking advantage of his TQ position leading tone to tone and winning by over 10 seconds securing his 3rd overall victory of the weekend followed up on the podium by his JConcepts teammates Drew Spurgeon in 3rd and Mike Stoll in 5th.

My Team Associated B5M, T5M, and B44.3 were amazing all weekend, the cars were putting down all the power my JConcepts Gold Smoothies could handle throughout qualifying and the mains. I can’t thank JConcepts enough for all the quality products. As a team, we proved to have the superior product on the track this weekend.

Mod Truck Podium:
1st – Tyler Keel (JConcepts)
2nd – Cody Avant (JConcepts)

Spring_Fling_ModTruck

Mod 4wd Podium:
1st – Tyler Keel (JConcepts)

Spring_Fling_Mod4wd

Mod 2wd Podium:
1st – Tyler Keel (JConcepts)
3rd – Drew Spurgeon (JConcepts)
5th – Mike Stoll (JConcepts)

Spring_Fling_Mod2wd

Products Used by Keel:

T5M
Finnisher RC10T5M Body #0289
Smoothies 2.2 Truck Wheel (Gold) #3130-05

B5M
Silencer S2 RC10B5M Body #0293
Finnisher RC10B5M Front Wing – Narrow #0150
Smoothies 60mm 1/10th Buggy Front (Gold) #3110-05
Smoothies 60mm 1/10th Buggy Rear (Gold) #3109-05

B44.3
Silencer B44.3 Body #0287
Smoothies 60mm 1/10th 4wd Buggy Front (Gold) #3111-05
Smoothies 60mm 1/10th Buggy Rear (Gold) #3109-05

Thanks to Tyler Keel for the report.