Bar Codes Win Again: Steven Hartson at the Hutchinson Fall Classic

Event: Hutchinson Fall Classic
Location: Hutchinson, Kansas
Date: November 14-15, 2009
Race Reporter: JConcepts Team

Steven Hartson, together with JConcepts, wins Hutchinson Fall Classic

Steven Hartson arrived in Hutchinson, Kansas on Friday Nov 13 to a dry 68 deg weather. The indoor track was wet clay and the tire of choice were the JConcepts gold Bar-Codes made into slicks. After about 3 hours practice the tire choice had changed slightly as Steven chose JConcepts blue Bar-Codes made into slicks. As the day developed so did the set-ups and towards the end of the first day Steven’s tire choice was full pin blue Bar-Codes as the temperature dropped.  Indoor racing in the winter requires an acute sense of changing conditions; Team Hartson had to be on top of the game.

Saturday was for stock class racing and an excellent time for Steven and crew to meet the locals and assist anyone that needed help with their cars, set-up or tire selection. Sunday was going to be 4 rounds of qualifying and triple A-mains for the modified classes.

Arriving Sunday morning at 7:30 am, Steven got a couple of practice rounds in to see what the traction was going to be due to the temperature had dropped in the low 30’s and there was snow expected by the afternoon. It was raining and cold on the outside which made the conditions on the drivers more difficult.  Concentration was necessary while the weather conditions dropped below 30 degrees.

Qualifying got started at 9:00 am with the weather being very cold, Steven ran blue Bar-Codes for the first round and won his qualifier in 2wd and was able to TQ for the entire round. Steven ended up winning his first round of 4wd and ended up qualifying 2nd behind Dustin Evans from Team Losi .At the end of qualifying Steven was Top Qualifier in 2wd and was 3rd qualifier in 4wd.

Being TQ, Steven sat on the pole position but made an uncharacteristic mistake at the sound of the tone and clipped the pipe.  This allowed Dustin Evans and Matt Chambers to get by for first and second. Steven, Dustin and Matt ran nose to tail with each other putting on a spectacular show for the crowd. The lead was changed 3-4 times with each of them leading; but in the end Steven came out on top winning the first 2wd A-main.

A-Main #2 of 2wd started quickly and Steven got out to a great start.   The pace was super quick and Steven put about a half a lap on the field before unfortunately catching up to lap traffic very quickly.  An accident with lap traffic caused Steven to lose valuable time and he lost the lead.   Dustin made the pass with one lap to go and Steven could not regain the lead.  This was going to go the distance and into A-main #3.

With some added pressure Steven was focused heading into A-Main #3.  Getting a fantastic start Steven pulled a clean start and went to lead and never looked back while winning in convincing fashion.   A-main #3 would clinch the title for AE, JConcepts and Team Hartson.

A special thanks to all our AE and JConcepts team mates as well as the great local staff, track and organizers.