Sunday rolled around and we were looking for some redemption. We had guys racing in many of the main events and including the short course program. I got my rental SCT truck ready to roll and hit the track for round 3 of qualifying. The truck was working extremely well and I was on a great run. Lap after lap I got more comfortable and lowered my pace getting very close to a TQ run. All of a sudden the truck got very slow and smoke was coming from the motor. It had melted down and the truck was unable to continue.
Race 23 was up, the Pro 1/8th e-buggy A-main where we had several JConcepts drivers in contention. Tanner Denney qualified 3rd but ultimately it was Jeremy Kortz moving up into the lead taking the eventual win for JConcepts. Hybrids looked good and again the team chose the right tire.
It wasn’t long and the SCT A-main was up and we had changed the motor courtesy of Tommy Hinz and we were back in business. I found out the blown motor caused me to fall well down on the grid and it was going to be a long way home. No magical start for me as I was stuck in the back of the pack beating and banging with the guys. To be honest my truck wasn’t up to par on the new track conditions and I couldn’t maintain my earlier pace. JC driver Tommy Hinz was on the move and he quickly made up time on the leaders. Tommy powered down and swapped positions with Andy Smolnick on several occasions but the leader was still pretty gone. With 3 laps to go I pulled off and watched the race between the 3 leaders and Tommy was on the move. He muscled his SC10 with Pressure Points around the track better than anyone and made a move for the lead. The 13 year old was making the conditions look easy and on the last lap made a move for the lead. The attempt didn’t stick and he glanced off the pipe and ended up backwards finishing 3rd. Exciting race none-the-less.
John was nice enough to turn-marshal for me and I headed back to the 1/8th track where they were running the C-mains and then into the Pro A-main warmup. I was locked in on Maifields buggy as he turned many 39 second laps in the 7 minute practice session and I was confident we were on the right tire in those conditions. Fuel mileage check and then more prep and those guys were ready for the A-finals.
The night started to set in and we still had many races to be run. Most of the pit areas were being packed up with just the Pro A-main drivers waiting on a start. After a small delay the drivers were off and running.
