2024 ROAR 1/8th Electric Nationals JConcepts Team Report

This past weekend the JConcepts team met up in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania at GSRC for the 2024 ROAR 1/8th Electric Off-Road Nationals. The racers competed in a variety of different National and support classes during the weekend.

Garland Smith, Track Owner at GSRC, opted to donate any proceeds from the event to St. Jude’s Research Hospital which is amazing. JConcept’s Spencer Rivkin caught up with Garland to talk a variety of topics. Check out their conversation below.

Wednesday and Thursday controlled practice was filled with changing weather and track conditions as rain threw a bit of a wrench into testing and tuning. Some of the team even stuck around to lend a hand with track work.

Seeding Results:
Ebuggy: 2nd Spencer Rivkin
Etruggy: 2nd Chase Lemieux, 3rd Lee Setser
Masters Ebuggy: 2nd Rusty Mihelich
Masters Etruggy: 3rd Rusty Mihelich

Qualifying was spread across two days with 3 rounds on the first day and 2 rounds on the following day. Rain was in the forecast for both days but held off long enough for all five rounds to be completed. Ultimately qualifying would be the best 3/5 rounds counting towards main event starting positions. 12 drivers would qualify to each main event with no bump ups.

Qualifying Results:
Ebuggy: 1st Spencer Rivkin, 3rd Chase Lemieux
Etruggy: 2nd Spencer Rivkin
Masters Ebuggy: 2nd Rusty Mihelich
Masters Etruggy: 2nd Rusty Mihelich

Moving into the mains events, sunlight hit the track for the first time in days and the track went through a transition period throughout the day. Racers had to battle through the changes in the track as well as each other.

Ebuggy: 1st Tater Sontag, 2nd Aydin Horne, 3rd Spencer Heckert

Etruggy: In the Etruggy Main Events, Tater Sontag would take an uncontested win in A1 after a mistake from Spencer Rivkin. Spencer would battle back in A2 and get ahead for the win. Finally in A3 Tater would lose a tire while battling. Rivkin would find his way back past Spencer Heckert after the halfway point and a last lap pass for 3rd by Lee Setser ahead of Aydin Horne would net Setser 3rd on the grid.

Overall: 1st Spencer Rivkin (JC), 2nd Tater Sontag, 3rd Lee Setser (JC)

Masters: In the masters classes Rusty Mihelich would have a pretty perfect main day winning both buggy and truggy in the first 2 main events allowing him to sit out and watch the mains in A3. Congratulations to Rusty and his family on their efforts.

Masters Ebuggy: 1st Rusty Mihelich (JC), 2nd Ofir Komerian, 3rd James Henry