4 Wins For JConcepts At The 3rd Annual West Coast Carpet Championship

The 3rd annual JConcepts West Coast Carpet Championship was held this past weekend at PDX RC Underground in Portland, OR. This 1:10 electric carpet off-road event brought out some of the Northwest’s fastest drivers to compete in this three day race. Friday morning the event kicked off with the doors opening at 9am. Drivers settled into their pits for the long weekend as they got a chance to test out their cars on the new layout. Practice ran till 10pm that night, and this event saw 143 entries competing in eight different classes.

On Saturday there were three rounds of qualifying. Each class ran for five minutes during qualifying, and to determine the overall TQ for each class the event used “qual points”. If you finished 1st overall in a class for the round you received zero points. If you finished 2nd you received two points, three points for 3rd and so forth. Each driver could drop their worst finish in a round so the top qualifier was determined by the lowest combined score using each driver’s best two qualifiers.

The top eight qualifiers in each class were automatically locked into the AAA Mains. The winner of the B Main would also bump up to make the big show too for a total of 9 vehicles in each A Main race. The AAA Mains were five minutes long each, and again a driver could drop their worst A Main finish. If a driver would win both A1 and A2 that would give them a combined score of two points which would award them the overall victory for the race. Now let’s see how the team finished up starting with the premiere class, Mod 2wd Buggy.

Team driver Brandon Foote set the fastest times in the opening two rounds of qualifying to start on the pole for the AAA Mains! In A1 he would lead the field till the 17th lap where a small bobble dropped him to 2nd place and he would finish there. In A2 he would leave no doubts as he took the tone to tone win! It all came down to A3 and he would lead the entire main which gave him the overall victory in this class!

Team products used:

Brandon also competed in the Mod 4wd Buggy class, and after finishing 3rd overall in round 1 of qualifying he would go on to put in the only 27 lap runs of the weekend in this class in rounds 2 and 3 to lock up the TQ spot! In A1 he would again lead the field for several laps before a mistake on lap 14 would drop him back to 3rd place. He would continue to put down fast laps to move to 2nd place by lap 18, but another small mistake dropped him back to 3rd again and he would finish there for the first of three A Mains. In A2 he would never relinquish 1st place as he held the lead for the entire race! Once again it came down to A3 to determine the overall class winner, and once again he left no doubt on the outcome as he lead from start to finish and crossed the finish line before the tone sounded to put the entire field down one lap!

Team products used:

This gave him his 2nd win of the weekend, and since he won both Mod 2wd and 4wd Buggy he also received a cash purse of $250!

His tire teammate Joseph Levin was also at this event and competed in both the 13.5 4wd Buggy, Pro 17.5 2wd Buggy and 13.5 Stadium Truck classes. In all rounds of qualifying he never took his foot off the pedal as he put down the fastest laps each round in all three classes to lock up three TQs for this race! Starting with 13.5 4wd Buggy he would take the W in the opening two mains to secure the victory for the weekend in this class!

Team products used:

In A1 of the 13.5 Stadium Truck class he would take the tone to tone win! In A2 he would get out the lead once again before a small bobble dropped him back to 2nd place. He would put down some fast laps, including his hero lap, to pressure the leader but time would run out and he settled for 2nd place. It came down to A3 to determine who would take home the title for the race, and he would lead for the opening six laps before a small bobble dropped him back to 2nd overall. He would continue to put down fast laps and took over the lead again on lap 10. With 2nd place right behind him the two lead cars would battle closely on the track, and when the tone sounded he would cross the finish line taking the win by 0.784 seconds which gave him the overall title!

Team products used:

In A1 for Pro 17.5 2wd Buggy he would lead the pack for one lap before a small mistake caused his car to roll over on lap two. The turn marshal had to wait for the pack to pass before he could flip his car over which dropped him back to 8th place. He would fall back to 9th place on the next lap before putting in some fast laps to move back up to 5th before he ran out of time. In A2 he would drive mistake free as he lead the entire race which meant it once again came to A3. In the final leg of the AAA Mains he would lead the race for the opening five laps before he shorted a double coming onto the straight away. That allowed 2nd place to pass him for the lead and he continued to run in 2nd for the next four laps. After a small bobble from the leader he would put pressure on him and their wheels would touch with Joseph getting the worst of it. After he was marshaled he would drop back to 3rd now, and another small mistake would drop him to 4th place and he would finish A3 in that position. After the points were calculated he would lock up the final podium spot!

Team products used:

There was also a cash purse up for grabs in the 13.5 4wd Buggy and Pro 17.5 2wd Buggy classes for this event. After his two buggy finishes were added up he also received a cash bonus of $80!

Photo credit: PDX RC Underground

One thought on “4 Wins For JConcepts At The 3rd Annual West Coast Carpet Championship”