This past weekend the 4th annual Ice Breaker was held at Indy RC World in Garland, TX. Even though the turn out was a little lighter than in years past that didn’t stop the talent level from showing up in full force. The track surface at Indy always provides great and fast heads up racing. With a smooth, grooved and consistent surface lap times were very close and one mistake could easily loose you half a track if a marshal couldn’t get to you quickly.
In qualifying it was the Ryan Lutz show and with top qualifying honors in both truck and buggy he was the likely favorite for when the mains rolled around. My buggy and truck were working well from day one of arriving and I knew that if I could get my tire choices dialed in then I stood a good chance of having great success, Indy was usually a good venue for me and I always seem to be fast there. In buggy I could never seem to have that one clean run but still I managed a respectable rd. 3 and would set my self up 3rd on the grid for the main less than half a second from 2nd.
In Truck qualifying I never quite had the correct tire choice until the last round in which I TQ’ed coming with in tenths of a second of Ryan Lutz’s TQ time therefore securing 2nd on the grid and raising my confidence going into the main. Through out qualifying more and more rubber was building up on the smooth surface giving the track more traction, which can be good or bad. On M3 Revolvers my car was a little too hooked up so I tried M2’s in the A-main warm-up and if I didn’t stay in the groove then I got loose real quick. I decided to go with the M3 Revolver with the closed cell foam so hopefully it would keep the rubber from stretching and I would have good traction through out the main. In truck I decided to go with M3 Calibers knowing that when I wore down the top layer of the pin then the tire would really come in and be good on the high bite surface.
In the truck main, TQ, Lutz suffered early problems, which would take him off the track for repairs to get back into the race. I took full advantage as I lead from lap one and even though I was getting some early pressure from Team Pro-Line driver Derek Guidry I eventually pulled away, only having to be marshaled once in the 45 minute final. I would go on to take the win leading from wire to wire with Derek Guidry finishing 2nd to make it a 1 – 2 finish for Pro-Line.
In the buggy main Lutz again suffered early problems when his motor cut in the first corner off the start. Team Pro-Line driver Kyle Skidmore, who was 2nd in qualifying, got caught up with Lutz when his motor cut allowing me to make a move to get around them to take the lead. Skidmore worked his way through field fast to eventually catch me and through out the 45 minute final we swapped the lead multiple times giving the crowd a great show. With 5 minutes remaining in the main Skidmore had a 5 second advantage on me so I began to push harder and harder to catch him. With 30 seconds to go in the race while on our last lap I had regained the lead but it was not to be. I clipped a pipe forcing me to swing wide in a corner and that was all Skidmore needed to regain and take the win with myself finishing 2nd, again making it a 1 – 2 finish for Pro-Line.
Jason – Buggy – M3 Revolvers, Low pro air filter, closed cell foams
Truck – M3 Calibers, Low pro air filter, Bull Dog truck body
Kyle – M2 Revolvers
Derek Guidry – Buggy – M3 Calibers
Truck – M3 Calibers, Bull Dog AE Body
Well, its that time again when the holidays are long gone, the wife’s and girlfriends who begged you to stay home from racing are now begging you to get out of their hair and resolutions are being carried out or are already forgotten and are waiting for 2011…. lol. Now that I have managed my way through that, it’s time to get the RC cars out to clean and prepare for the new race season, which is already underway.
The winter season seems to still be lingering here in Texas so it’s given me some extra time to go through my equipment to make sure it’s primed and ready for when the action begins. I have spent the last few weekends wrenching away in the man cave rebuilding cars, gluing my Pro-Line tires, preparing motors and checking my parts inventory to insure I have all my ends covered before I head to the track.
For me, success on the track begins in the garage before I even get to the track. I do my best to make sure my equipment is track ready so as soon as I arrive at a race I’m ready to throw my cars down on the track so I get the maximum out of my practice time. This preparation allows me to spend my practice time tuning the motor, trying different Pro-Line tires, and getting some quality practice laps in that way when qualifying begins, I’m ready to pull the trigger and go! When I can get all these steps taken care of ahead of time it makes for a more enjoyable, relaxing, and successful race day.
Well anyways, I hope all of you are as excited about 2010 as I am, so get your cars ready to go, race schedules penciled in and of course your Pro-Line rubber ready to rip!
Good luck in 2010,
Jason Branham
August 29 and 30 was the last round of the RC Pro-Series South Division held at HX Raceway in Bossier City, LA. Pro-Line Team driver Kyle Skidmore was on fire on Saturday by taking TQ in both Pro Arena Truck and Pro Buggy. Kyle did this in dominating fashion by winning 3 of 4 Pro Truck rounds and all 4 of the Pro Buggy rounds. However by the mains I had managed to equal and better the pace of Kyle by taking the lead early on to lead from wire to wire in both to win both Pro Arena Truck and Buggy. With the win in both classes I secured the points lead and the South Division Championship for Pro Truck and Buggy. Kyle ended up with a solid weekend as well with TQ for both classes and 2nd in Buggy and 3rd in Arena Truck. Kyle and I both chose to run M3 Calibers to help find some grip on the loose slick surface. The M3 Calibers were the tire of choice for many and I ran on the same sets in buggy and arena truck the entire weekend including the mains.
Pro Truck Final:
1. Jason Branham – Pro-Line M3 Calibers
2. Kyle Skidmore – Pro-Line M3 Calibers
3. Ryan Lopez
4. Trevor Turner
5. Derek Guidry – Pro-Line M3 Calibers
 
Pro Buggy Final:
1. Jason Branham – Pro-Line M3 Calibers
2. Quincy Hughes
3. Kyle Skidmore – Pro-Line M3 Calibers
4. Derek Guidry – Pro-Line M3 Calibers
Well it’s that time again folks for another edition of the Bloganators blog about what the blog has been going on in his bogging life…hehe. This time, however, instead of what’s happening off the track lets talk about what brings all of us together here and that’s RC racing and of course Pro-Line!! As you all know this past week was the annual ROAR National Off-road Fuel Championships held at Leisure Hours RC Facility in Joliet, IL. The facilities at Leisure Hours catered perfectly to the 380+ entries all striving for the # 1 spot on the podium and the rights to be crowned National Champ…man wouldn’t that be nice! Anyways, with that being said I left H-town assured I had everything prepared perfectly from my cars, hotels, air planes, tires, fuel, rental cars and the list goes on and on. This year however I wanted more that just a solid showing and a front row seat to watch the countries fastest drivers duke it out with one another. I wanted to make the show myself so that others could see me race with the best for a change and finally I got my chance. I drove probably one of the best Semi mains I could to barely clip fellow Pro-Line team mate Matt Gosch to take the last bump spot to the big show, I could barely walk off the drivers stand because I was shaking so much…lol.
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Finally I got the chance to take a trip to Las Vegas without a certain race involved. So I was able to get out and see what Vegas was all about or at least try to. It was a much needed vacation for sure and something to go and do with my family and fiancée to get away for a while. Is it me or does it just seem to be a little overwhelming with all the lights, people, never ending dinging from the slot machines, clocks nowhere to be found and same for the cocktail waitresses when you need a drink? Oh and another thing that’s funny is trying to walk the strip from hotel to hotel only to realize the some to these hotels are not as close together as they seem, talk about needing the right shoes on to attempt this… lol
 
 
The first day upon our arrival we decided to take the rental car and drive out to see the one and only Hoover Dam. Wow! This was an amazing site to see and I didn’t realize that it was so close to Boulder City where that silly little race Silver State is held each year. After this we headed back to Vegas to check into our hotel at the Imperial Palace; it is definitely the hardest hotel to navigate I have ever been to. We quickly began to drink, gamble and just have fun. After the first night and a loss of $500 at the roulette table I figured I better call it a night and get back to my room before I caused more damage.
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Well it’s that time again to try this blogging thingamajig and I have had some pretty interesting personal events take place lately and I’m proud to announce one in particular and that is I asked my girlfriend Kim to marry me this weekend and to prove she’s crazy she said yes!  So now what? I think the biggest events I have had to plan for so far have been things like the ROAR Nats, the Worlds and college in which the A+ I made in Party 101 is still not paying off and neither are the D’s and C’s I made in everything else. Lol!
Anyways I‚Äôm in for uncharted territory but I feel confident in knowing that I picked the right person to help manage, argue, bicker, have fun and enjoy it with. That‚Äôs another thing I have learned and that is if you can‚Äôt fight well together than your in for a long road ahead. Not only is Kim now my fianc√©e but along with my parents she‚Äôs my biggest racing fan and not to mention her father also likes to know how I‚Äôm doing as well. Its funny because when I head out for a race no matter if it‚Äôs a club race or a weekend away at a regional event the first question from Kim is ‚ÄúIs it going to be on Live RC?‚Äù and if not it becomes two races in one, the actual race its self and the race to keep up with the text messages to keep her informed on how I‚Äôm doing‚Ķlol Read the rest of this entry »
Since this will be my first blog post ever I guess I should start by telling you a little about myself.   My name is Jason Branham, I am 30 years old and my B-day is on October 20th. I currently live in Katy, TX with girlfriend Kim, my dog Rusty who is a German Shepherd/Lab mix and our two cats Boogar and Pumpkin and no I didn’t name them…lol             
Anyways I have been racing r/c cars for quite sometime now and I believe I started in 1987 with my first car being a Tamiya Falcon. I raced it on a dirt oval and I thought it was the greatest thing ever until I saw my first off-road track and I don’t think I have been back or have seen an oval since. 
I grew up in the Dallas area so I was close to the home base of Traxxas and back then Traxxas had a pretty competitive off-road electric racing team in which I was a part of. The owner at the time, Jim Jenkins, told me he would provide me with cars to race as long as I kept my grades up in school and even though I daydreamed in class about getting to the race track I managed to do that somehow…lol     
When I got introduced to High School I seemed to become interested in other things such as sports, girls, cars, etc. so I put r/c racing aside in about 1994 and picked it back up after college about 10 years later and one of my first big races I attended was the 2004 ROAR Nationals in Harlingen, TX. This was the race I got a chance to meet Scott Hughes and it wasn’t long after that I became a team driver for Pro-Line. Oh yeah that was also the first year there was a National Championship for Monster Truck and I made the A-main so maybe just maybe since the two are back together for this year Nationals in Illinois it could happen again.   
R/C racing has been great in that I get to travel and race very high tech little race cars, I get to meet and know cool people all over the world and it gives me something as a hobby to help others locally so that they too can enjoy the same thing I get to do. Thank you to Pro-Line for all their support over the past few years and I’ll see if I can improve and give some fun and interesting blogs in the future. 
Thank you,
Jason Branham
