On Saturday May 12th, round #4 and the first outdoor round of the Michigan State Championship Series was held at The Track in Carleton, MI. The weather forecast was not great, but still 104 entries showed up ready to finally race outdoors and they were treated with beautiful weather all day and plenty of racing action on one of the premier racetracks in Michigan.

1/8th Scale Nitro Buggy
The man to beat all weekend was  TLR and Pro-Line’s Dakotah Phend, who was the only one to get an 11 lap qualifier and thus taking TQ in the class. With only 12 seconds between the 3rd qualifier and the 10th qualifier, the main was expected to be full of battles. Due to technical issues, 2nd place qualifier Mo Denton was not able to make it to the grid, so it was going to be a field of 10 cars ready to battle. Dakotah got a clean start, but behind him there was carnage in the first turn with several cars tangled up. At the end of the first lap, Dakotah already had a 1.5 second gap on Nick Vasquez in second and the rest of the field following closely. Several laps later, the position changes settled down a little bit and the running order was Dakotah Phend in first, followed by Tony Carnes in second and Nick Vasquez in 3rd. Throughout the 30 minute main, battles were going on for 3rd through 8th place. In the end, it was TLR’s Dakotah Phend taking the win with Tony Carnes in second and TLR’s Mike Marshall, who worked his way up from a 10th place qualifying position, in third. Dakotah ran Pro-Line’s Revolver M3′s.

Results:
1. Dakotah Phend – Pro-Line
2. Tony Carnes
3. Mike Marshall
4. Michael Weihl
5. Nick Vasquez

Current standings in the series (no drops taken into consideration):
1. Dakotah Phend (608 points) – Pro-Line
2. Michael Weihl (570 points)
3. Tony Carnes (564 points)
4. Mike Marshall (548 points)
5. Nick Vasquez (547 points)

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Pro-Line Driver Patrick Hofer wins 1/8 Brushless German Championship’s Warm-Up

Patrick Hofer wins the Warm-Up race of the 1/8 Brushless German Championship with his Team Associated RC8.2e equipped with Pro-Line wheels and tires.

Patrick discovered his new car on Saturday and found a good setup during the practice. During the 10 minute qualifiers, Patrick secured the first place and obtained the pole position.

Due to rain on Sunday, the second race day was canceled and Patrick won the overall Warm-Up race based on qualification results.

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We had a long drive ahead of us with almost 400 miles from our house up to the Rockhampton Cup in our car! We arrived on the Friday to get some practice in, and have our cars dialed. We didn’t change one thing on the buggy as it was super fast from the get go.

This was our first meet ever with the ST-RR Evo Truggy and as soon as it hit the track I was very impressed, it was so easy to drive and we changed only few things to get it dialed. The Rocky track was a fun track consisting of both grass and dirt, it started off quite ‘grassy’ but by the end of the meet the dirt had rose and it was a wee bit rough in some sections.

I managed to secure TQ in both classes, winning all three of my qualifiers for both classes. With a big turn out of 100 + entries, I was able to bump straight to the main without having to complete a semi final. With this in mind, my dad and I got wrenching and got both cars prepared for the finals. I was running Pro-Line’s M3 Bowties for my buggy, and M3 Calibers Truggy.

Overall, I again managed to win both truggy and buggy finals but a fairly descent margin. I would like to thanks all of my sponsors: Kyosho, Pro-Line, Os Engines, KO Propo, Venom, Neo + fuels, Podified Engines and my dad Overall it was a great weekend and a big event in Queensland for this time of the year.

Regards, Kyle

Pictures: NeoBuggy.net

This past weekend was round 2 of the Cape Fear Championship Series at Cape Fear Raceway in Fuquay Varina NC. The Track was in prime condition and with the track taking a groove very early on he went to Pro-Line’ss Newest tire  the “Tazers”  which were up to the task of propelling him into a solid Tq in Pro Buggy and starting 2nd in E-buggy. Even after 25 minutes of hard racing in the Nitro A main final the tires continued to set the pace giving Nick Cattuna the Win in Pro Nitro Buggy.  He then went on to back that up with a Win in the E-buggy class with some “Revolver 2.0″ M4 compound tires.

He was using the following Pro-Line Products:

Pro-Line M4 Tazers on White V2 Velocity Wheels

Pro-Line M4 Blockades on White V2 Velocity Wheels

Pro-Line Bull dog Body for Mugen MBX6

Pro-Line High Downforce Wing

This years ROAR nationals will take us into the mountainous area of Pennsylvania. The track is actually kind of in a valley in the mountains. The track is mostly made up of white powdery dirt a lot like that of the Nationals in Colorado a couple years back. The only difference is, this track see’s more sunshine and the dirt can go from low traction to super traction in a matter of a few hours of hot sunshine. The track itself stays together and really doesn’t break up all that much. It can get a bit dusty, but with the right moisture, the track condition will make for some great racing. The warmup layout was quite interesting to say the least. There are almost two straightaways on the track. You have a long front straight, followed by a diagonal straight into a banked oval turn. This is LCRC’s trademark in the track layout and they try to retain it from lay out to layout. Other than that, it only had a couple more tricky sections. The 6 pack, or double, double, double was easy, up until the point it was dusty and some of the jump faces started to deteriorate. The other hard section on the track, or more so hard on the car was the 5 foot step down, or drop off. This proved really challenging on the cars suspension and ability to absorb.

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Round 5 of Southern California’s Grass Roots series went off last week, and we attended on Sunday. This race was at one of our favorite tracks, the Palm Desert RC Raceway. The weather was nice, a little hot mid day (97f), but not too bad.

Qualifying went well as I TQ’d the first round by 10 seconds. My second round was a little slower with the worse track condition. The track was too dry and it was getting bumpy and slick, but I still held on for the TQ position. Read the rest of this entry »

After returning from the National of France Round 2, I went to the Electro Liege GP 2012. The track was completely redone this winter, the amount of work put into it was enormous. With the welcoming atmosphere I decided to run my 1:8 buggy and my 1:10 short course truck. The weather was being capricious, so the organizers decided to do one qualifier and three final rounds.

In the 1:8 buggy final my car was perfect, I win the first 2 finals of 1:8 Short race and the last two finals, obtaining best lap in two categories. Good day of racing with victory in two categories. The results were very good, I used Pro-Line’s Blockade M3 tires and they were perfect for the track!

Thank you to all my sponsors: Hong Nor – Pro-Line Racing – Castle Creations – KO Propo -GensAce – Max Racing – RC Tworks – Leader RC

- Robert Raphael

We raced in the J Concepts Winter National Series at SmacTrac, St. Louis, MO, in February.  Dillon took TQ in 4wd Sportsman 1/10 Buggy and took 2nd in the triple A-mains.  He did well in Mod 2wd 1/10 Buggy, also.  I ran Stock Truck and Stock SC and got into the D and C mains, I had a great time and my M4 Suburbs with Pro-Line closed cell foams performed well.  For the 1/10 buggies, the M4 Suburbs and M4/M3 Scrubs with Pro-Line closed cell foams work superbly!

Dillon is the one on the left.

We are looking forward to outdoor 1/8 season, which starts this Saturday.  Dillon and I are looking forward to the first big race our track, St. Louis Dirt Burners, is hosting, the Futaba/OS Engines Nitro Challenge.  Dillon’s got his BullDog buggy body all painted up and our BullDog truggy bodies are being painted as I write this.

Once again it was time to hit the road to Coral Springs for the JConcepts Super Cup Championship Series race #4.  Friday practice at CSRCCC had threatening skies looming overhead with a thirty percent chance of rain for race day, Saturday afternoon.  Well all thirty percent seemed to pour down Saturday morning.  A few phone calls were made and now there was a plan B which was put into effect to relocate the event to Basher’s indoor RC Raceway in Palm Beach Gardens Scene of Rd 1.  Special thanks to Brian Buckley owner of Basher’s RC Raceway for having a well prepared venue, able to host 185 racers at a moments notice.

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This past weekend I was attending the second round of the RC Pro US Series South Division in Lafayette, LA at Finishline Raceway.  The crew built a very fun track for the field of 120 racers, and I was very excited to get back on the track coming off a great finish at the Texas State Series Round 2 race a few weeks ago!

PRACTICE

My first impressions about the track were it was very fast, fun, and LOOSE!  The track was very dusty and they were watering every now and then on Friday.  My XT8 was fast as usual, and after some suspension changes to my XB9 to get some more grip, I was ready for qualifying the next day!

QUALIFYING

The qualifying format for this race was 4 rounds of 5 minute heats, and then your best 2 runs deciding your qualifying position for the mains!  Qualifying in truggy went really good.  In the first round, my M2 Revolver VTR 2.0′s were awesome and I had a fast run resulting in a 3rd overall behind Mike Battaile and Derek Guidry.  I still made a few mistakes though.  It was very hard to get a clean run just because the track was so fast and you had to be very consistent with the caliber of drivers in the Pro class.  In the second round, I put M3 Revolver VTR 2.0′s on the truck, and they were a lot better.  I got 4th overall behind Mike Battaile, Derek Guidry, and Denver Houghton, but still made some small bobbles.  In the 3rd round I got another 4th overall.  My plan for the 4th and final round of qualifying was to go out there and try to get a very fast run, and I didn’t.  I pushed it way too hard, which resulted in many mistakes, and a 7th overall for the round.  My qualifying efforts set me up to be 4th on the grid for the 45 minute main on Sunday!  I knew that a lot could happen in a 45 minute main, so I was confident about getting a good result come Sunday!

In buggy qualifying, my goal was to get top 5 runs every time I went out.  I knew that with the amount of fast guys here, it would be hard to do, but I knew I could do it!  In the first round, I was on a really fast run, but I flamed out due to a low idle.  The second round went very good.  My M3 Blockade’s were hooked up and  I drove a fast race resulting in a 2nd overall behind David Joor.  I still made some mistakes though.  In the 3rd round,  I had another fast run with some mistakes, and got 3rd overall behind David Joor and Derek Guidry.  In the final round of qualifying, my receiver went bad on me in warmup and I was forced to not race the round.  But, with my 2 good rounds I was still 4th overall on the grid for the 45 minute main!

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