What a ride.
I arrived at the 2006 Nitro Challenge at “The
Dirt” in Hemet with high hopes and two extremely dialed
vehicles. I had my Mammoth ST with every hop up known to Mammoth
from my sponsors, ( BigAirProducts.com, RCvisions.net, Dadders.net
)(and the STS .28 Dadders Mod power plant. I also had my Mugen
MBX5 Pro Spec buggy with the amazing STS D21B Dadders.net
mod engine.
I had pulled in at about 10am Tuesday night,
and I got the very last motor home space available, I was
stoked. The next day was practice and the buggy, and ST were
very fast and very dialed. After a GREAT final run of the
day, I put both buggy and the ST on the starter boxes in my
pit, plugged the ST in for charging the receiver pack, then
went to ask what time everything started the next day. When
I returned, my buggy, Truggy were GONE… I was gone less
than 5 min…
My head was literally spinning. I was kind of
in shock… but the reality set in and Joey called the
police, reports were taken and racers started watching pit
tables much more closely the entire weekend. The word got
out and many racers came up to me and gave sympathy, some
could only say, “Duuuuuude, man o man…”
or similar, as ONLY a racer knows the time, money and effort
that goes in to a competition race machine. Honestly that
helped me more than anyone knew, just the fact that they understood
and cared made a difference and helped me continue on through
the weekend.
Pitting next to me was a guy named Jessie Garcia,
and he offered me his backup Kyosho buggy to race. I was blown
away, and jumped at it. The stupid thieves did NOT take my
M8 Radio with spectrum module, so I only needed a spectrum
receiver to run the buggy class. A very cool father son team
loaned me the receiver out of one of the electric trucks they
race at So Cal ( I am so sorry, I forgot your name, please
email me so I can get it back to you or just pay you for it
). I worked on the buggy late in to the night, it was his
backup and needed some lovin to make it race ready. I was
not able to secure a truggy to race, far fewer racers have
a “backup” or “practice” truggy, so
that class was not raced by me.
The truggy/Gas truck, race day was just a bummer,
I hate watching what I should be racing in, but got through
it working on the Kyosho. I towed a car up behind the motor
home so on Thursday night I could attend the “Father
Daughter Ball” with my sweet 13 year old princess. We
do NOT miss this yearly event for anything, and off I went
at 3pm… the night was wonderful, and I started back
to the race at about 10pm from my home in Chula Vista, CA.
What I did NOT know is the keys to the motor home did not
come back with me. They stayed in Chula Vista. What a bummer
that was. I had hidden a key for my pro racer Gabe Beaudrou
, he was going to stay with me. That was the ONLY reason I
was able to get in the motor home and do the weekend. I decided
I would tackle that problem AFTER the weekend was over.
My day to qualify came on Friday and I put the Kyosho on the
track having never driven it. Turns out the front brakes were
zero, so I could NOT get the nose down in the air, I thought
I had adjusted more front in, but did not, so I had to use
the lip of every jump to get the nose down by dumping throttle
as the rear wheels left the jump. I was also traction rolling,
my Mugen did not do that, so I had to adjust to that. With
those adjustments going on, I qualled 8th over all after the
first round and my spirits picked back up for the first time
since getting ripped off so horribly.
I headed back to my pit to dial in the buggy
further and was looking to make the A main and salvage the
weekend a bit, but trouble was NOT done with me yet on this
weekend to forget. I made the needed adjustments, clipped
the outside knobs off my Komodo’s and cleaned up the
buggy, ready for next round.
I stared off much better this second round and
had another 14 lap run, only to hear at the end of it that
it did not count. You see I owned my transponder and was not
used to picking up the “club” transponder and
forgot it… A main run wasted… OMGosh, I was bummed,
but heck, I had one more round right?
I got the buggy ready, and was ready to leave
bad luck behind, but bad luck was NOT done with me yet. I
had been given a personal transponder by the Big Cheese at
CEN to run, I took the trans number to Anna, she gave it to
Joey and the world was a happy place. The track was like a
war zone for third round, soooo bumpy, but the Kyosho sucked
it up and I was on a great run again, A main here I come….
About ½ way through the race, with NO crashes and on
a GREAT run, I hear Joey say on the loud speaker, “RacerNine.com
is not counting” … WHAT !!!???
Joey the race director told me he called me
over and over during warm-up and before the race, but I never
heard him, nor did my pit man. Third A main run, no A main…
there is only ONE reason I did not say, “what else can
happen to me” and that was because I KNEW a lightning
bolt would have struck me dead on the spot. Turn marshaling
that next race I was at my mental low for the weekend. I don’t
remember being that bummed for quite a while, but heck, NOW
bad luck was done with me, right? Wrong…
The engine I was running was needed, Jessie
killed his main engine, so I ripped it out, AND the throttle/brake
servo gave up the ghost and died on me. Another ray of hope
shined as another awesome racer named Robert Bawdon said I
could run his STS D21B that he had modded himself. WHOA, that
rocked, I could race the engine I was trying to get in to
the A main and actually do what I came to do. I was able to
get my hands on a servo, installed the engine and started
setting it up again. This STS was stinkin explosive, I don’t
know what he did, but he told me he modded the crank, and
the boost ports. I am used to Dadders.net doing my mods and
the engines have a butter smooth middle and are so controllable.
This one you could have taken out my trigger on my radio and
replaced it with a light switch. I had two speeds, ON-OFF
that was IT man… When it was ON I was pulling Italian
metal down the back straight like you have NEVER seen. The
lower mains had been shortened to 7 min and I was thinking
“no way im getting 7 min” but had told my pit
man ROB, fill her up to the neck on the line and im not coming
in. I had to start last or second to last in a 13 car heat
in the C main and had 7 min to win or get second. It took
about 3 min to get used to the “light switch”
engine and another 3 to make it up to first place, where I
ended the C main with a win, bumping to the B. Hope is restored,
and I went off to ready the buggy for the B main coming up
VERY quickly.
I started the B main in second to last of 13
again, and in this 10 min race worked my way through the pack
until I got in third, I had second in my sights with a little
over one minute to go. I knew I would make it now… and
then it happened. On the rhythm section a buggy had flipped
and I hit him, 3 more buggies piled on me and when the marshal
threw us all out, my front A arm was broken. I limped around
for ½ lap not accepting the obvious, then pulled it
off to not tank any one else’s race. I had almost no
sad left in me at this point, just walked off the stand and
to my pit to stare at the walls for a few… We suffered
through pouring rain, slogging mud, frozen fingers and toes,
for what? I was to burned out to pack, I spent the night at
the track.
Monday came and I started packing up my muddy
mess, then it hit me, no keys… the final blow to the
weekend to forget hit me… I called several locksmiths,
none would come out, holiday you know. I had to drive 1 ½
hours to get the keys, 1 ½ hour to get back, hook up
the car and drive 2 hours home ( big and slow ) to complete
the weekend and end my bad luck right? Wrong…
My wife’s Volvo died… Sunday.
Man….
I think I will take up stamp collecting…
R9
