Paul King recaps Cody's weekend at the ROAR Nationals

 

Well, we are licking our wounds a bit after Nationals. We came into this race with high hopes and felt really good about our preparation, but to some degree it may have worked against us. We spent a lot of the time waiting for the track to come in like it did for the Lone Star race, but frankly, it never happened.

 

Truggy

In the truck class, we made a lot of progress with the truck to get on pace. Cody would start 5th on the grid, get into 3rd, and then run out of gas. I have really been scratching my head on that one, because our fuel economy had been around 11 minutes the entire time, and then ran out at 9:20. Even more confusing is making a 9:30 stop the first time and having 25cc of fuel remaining in the gun (about what I expected), then running out at 9:20 doesn’t seem possible. It was really disappointing. That’s the problem when you don’t have telemetry on the vehicles, just looking at the fuel gun to gauge the consumption. My guess is there was a bubble in the tank when I put fuel in and I thought it was full but maybe it wasn’t. We fueled pretty quickly the first time because normally I have confidence in my gun, but maybe it got me this time. If there is an air bubble on a fuel stop, it’s a double whammy because you think the fuel economy is good, but in fact the tank is low on fuel. It’s a slippery slope and a trap that is easy to fall into. Could the cap have opened up on the track, perhaps some fuel spilled out? We will never know, but maybe..

 

 

 

Buggy

In the buggy class, it was a mixed bag. After totally struggling during qualifying, Cody still managed to start 4th in the odd semi, which in my opinion was fantastic. I know there were some significant shortcomings on the set-up, and he had to wheel the heck out of it to get it done. 30I can honestly say now the track never got like it was at the warm-up race. It was unusually slick and loose, sort of polished but with dust around the edges. We made a few changes Saturday night, and just went into Sunday hoping for the best.

 

 

 

The first lap of the semi was a disaster, as another car spun Cody into the pipe and sent him to the back. Cody slowly worked his way through traffic passing some guys as they stopped for fuel. In the end Cody finished a strong 3rd, which would put him 6th on the grid for the final. We were really happy with Cody’s pace in the semi. He had second fast lap to Dakotah in his semi, and faster than the other top guys in the other semi as well by a fair margin. This is normally a good sign when the semi pace is good so we were happy. I honestly felt like Cody had a chance to win the race at that point.

27In the final it seemed like we lost a little pace from the semi. Not sure why, maybe just with the added intensity we dropped off a little? We had a number of mishaps that hurt Cody. We had a miscommunication where I asked him to stop for fuel and he thought I said conserve fuel. I feel bad about that one, I should have been more clear calling him in. He crashed trying to come in to pit lane and had to go a dangerous extra lap when he was low on fuel. Thankfully we had a nice margin for error with the Reds R7 Evoke and Byron Fuel not using a lot of fuel. In another incident, a corner marshal fell trying to get his car and it cost a little extra time. Without those two incidents perhaps he is challenging for 3rd. He kept going into 3rd place when the other guys pitted, but that got out of reach after the pit lane incident. Cody finished up the last few minutes probably watching the lead battle out of the corner of his eye, and finished 5th.

 

Wrap-Up

Anyhow, this race was a real grind.. hot, humid, and hard work to try and get on pace late after realizing our original settings weren’t going to work. We felt lost on Saturday with the set-up; so to get in the final, have a decent pace in the semi, and finish 5th isn’t totally bad. I thought we were really in trouble Saturday night, but our continued work and adjustments paid off. Truggy was totally disappointing. When you feel like you have a car that could win, but run out of fuel, it’s a bitter pill to swallow.

 

 

 

In closing I would like to say huge thank you to Chris Allison and all the Thornhill Raceway guys for a great race. They really transformed their place into a venue worthy of a National Championship. The track was fair and designed properly to let the guys race and duke it out. I think that is obvious from the great racing in both classes. Also the air conditioned tent was amazing keeping it bearable in the humidity. Also, thanks to Joe Pillars, Jared and all the Team Kyosho guys for keeping it fun and making it a team effort. Last but not least, thanks to ROAR and the technical inspection team. They have a tough job and took on the gyro issue head on. Also, congratulations to Cody’s Proline teammates Ty Tessman and Dakotah Phend on their National titles.

 

That’s pretty much it.. Next stop Sicily for the Worlds in September. We have a bunch of smaller races leading up to that, and we will use those to get ready. See everyone in Connecticut for Cody’s Workshop!

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