Bacon and Wittmayer earned double wins at Karsyn's Krusaders Off-Road Challenge

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By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com

Race report from LRT Raceway and Hobby:
www.facebook.com/pages/LRT-Raceway-and-Hobby/113153025392826

Event: 2016 Karsyn's Krusders Off-Road Challenge
Location: LRT Raceway - Evansdale, IA
Date: June 18th, 2016
Report by Danny Bartholomew

Bacon and Wittmayer Earn Double Wins at 2016 Karsyn's Krusaders

LRT Raceway recently hosted the 6th Annual Karsyn's Krusaders Off-Road Challenge. Racers from Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Nebraska made their way in for the event that raises money for the Evansdale based charity, Karsyn's Krusaders. Learn more about the charity at www.karsynskrusaders.org

Racers would fill up the heat sheets across 5 classes including Sportsman and Pro Nitro Buggy, Nitro Truggy, 1/8 Electric Buggy and 4wd Short Course Truck. LRT provided a fresh layout for the event that was very fast and demanding but combined with LRT's smooth, high bite yellow clay, provided some very close, entertaining racing across all classes. After 3 rounds of intense qualifying, the racer raffle was held and lots of very nice prizes were handed out thanks to our very generous sponsors. A huge thank you to the following companies for their donations: Team Associated, Reedy, Hobbico, Tekno RC, Jconcepts, Race Day Hobbies, Schelle Racing, Beta Tires, 92Zero Designs and Danny B RC Products

A-Mains: 

4wd SCT: Tekno RC Driver Clayton Wittmayer from Omaha, NE would best the small field of 4wd Short Course trucks for the TQ and win

1. Clayton Wittmayer - Tekno/Proline
2. Bryson Pavel
3. Eric Norris

Nitro Truggy: The 20 minute Nitro Truggy main was a great race for the entire 20 minutes. TQ Justin Christensen would make a small bobble on the first lap, allowing the RC8T3's of Kevin Bronner and Tony Bacon to slip by. Bronner would lead out with Bacon in heavy pursuit, setting an extremely high pace as the gapped the rest of the field. The leaders had to deal with some heavy traffic with Bacon getting the best of it and taking over the lead. Bacon stretched a little gap on Bronner but Kevin was able to close up and retake the lead after a bobble by Tony, only to make a mistake of his own and suffer an engine flameout, Promoting the Mugen of Tony Dominguez up to the 2nd spot after riding in 3rd most of the race. Bronner's engine cut dropped him back only to 3rd with Tony Dominguez coming home in 2nd and Tony Bacon able to cruise home for the Win for Team Associated. 

1. Tony Bacon - Associated/AKA/OS/Byron 
2. Tony Dominguez
3. Kevin Bronner(not pictured)

Sportsman Nitro Buggy: John Filkins from Illinois would put his Tekno in the TQ spot for the 20 minute Sportsman Buggy A-main. But it was local driver Drew Christensen that would steal the show, running a really smooth, clean race to take win with his Tekno. John Filkins would come home 2nd and Cory Tannehill from Nebraska would bring his Tekno home in 3rd, making a Tekno sweep of the Sportsman Buggy Podium. 

1. Drew Christensen
2. John Filkins (not pictured)
3. Cory Tannehill

1/8 Electric Buggy: Electric Buggy was hotly contested for the TQ honors with it coming down to round 3 between the Tekno's of Clayton Wittmayer and Jason Bloom, Wittmayer would prevail in round 3 and start from the pole in the A-Main, Bloom would line up 2nd followed by the Associated of Danny Bartholomew and Tekno of Mike Murphy Jr. The main was pretty wild at the beginning with lots of cars crashing throughout the 12 car field. Wittmayer had control from the start and outside of losing the lead to Mike Murphy for a couple laps only to regain the lead and cruise home with the win. 

1. Clayton Wittmayer - Tekno/Proline
2. Jason Bloom - Tekno/AKA
3. Mitchell Pavel

Pro Nitro Buggy: The premier class of Pro Nitro Buggy was the highlight of the day. Qualifying was super tight, the 3 rounds saw 3 different TQ's and once the tiebreakers were figured Team Associated's Tony Bacon would edge teammate Danny Bartholomew for the TQ. The first few laps of the 30 minute final were fairly uneventful, with 4th qualifier Julian Malevanents piloting his Hot Bodies car out front until a loose body would force him to make an unscheduled pit stop. After the lead was swapped a few times, the top 3 settled in with Bacon out front, Mike Murphy Jr in 2nd and Bartholomew recovering to 3rd. Bartholomew would catch Murphy for 2nd and make the pass setting out to make up a lot of time on the leader. Bacon would be on a 10 minute pit strategy with Bartholomew having to make 1 extra stop. Bartholomew would briefly regain the lead when Bacon made is 20 minute stop but a couple crashes by Bartholomew and another pit stop let Tony Bacon stretch to a comfortable 13 sec win over his Associated teammate. Julian Malevanents would rebound from the loose body and a flameout to take home 3rd. Congratulations to Tony Bacon on becoming the first two-time winner of the Pro Nitro Buggy class at the Karsyn's Krusaders Off-Road Challenge!

1. Tony Bacon - Associated/AKA/OS/Byron
2. Danny Bartholomew - Associated/Proline/OS/Byron
3. Julian Malevanents - Hot Bodies/Proline/Novarossi/Byron

Again a huge THANK YOU to the racers for attending and the companies for donating many nice raffle prizes. The event raised over $975 for Karsyn's Krusaders.