Mexican Nationals Race Report
Pachuca Round 3.
Hi, my name is Juan Herrero and I’m a Mexican team driver for Mugen Seiki. This is my race report from round 3 of the Mexican Nationals held at Pachuca, Hidalgo in Mexico.
Last Sunday the third round of the Mexican Nationals was held at Pachuca, Mexico. The event saw over 100 entries in the Buggy and Truggy classes. Drivers across Mexico attended the event from cities like Chihuahua, Celaya, Colima, Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, Mexico City, Pachuca, Puebla, Hermosillo, Morelia, Queretaro, Tijuana, Tampico, Monterrey, León and more. The track was outstanding and promised great racing.
Free practice started early on Friday with most of the drivers attending to set up the cars for the event. I changed my setup completely from what I had been racing before. I was having a lot of understeer issues with my MBX7 Buggy and MBX6TR Truggy. Kris Moore from Mugen Seiki was kind enough to share with me the latest setups from Drew Moller and Tim Long. The main change was on the Diff Oils by going 7-7-4 on the Buggy and 10-15-7 on the Truggy the understeer issues were forgotten.
Now it was time to work on Fuel Milage. I tried using a smaller Venturi on the Novarossi Beat BT4 for the Buggy and my FX Engine on the Truggy. Fuel mileage was improved but I sacrificed a lot of power and had to run the engine very lean to compensate. I decided to go back to bigger Venturi but drive saving fuel. I managed to get 10:15min on the Beat Engine and over 12 minutes with the Truggy engine. This meant no stopping for fuel on the Truggy Qualifiers but I didn’t want to risk it on the Buggy. I decided to stop at the 8 minute mark for fuel just to be safe.
Saturday arrived and the three qualifiers per class got underway. My first two buggy qualifier heats where a disaster. On the first heat I didn’t secure the fuel hose properly and it got tangled on the flywheel, causing a flame out. On the second heat I had another flameout due to a broken fuel line (another one). Both of my Truggy heats went fairly well placing me in a good overall position.
Rain started falling at the Pachuca race track just before the end of the second qualifying round which was the cause of suspension of the 3rd qualifying round for all the drivers. I ended up qualifying 5th on Truggy and 43rd on Buggy. It was going to be a long Sunday with the Buggy.
Sunday started early for me as I ran the second final of the day. I decided to drive patently and take care of the car as much as I could. I was able to move up all the way from 1/64 finals to the Semifinals. The Buggy semifinal started and competition was fierce. I tried to make as few mistakes as possible and I finished on the 6th position which granted me a spot on the A Main. On the Truggy Semifinal, I was a bit more competitive and I ended up finishing 4th which also meant a spot on the A Main. In my first year racing Off Road RC cars this was going to be the first time I made it to the A Main in both classes so I was pretty pumped about that accomplishment.
The Truggy A Main got under way, 45 minutes of very close racing. It was a constant switch for positions as the battle intensified. I started 8th and went all the way to first place at the middle of the race. Then I was relegated back to 6th but managing to finish 5th at the end. It was awesome racing combined with great pit stops by my Pitman Hector Ruesga. The race Top 5 was Sigrist, Lopez, Navarro, Gudiño and Herrero.
Shortly after the Truggy A Main, the Buggy Final got underway. After so many cars racing over the weekend the track deteriorated and showed a lot of pots and holes. The racing line had converted into a blue groove which affected the setup choice I had from before. I was too high on suspension oil and with the wrong tire compound. Knowing these issues I decided to go conservative again. I started at the back of the pack and stayed there for a while. It was until lap 61 that I moved up to the 5th position. Being consistent (although not the fastest) and having great pitstops by Ruesga proved a good strategy as I was able to clinch the 3rd spot 5 laps before the end. The race winner was Mugen Seiki driver Felipe Martinez from Tijuana followed by Monterrey’s Luis Gudiño and yours truly.
It was an awesome race weekend and a great learning opportunity. It’s always great to see friends from all over Mexico you only get to see a few times a year. These results put us in a good overall position in the point standings for both classes.
I want to thank Mugen Seiki, All Sports and Hobbyshop.mx for their support. Next round will be held at Celaya at the end of September. See you then.
7/25/2014
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