This past weekend I traveled to Hutto, Texas for the Dirt Lonestar Nitro Challenge at Thornhill Racing Circuit. For this race, Joey, Aaron, and the Thornhill crew made the track a little bit smaller and built a true supercross layout. It was fast, flowing, and a blast to drive on!
I arrived on Thursday morning for a day of open practice. The track had gotten a lot of rain the day before, and surprisingly it was dry and dusty by the time we got there! I got in some good practice with both my Xray XB8 and Xray XB8E and was ready for qualifying on Friday!
Qualifying for this race called for four rounds of 7 minute heats, taking your best three rounds to determine your qualifying position for the mains. In the first round of E-buggy, I had a rough start and made a couple mistakes, but I got it together and came back to get second by the end. My E-buggy felt great on X3 Hole-Shots! In Nitro, I had a terrible run. I just drove bad and was ready for some redemption in round two. In round two of E-buggy, it went pretty much the same as the first round, and I got another second overall. Right before the nitro buggy heats were about to get started, the heavens opened up and the track got a TON of rain. The track crew decided to call it a day and come back for the rest of qualifying the next day.
When we arrived at the track the next day, it didn't look like the track would be ready for racing anytime soon, so I decided to break out my XB4 and sign up to race it. I got some good practice in with it and was excited to have some fun in 1/10 scale! We ran three rounds of qualifying and I ended up qualifying second behind my XRAY teammate Ethan Lefebve. In the main, I got a great start as Ethan crashed and was able to take the lead. I maintained a gap the whole race as everyone else was crashing and I was just clicking off my laps. I was able to take the win with Ethan finishing in second!
Now going back to 1/8 scale, the track crew somehow managed to get the track dry within a few hours, and they decided to run the rest of the second round that morning, and go straight into the mains that afternoon. I had a good second round in Nitro finishing second behind Maifield, and was set to start fifth in the main. Not where I wanted to be but I knew I had the pace for a podium.
In my first of two E-buggy mains, I got a good start and just followed Jake Dellinger around for the first couple minutes. We created a good gap to third and took turns making mistakes. Whenever I got close, I made a mistake, and whenever he pulled away, he made a mistake. In the end he took the win and I finished in second. In the second main, I got a bad start and was fifth after the first lap. I worked my way through the pack and got into second with about four minutes left. I was finding my groove and catching up to Jake when I got it wrong on the front jump section and snapped my steering link. I was bummed because my XB8E felt great on X3 Hole-Shots!
In my Nitro main, I got a good start and was second behind Cole Ogden with Maifield in third. I made a mistake which let Maifield get by and I just settled into a pace in third. My car felt pretty edgy on X3 Blockades and I was struggling to drive it the way I wanted to, I think it was due to too soft of a tire and a track that was getting blue-grooved out of nowhere. I managed to bring it home in third, which I was happy with based on how bad I drove! My XRAY teammate Ethan Lefebve got fourth, which meant two out of the top five were XRAYs!
I also want to congratulate Dennis Jendry, another XRAY driver who had some very good results in the Expert and +40 class!
I want to thank Joey, Aaron, Chris Allison, and the whole Thornhill track crew for a very fun track and a fun weekend! Y'all battled the rain all weekend and I appreciate y'all's hard work and dedication!
Thanks XRAY/RCAmerica for all the help and support!
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