FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Muddy grudge match ends in steamroll - and lopsided meme war [VIDEO]

0 July 6, 2017, 11:32 a.m.

By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com

Everybody knows that Friday is meant for reminiscing old times. Each week we take you back in time as we flashback to some of R/C racing's greatest moments, products, drivers, and more!

Flashback: 2016

$100 grudge match at Big Apple Novarossi Challenge ends in steamrolled buggy - and a lopsided meme war

This weekend, defending champion Adam Drake will compete against Dakotah Phend, Cole Ogden, Norwegian champion Lars Erik Mo, and some of the fastest nitro off-road racers from around the Northeast at Barnstormers RC Raceway for the fourth annual Big Apple Novarossi Nitro Challenge - and you'll be able to watch it on LiveRC.

Last year, the action started on the rain-shortened practice day, fueled by a friendly wager and ending in flat-out hilarity.

After the rain caused most to pack up for the day, multi-time Big Apple Challenge winner Adam Drake offered two Mugen Seiki Racing teammates — Lerone Hearn and Alvin Crowder — each $100 if they could complete the simple task of running a fuel tank of fuel without flaming out on the puddled course. Not only did both drivers readily fire up their engines, but once they hit the track it turned into a friendly competition with both drivers jockeying for position and waiting for each other to get turn marshaled. The track was a mess.

Look at that muck. Yuck!

Everyone still at the track lined its perimeter to watch. With the LiveRC camera torn down and stored for the evening due to the weather, Ogden used his smartphone to stream the race on Facebook Live - which, of course, meant the whole scene was documented for posterity.

Meanwhile, track president Rohan Grant and his crew began repairing the rutted-out turn preceding the front straightaway. The group tore up the dirt with shovels and then covered the section with tarps before firing up a steamroller to flatten it all down smoothly. As Ogden provided commentary in the video, Drake predicted "they're about to get steam-rolled in a minute" — but I'm not sure he actually believed that's exactly what would happen next.

After just a couple of laps, Crowder crashed in the center of the track and the turn marshal put him in the adjacent lane to catch him up to Hearn. Just one turn later, Crowder slid his car perfectly underneath the streamroller and Grant, who didn't know the car was underneath, started rocking the heavy machine back and forth thinking it was stuck.

HA! Got 'em!

The whole crowd melted down in laughter, with Crowder shocked at the turn of events. Hearn continued on to claim his cash prize, while Crowder failed to limp his car around for the remainder of the challenge and was left with only a muddy - and broken - buggy.

Oops.

Here's the replay:

Surprisingly, Crowder's car escaped with little more than a broken front shock tower and some damper damage; thankfully, he was driving his back-up buggy.

Worth it? Nope.

I rushed to my laptop to post Ogden's Facebook video on our page, and we watched the video view count climb into the thousands.

The following week, Crowder made another grave mistake - forgiving his own teammates for instigating (and recording!) his poor judgement, and instead engaging me in a war of memes on Facebook with jokes about me having a large head — breaking news to everyone, I'm sure. He's since deleted everything I posted to his wall, but here are the scud missles that hit their target: