Xray Grabs Wins at 2019 Snowbirds

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By Tyler Hooks
LiveRC.com

Press Release from XRAY:
www.teamxray.com

Race Report by Alexander Hagberg:

The world famous Snowbird Nationals was held once again at the Park Inn Resort in Kissimmee, Florida. A strong North American as well as international presence, meant that the race would be as prestigious as ever! More than 700 entries in total, makes this one of the bigger events of the year in the US! RC America brought their best drivers to the event (both new and old) to fight for the win in every class!

This was the first event for our new team members, Brandon Clements and Keven Hebert. We are feeling super proud to have these guys on the team, as they add on not only skills but also professionalism to our already strong North American following!

Practice went well for all our team – we were fine tuning the setups of our cars as grip was coming up. The Snowbird Nationals is unique in the sense that it’s an on-road and oval race combined, which means that we share the same track surface for both events. This makes the track conditions a little different from day to day, and it’s always a tough task to keep up!

In qualifying, we came out strong ,with TQ’s in TC modified, Formula, TC SuperStock, as well as 2nd in 1/12 Modified. Our team felt confident for the upcoming single A-main finals!

In the TC SuperStock class – Jan Ratheisky lead the race from tone to tone, to win a great victory for the T4 2019. Robbie Dodge, whom narrowly missed out on TQ by just 0.2s – fought a great battle, clearly on pace, and also able to defend his position throughout the single A-main final, which rewarded him the runner up spot! Our team drivers did a great job to bring home this 1-2 finish! Drew Ellis and Brandon Clements also made the A-final with their T4 2019 cars!

TC SuperStock Results:
1. Jan Ratheisky – XRAY T4 
2. Robbie Dodge – XRAY T4 
3. Kyle Klingforth

Touring modified was a more straight forward affair. After winning all qualifiers, I also went on to win the main final, after a clean run in the main! My car handled very well all throughout the event. I did use a setup very similar to what I have run previously on black carpet, at the IIC in Las Vegas, for instance. The solid aluminium chassis seems to be a hot ticket for modified racing on black carpet! Jan Ratheisky, Keven Hebert, and Paul Lemieux also made the final for XRAY!

Touring Modified Results:
1. Alexander Hagberg – XRAY T4 
2. Sam Isaacs
3. Yugo Nagashima 

In the formula class, Jan Ratheisky had some troubles early on, but was eventually able to recover into the lead, and convert his TQ spot into a win! It was a great result for the X1 2019, which Jan ran with the kit carbon chassis – making his performance even more impressive! The car was fitted with the optional gear differential in the back.

Formula 1 Results:
1. Jan Ratheisky – XRAY X1 
2. Josh Cyrul
3. Jeff Dayger

In the 12th SuperStock A-main final, an eventful 8 minute encounter eventually saw a brilliant drive form Jan Ratheisky, who drove his X12 2019 from 6th to 1st, to take a fantastic victory!

12th SuperStock Results:
1. Jan Ratheisky – XRAY X12 
2. Andrew Knapp 
3. Ollie Payne

The 12th scale Modified A-final saw Keven Hebert setting off from the 2nd starting position, chasing down the leading car of Kazuki Yamashita. Keven showed great pace until the end of the race, where he ran out of rear tire, which demoted him to 3rd overall! Still a strong result, to finish on the podium with the first outing in which he ran the car! Jan Ratheisky finished 4th, and myself in 5th overall after a troublesome event!

12th Modified Results: 
1. Kazuki Yamashita 
2. Ollie Payne 
3. Keven Hebert – XRAY X12 

Winning TC modified, combined with my 5th place in 1/12 modified – was enough to award me with the overall title once again this year! It was a great feeling to win this award, especially after the struggle in the 1/12 class. 

I want to send out a big thanks to Drew and everyone at the RC America team for all your hard work throughout the week! Our work ethic has been really strong – and it showed in the results! Thanks to all XRAY customers who joined the race that keep supporting the brand! We can’t wait to be back at this great event next year!

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