This past weekend, Leisure Hours Raceway hosted the Chi-Town Shootout sponsored by Team Checkpoint & R/C Car Magazine.
The electric off-road classes were: Mod Buggy, Mod Truck, Mod 4wd, 19 turn Truck, 19 Turn 4wd, 19 turn Buggy, Brushless-Lipo (Outlaw) Truck. For those that aren’t familiar, Leisure Hours Raceway is on the far southwest side of Chicago and feature a large, indoor clay track. This was a new track layout for this weekend, and practice began Friday, qualifying on Saturday, and mains on Sunday. The event was fairly well attended with about 140 entries, primarily Midwest area drivers.
The pits are always an interesting place to people watch. I’m always amazed at the people that drag their television and XBox to play video games in the pits. A unique sighting, was a guy brought his George Forman electric grill and cooked burgers right in his pits. The unique clay track had many people dremeling their tires down to slicks. Nothing like the smell of cooking burgers and burning rubber…
I knew that simply finishing the 20 minute Outlaw Truck main would be key, so I prepared as best as possible. This track is notorious for breaking rear body mounts on trucks. The night before, I removed my rear mounts and boiled them, hoping to increase their durability (which my wife was stoked about :). I also pinned up the rear of my Pro-Line Crowd Pleazer body, in attempt of avoid it acting like a ’claw’ and grabbing the clay track. I also doubled up the rear wing, just in case. It felt like I was preparing for battle, but it was everything I could do of to reinforce my ride. two-wings_lo.jpg
In my 6 minute Mod 4wd race, I got off to a clean start. I settled in to a groove and felt like I was on the attack. The Hot Bodies D4 buggy is one of my favorite cars in my fleet, as it’s lightening quick and is totally dialed on this high traction track. I wasn’t even certain until the awards ceremony, but I got a respectable 2nd place trophy. For the 20 minute brushless / lipo Outlaw Truck A Main, I was starting in 9th position. In my previous qualifiers, I did the math and I knew I would be extremely close to finish the 20 minute race with the battery I had. In fact, I calculated I would come up about 6 laps short if I went at the same pace as my qualifiers. My plan was to take it easy for the first 15 minutes. I would race at 80% and save the truck as well as the battery, and pick up the pace for the remaining 5 minutes. I finished 5th place, a satisfying 4 positions better than I started.It was a great weekend and a I was pleased with my results. Like many, electric offroad was my first r/c passion way back when, and with the new technology, it’s come back full circle. With both brushless motors and lithium batteries becoming accepted in competition, I’m extremely pleased at how easy and fun electric racing has become. Both my Hot Bodies Cyclone D4 and Associated T4 ran lipo batteries and brushless motors. I could not believe how much this totally changes the landscape for electric racing! I no longer need a box of motors, a box of batteries, a motor lathe, discharge tray…heck, I didn’t even bring a soldering iron or motor spray! I ran the same battery and same motor in each car the entire weekend. Totally awesome!