16-year-old Blair top-qualified Pro Buggy, Pro 4WD Short Course Truck and went onto win all of the three classes he competed in: Pro Buggy, Pro 4WD Short Course Truck, and Pro eBuggy. In Pro Buggy, Blair lapped all the way up to third place and was the only pro driver to consistently drop 37-second lap times. He was simply on another level at the Silver Dollar Off-Road Challenge.

A Main’s Dylan Rodriguez has also been showing off a newfound speed that has other pros taking notice when he steps up to the rail of any driver’s stand. Rodriquez took TQ honors in 1/8-scale Pro Truck and easily took the win after battling early with Kyosho’s Sean Gafney. Rodriguez backed up his Pro Truck win with a solid second place finish in Pro Buggy.

A Main Hobbies’ CEO Kendall Bennett was one of the busiest racers at the Off-Road Challenge racing for two and a half hours in four different  “A” mains. Bennett started first on the grid for both 40+ classes, which he went onto to win. He also ran alongside the pros in both 45-minute Pro Buggy and Pro Truck “A” mains.

A Main Hobbies would like to thank title sponsors Team Associated, Pro-Line Racing, Tekno RC, and Byron Fuels.

SDRCR Off-Road Challenge Winners

Pro 1/8-scale Buggy

1)   Austin Blair

2)   Dylan Rodriguez

3)   Philip Atondo

Pro 1/8-scale Truck

1)   Dylan Rodriguez

2)   Steven Hartson

3)   Curtis Door 

Pro eBuggy

1)   Austin Blair

2)   Richard Saxton

3)   Lou Figueria

Pro eTruggy

1)   Randy Pike

2)   Kameron Kerndt

3)   Ethan Hanna

Pro 4WD SCT

1)   Austin Blair

2)   Loui Figueria

3)   Josh O’Connell

The Inaugural Silver Dollar Off-Road Challenge kicks off this weekend as top pros and regional racers converge in Chico, California at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds. The massive Silver Dollar RC Raceway facility has been revamped with the best dirt A Main Hobbies and “The Dirt’s” Joey Christensen could find. The new surface is loamy and fluffy, with many believing it will “groove-up” in the warm months to come leading up the 1/10-scale Electric IFMAR World Championships. The track received more than just new dirt! World-Class track builder, Christensen, put in what he says, “is one of the best layouts he’s built.” Racers who’ve put in some practice laps talk about the “flow” and jumps being badass. The track’s main feature, which seems to be a staple of Christensen’s most recent 1/8-scale track designs, is a huge step-up with a near vertical takeoff. The enormous mound of dirt took hours to construct and stands at over 8-feet tall. Large triples that require a good run flank both sides of the track, while doubles, off-camber sweeping corners, elevation changes and another huge triple jump fill in the infield.

Racers who compete will not only be treated to one of the best tracks they’ve ever driven on, but will automatically be entered to win raffle prizes from the generous sponsors. Over $5,000 in products have been donated for the giveaway from the likes of Team Associated, Pro-Line Racing, Tekno RC and Byron Fuels. If that wasn’t enough, racers can drive across the street to A Main Hobbies’ retail store to receive 10% off of their purchases.

To coincide with the race, AMainHobbies.com has partnered with Tekno RC to bring it’s customers a week-long sale on all of Tekno’s kits, conversions, and hop-ups. To view the sale which ends May 20^th CLICK HERE

Come out and meet the stars of the A Main Hobbies’ race team; we’ve flown in some of our top drivers for the Off-Road Challenge. You’ll be able to meet them under the ProTek RC and A Main Hobbies’ tents.  Stay tuned, as we’ll bring you more photos and videos from the race.

Tire Sauce Tips

Use caution when using and applying tire sauce. Most sauces are toxic and eye irritant.

The longer tire sauce is allowed to soak into your tires the more drastic the effect. For minimum effect apply sauce and once dry, use your tires.

For maximum effect apply a liberal amount of tire sauce and put your tires into a sealable bag. You can even add a few sprays into the bag. Keep the bag sealed until use.

Ball Diff Tips 

Most ball diffs can last far longer than you ever imagined by using these tips.

Use 220-grit sandpaper oiled with WD40. Using a flat surface such as glass or a firm pit board; slowly sand one side of each drive ring. Do this lightly for about 30 seconds. The ring will be much straighter and will appear scratched. This is what you want.

Using the sanded side of the drive rings towards the diff balls, build your diff as usual. Tighten your diff a half turn more than normal. Run one battery while applying throttle smoothly. After the run you can loosen the diff to the appropriate setting. Your diff will last and last using this method.

Body Trimming Tips 

We all love a freshly painted body. Here’s a few simple tips to help you trim it out and mount it perfectly.

Curved lean scissors are the best tool for the job but long straight cuts can be difficult. For long straight cuts pull a piece of tape along the bodyline you wish to cut. Having the straight line of tape will make these difficult cuts a breeze.

For wheel wells and engine holes cut close to, but not all the way to the bodyline. Then use a sanding drum to finish the job. This will give you the perfect result you were hoping for.

In cases where body mount holes are not visible apply black grease to each body post. Then slowly place the body over the vehicle in the correct position. Lift the body up straight and you will have four perfect grease marks where your holes need to be.

JBRL Nitro round 2 is complete, and it was a HOT hard fought win in the Buggy class, and a little easier cruise in the Truggy class for Cody. These were good wins for Cody as he maintains the points lead in both classes and retains the #1 number plates. Temps exceeding 100f made the effort just a little more difficult unless you pitted in a motor home with AC. Lots of water and wet towels were the order of the day.

Qualifying in buggy was a challenge, as Cody had a an issue during warm-up. After a small adjustment to the car, Cody got on the clock in time but gave up a few seconds as he crossed the loop backward and had to turn around to get going forward on the track. This few seconds would prove to be critical as he battled with Mike Truhe for the lead. Adam Drake was in the next heat, and his time was only 2 seconds faster than Mike and Cody, so the mishap at the beginning of the round  turned out to be important. Cody would start 3rd on the grid for buggy, and had the pole position in truggy.

The buggy final was really exciting with an epic battle for the first 8 minutes. Cody got past Truhe quickly and then set his sights on Drake. Drake, Truhe, and Cody would battle hard, with the 3 running nose to tail and only inches apart at times and swapping positions. Drake looked to pull ahead slightly, but Cody would take the lead in the pits, which put some pressure on Adam. After Drake had a mishap with traffic, this gave Cody a little breathing room. Over the last 15 minutes Cody would stretch out his lead and cruise to the win, with Drake holding on for 2nd, Truhe 3rd, and Cody’s Kyosho team mate Sean Gaffney in 4th. The Truggy class was a bit more simple, with Cody stretching out a huge lead and lapping the field to take the win, Drake in 2nd, and Matt Schreffler in 3rd.

Cody used Proline Holeshot 2.0 tires on his buggy, and Holeshot on the truggy, both in M3 compound. Both Cody’s Reds R5T TE engines were powered by Byron Worlds Blend fuel.

After two rounds of qualifying in their respective classes, BMiller Racing’s own Justin Moon earned TQ honors in Pro Buggy and would start in the back of the inverted grid in the #10 spot. Brian Mincks was the second qualifier in Pro Buggy and started #9, followed by Sawyer Bruer in #8, Patrick Zhao in #7, and Nate Henry in #6.

Longtime stock standout Nathan Lavery TQ’d in 17.5 Buggy and was placed in the #5 position for the Challenge with Jace Tillman on the #4, Shon Wilcox on the #3, Craig Patterson on the #2, and Terry Wickum on the #1.

Each duo was asked to come up with a team name for the feature race, prompting a myriad of creative monikers: “Punch It” (Moon and Wickum), “Team Shadow” (Mincks and Patterson), “The Medical Militia” (Bruer and Wilcox), “Raider Racers” (Zhao and Tillman), and “The Nate Doggs” (Henry and Lavery). In the end, the object of the race was the team with the most combined laps (and fastest combined time) would win a pair of $50 A Main Hobbies gift cards provided by the folks at BMiller Racing.

Dropping the Green Flag…
After some warmup laps and driver introductions, the field went at the tone and threw it into the first turn full throttle. An immediate pile up collected four cars in the back of the grid, allowing the 17.5 guys to open up a little gap in the early going. Coming around for lap one it was Patterson on top with Wickum in second and Tillman in third. That group led for the first two minutes of the race, but it was Moon who was on the move after avoiding the carnage in the first turn collision that collected many of the Pro Buggy drivers.

Just before the halfway mark, Patterson and Wickum got tangled in the rhythm section, allowing Moon to jump to the front of the pack. Ultimately, it was all the help Moon needed, as the BMiller/A Main Hobbies/AKA/DE Racing driver dropped consistent 15- and 16-second lap times to open up a sizable advantage. Meanwhile, Patterson and Wickum continued their battle for the second and third spots along with Mincks and Tillman.

With four minutes down and one minute to go the running order was Moon, Wickum, Patterson, Tillman, Mincks, Lavery, Henry, Wilcox, Bruer, and Zhao. At the finish it was all Moon, who was the only driver to complete 19 laps. Patterson moved up to take the second spot and Mincks grabbed the third step on the podium, while Wickum and Henry finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

As for the team results, team “Punch It” took down the title as Moon’s dominate win proved to the be the difference while BMiller teammate Wickum stayed close enough to the lead pack for the duo to earn top team honors with 37 combined laps. The Patterson/Mincks “Team Shadow” contingent finished second with 36 laps and a total time of 10:05 while “The Nate Doggs” (Henry and Lavery) were third with 36 laps and a combined time of 10:13.

In the end it was another great night of racing at LSR Speedway. Class winners for the regular portion of the program included Eddie Bernal in 4wd Buggy, Bill Budd in Rookie, Chris Budd in 2wd Sportsman SCT and 4wd Sportsman SCT, Troy Hanson in Pro 4 SCT, Chris Havens in Sportsman Buggy, Lavery in 17.5 Expert Buggy, Moon in Pro Buggy, Rob Moots in 17.5 Sportsman Buggy, Scott Whitlow in Stadium Truck, and Wickum in Pro 2 SCT.

Special thanks goes out to LSR Speedway owners Scott and Heather Rowles and the entire LSR track crew for their continued hard work as well as Brian Crum, who provided the thrilling live-action call of the BMiller Racing Stock vs. Mod Buggy Challenge.

Share and Enjoy

Reviewing and Editing my script

Closing Credits

Next up on our agenda was to do some pipe testing. I have a new Ryan Lutz edition pipe being prepared and will be coming out in the coming months. The plan was to do some final testing with the pipe and see if we couldn’t confirm the final specs. I’m happy to say the pipe really woke up the Lutz edition engine and just gave it a better feel all over. Bottom was more crisp and responsive and the top just stretched it’s legs seemingly forever! I can’t wait for the public to get this pipe in their hands as not only is it a great number 2107 (Lucky 21 BlackJack and 07 another Vegas lucky number) but it also just seems to be that pipe that just makes the entire engine package come together for optimum performance!

Ryan Lutz Edition Pipe Testing

Finally on our agenda was to attend the Asia Fever event at a new facility in Taiwan. This facility is held in a park like setting with an Alpaca encounter and kind of like a festival/ park like atmosphere. The track itself was huge with it being extremely high speed and also large US style jumps. Lap times were right around 40 seconds average for me dipping into the 38′s on my perfect laps. I ran Nitro Buggy and truggy as well as E-Buggy. I was able to handily take TQ in all 3 classes. However throughout it all I had some crazy electrical type gremlins and just things that never happen to me occurring throughout the entire event. Unfortunately those things also occurred during my Nitro mains. In Buggy it happened in my Semi-Final when after 22 minutes of racing and nearly a 2 lap lead on the field and 8 minutes to go I had a mechanical gremlin followed closely by an electrical one again taking me out of the race. We raced to get the car back on the track and got in the final two laps of the race but it was to late at that point and I didn’t transfer to the A. In Truggy there was only the A-main. After about 10 minutes of the race I had over half a lap lead and extending and another crazy gremlin struck putting me in pit lane for nearly 2 laps until we figured it out. Got back out nearly a lap down and caught all the way back up to battle for the lead for the final 4 minutes only to make a couple to many mistakes as the leader made his car super wide and I just couldn’t get around cleanly settling for a hard charging 2nd.

Overall even though I would have loved to have won everything I realize that it just wasn’t meant to be this time around. My cars were super fast all weekend and I feel I put on a good show. The participants at this event were all so nice and I look forward as always to my next trip to Taiwan.

Vivian our Alpha contact and translator!

Some of the Alpha Family celebrating Wes’s upcoming B-day!

Wes and I had a lot of fun!

Hand Sanitizer can make you make funny faces

The Alpha Family

Piloting a Kyosho Ultima SC in the 17.5 spec short course class, Pearson convincingly won the points championship by posting three wins and two second place showings in the five rounds he competed in. Jerry Douglas finished second overall in the class and Shaun Klobas was third.

The battle for the spec stock buggy crown, however, was as close as it gets. Pearson, who is the manager for A Main Hobbies’ retail store in Chico, CA, rallied in the final three rounds of the series with a win and two seconds to win the overall title with his Associated B4.1 by just one point over Jeff Fridrich and Brian Romo.

Other class winners included Romo in Spec 2wd Stadium Truck, Kerry Lemos in Open 4wd Short Course, and Ronnie White in Rookie.

Share and Enjoy

I came away with 4 TQ’s and 2 Wins, a 2nd, and a 3rd. Some stats of the weekend were that 10 of the 11 qualifiers that I ran this weekend were either a TQ or 2nd. It was by far my most consistent, top of the pack race of my career! It felt great to do so well with the heavy competition at this event!

Below I have lots of Video’s and photos courtesy of RC Car Action and rcinsider.com

This weekend my racing package really came together and I felt at one with everything. My Durango vehicles performed excellent throughout the weekend. The new Byrons Worlds blend 25/8 fuel ran perfectly. My Alpha engines ran strong and flawless all week! AKA tires were absolutely dominant this week. My ProTek batteries and Tekin electronics worked superb. It was just everything coming together this week to give me a shot at such great results!

Next up I head to Taiwan on Saturday to visit the Alpha factory and partake in a nice event over there! Got some exciting things coming around the corner!

Until next time,
-Lutzinator

4 TQ’s at Silver State!

Ryan Lutz – TQ’s 4 Classes at Silver State from RC Insider on Vimeo.

Ryan Lutz – 1/8th Expert Truggy Round #4 from RC Insider on Vimeo.

Silver-State-Lutz

Silver-State-Focus

Silver-State-TQ Quadfecta!

Silver-State-Nitro Buggy Podium

Silver-State-Pro Truggy Podium

As a result of the existing clay being removed and new dirt being trucked in, the Silver Dollar Off-Road Challenge will now be moved to May 17^th-19^th.

 “We want the racers who frequent SDRC Raceway to enjoy the surface and layouts we create.  We also needed a soil that was easier to manage. If racers experience less tire wear, and are able to drive on several exciting layouts throughout the year, they’ll have more fun. Our decision was easy when considering our customers, the racers, and our long term goals with Silver Dollar RC Raceway.” – A Main Hobbies’ CEO, Kendall Bennett

4wd Short Course proved to be the weekend’s premier class with 33 entries. Figueria earned the TQ with his Losi SCTE 2.0 but it was his teammate O’Connell, starting from the No. 2 position, who led the field through the first two laps. A bobble by O’Connell in lap four catapulted Figueria back into the top spot, where he stayed for most of the eight-minute A main. Figueria returned the favor with two minutes to go, suffering a hard crash in the big jump section in front of the driver’s stand that put O’Connell back in charge. That was all O’Connell needed, laying down a blistering final five laps for the win in his Losi SCTE with Tekin RX8 speedo and Pro 4 4600 motor, ProTek R/C Supreme Power 100c lipo battery, and super soft Panther Raptors mounted on white DE Racing Borrego wheels. Figueria held on for second despite suffering some electrical issues from the late-race crash and Jason Melfa was third.

Figueria redeemed himself in the 10-minute eBuggy A main. Again starting on the pole with the TQ, Figueria left no doubt in this one, winning wire-to-wire by running all but one of his 28 laps in either 21 or 22 seconds (other lap was a 23). Powered by a Tekin RX8 speedo and T8 motor with two ProTek R/C Supreme Power 100c lipo batteries, Figueria had his Mugen MBX6 ECO planted on the loose dirt surface with super soft Panther Talon tires glued to white DE Racing Borrego 8 buggy wheels. Figueria ended up winning by 12 seconds with Mark Schroeder second and O’Connell third.

Hanson was locked and loaded all weekend in 2wd Short Course with his Associated Factory Team SC10. Dialed up with a Tekin 8.5 motor and RS speedo matched with a ProTek R/C Supreme Power 100c battery, Hanson earned the TQ and won the eight-minute A main by 21 seconds. The high-speed, big-air layout was a challenge for the 2wd SCT’s on the loose surface, but Hanson’s ride found plenty of traction with super soft Panther Raptors mounted on yellow DE Racing Borrego wheels accented by black carbon fiber wheel sticker disks. Austin Hansen finished second and Mike Bunker ended up third.

O’Connell also found himself in an epic battle in Nitro Buggy with Schroeder, Brett Bowen, and Trevor Lund. The foursome went toe-to-toe for the first 10 minutes of the 20-minute main with the lead changing hands nine times before attrition starting taking its toll on the leaders. Bowen suffered servo problems right after the halfway point, and then O’Connell was forced to the sidelines while leading with three minutes to go, suffering a broken front end. Schroeder, who TQ’d, stayed steady throughout and earned the hard fought victory.

Other class winners included Red Patten in 2wd Mod Buggy, Greg Newman in 4wd Buggy, Melfa in 1/8 Truggy, and Tom Swaney in Novice. With a record number of entries, the race proceeds allowed the club to donate more than $2,000 to the neighboring Northern California Veterans Museum.

Built approximately five years ago by a strong local RC racing community, Rattlesnake Raceway (http://www.rattlesnakerc.com) is located at 3747 Meadowview Drive in Redding, CA and features both off-road and oval racing. Jason Schurig serves as club president, and represented the facility in a first-class manner as an outstanding race director for the NCVM Benefit Race.

Share and Enjoy