2013 Northwest Championship Tour - Round #1

Thursday, Apr 25, 2013 at 12:00am UTC

The first round of the Northwest Championship Tour was held this past weekend in Wenatchee, Washington. Nearly 250 racers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Canada were in attendance to compete on the rough and loamy outdoor track.

2WD Modified Buggy -  RC10B4.2 Factory Team 
Saturday consisted of three rounds of qualifying using the "qual points" format, so your best two out of three rounds counted towards qualifying. Jesse Munn battled back and forth with fellow Team Associated driver Dave Gullickson in both of the first two rounds, narrowly losing out to Dave and finishing second in each. This gave Dave the overall TQ. Jesse went on to win the third round of qualifying to secure a second-place starting position on Sunday.

On Sunday all the 1:10 classes used the triple A Main format. In A1, Jesse Munn took the victory after a great battle with Dave Gullickson. In A2, Jesse got out front early and held off a late charge by Justin Wilde to take the win and secure the overall win for the day!

1:8 Pro Nitro Buggy - RC8.2 Factory Team 
Saturday qualifying went really well in the Pro Nitro Buggy class. Jesse Munn was able to qualify second overall with a TQ in round one and a second-place finish in round two.

By the time the Pro Nitro Buggy main event started on Sunday the track had gotten pretty blown out. With a sold run, Munn's RC8.2 was able to secure a podium spot taking third overall after the 30-minute A Main event.

1:8 Nitro Truggy - RC8T CE Factory Team 
Saturday qualifying in the Nitro Truggy class was hit-and-miss for me. An unfortunate corner-marshalling incident in round one where I actually ran out of gas while waiting to be cornered upside down gave me 14th overall for the round. Round 2 was much better and I was able to get the TQ! Round 3 was cut short due to an electrical problem and I was left with a qualifying effort of ninth overall and a starting spot at the rear of the field for the A Main.

The 30-minute Truggy A Main was the second-to-last race of the weekend and the track was extremely rough and challenging. After working through the field, Jesse Munn found himself battling with Jim Mann for the lead the entire second half of the race. After 30 minutes of racing Munn was able to put the Team Associated RC8T CE on top of the podium!

4wd Modified - B44.2 Factory Team 
The weekend was dominated by B44.2's up front fighting for the lead. On Saturday, Nick Beuchler and Justin Wilde would battle for the TQ position with Nick Buechler taking it after A3, a precursor of Sunday. Sunday started by Justin Wilde getting the win in A1 after Nick had some difficulties. Nick would come back and get A2 and A3 to finish with the TQ and win on the weekend. Justin would finish in the two spot and Associated driver Troy Fancuillo would make a push from the back of the grid to earn a 3rd place overall, and yet another all AE podium. The top 5 4WD buggies were all B44.2's.

2wd Short Course Modified - SC10.2 Factory Team 
The SC10.2 was out front and soaking up the bumpy and challenging track. Justin Wilde would get out front and take the TQ after 2 rounds of qualifying. In the mains, Justin had to retire early from A1, but would come back to win A2 and A3 to complete the weekend sweep of the 2WD SC class.


Pictures