Bring the Heat 2013!

Tuesday, Jul 23, 2013 at 12:00am UTC

This past weekend I attended the "Bring the Heat" event at FRC in Flowood, MS. This was the event's third year running. Bubba Barham, the track owner, does a great job promoting and bringing in travelers from all over to his events, such as from California, Wisconsin, Virginia, and many other states. The event had a total of 200 entries in multiple classes. I ran Pro 1/8 Electric Buggy, Pro 1/8 Nitro Buggy, and Pro 1/8 Nitro Truggy.

The race format was practice Friday, qualify Saturday, and Mains Sunday. I knew I was in trouble because I wasn't able to make it to practice early on Friday while many of the racers had arrived Thursday or Friday morning. This would leave me with one practice run with nitro buggy for maybe 30 minutes total. However, after practice early Saturday morning I was feeling pretty confident, although without knowing how my competition fared.

1/8 Pro eBuggy - winner
Qualifying consisted of three rounds and taking your best two runs using qualifier points. In the end I was able to TQ 1/8 Pro eBuggy for the double 10-minute A Mains. In A1 I was able to get off to a great lead and pull ahead to about half a lap, but with three minutes to go my nerves started getting the best of me and I made way more mistakes than I would have liked. Eventually, Nick Sublette gained ground and passed me for the lead on the last lap. The crowd went crazy as Nick passed me with four turns to go.

I knew I would be fastest when driving through the back sections of the track. We were nose to tail leading into the last two turns -- then the crowd once again went crazy as Nick made a mistake and I went on the inside of him to take A1 by one second! It was a nail-biter to the end, for sure!

In A2 I focused more on being smooth and calming my nerves. I was able to get a great start and stretched to a comfortable lead for the win in A2, taking the overall win with my JConcepts-equipped RC8.2e with Reedy and LRP power!

Nitro Buggy - second place
In Nitro Buggy I was able to qualify second behind Losi's Adam Drake for the 45-minute A Main. I was able to get good start but made one bobble about two laps in, forcing me back to 10th. I put my head down and focused and made it back up to second with my RC8.2 where I held off third place by over a lap.

Nitro Truggy - second place
In Nitro Truggy I was able to qualify third behind Drake And Kyosho/Reds Racing's Eddy Cordoba. Once again we got off to a great start and Drake, Cordoba, and myself started putting a considerable gap between the rest of the field. Drake slowly started stretching out his lead while Eddy and myself battled for second for the majority of the race until Eddy had an unfortunate flame-out. This gave me an opportunity to calm down and be smooth for the remainder of the race, taking second overall with my RC8T CE.

I could not have been happier with my Reedy/LRP-powered Team Associated rides the whole weekend. Each class was absolutely dialed and a blast to drive! Thank you Team Associated for the opportunity to represent an amazing company.

Thanks to Blake Boggs for this report.


Pictures