McBride takes the Dragon Stone with his RC8B3

Scotty Ernst Productions and the entire Dragon Stone Raceway organization invited me to the first big race held in China called the Asian Nitro Buggy Championships in Shenyang, China. We arrived at the facility and it was beyond what we expected, with a massive driver stand for both off-road and on-road tracks and indoor pitting areas for the international drivers.

We were faced with some bad weather on the first day of open practice, so we prepped our vehicles and tires in anticipation for practice the next day. We were lucky enough to get on the track Friday, but the track was still slick and muddy due to the earlier rain. I had a few practice runs around the large, open-and-fast track and my RC8B3 was feeling comfortable.

Saturday was qualifying and once again we were faced with bad weather. However, we managed to finish one full round. In my first qualifier I was leading the race with some great speed until I landed on a jump and my car flamed out due to a lot of mud stuck in the spur gear. We had to sit out the rest of the day and wait until the next round to run one more qualifier and then straight into the finals.

Sunday morning the track had dried overnight and we were ready to continue round 2 of qualifying. I again went out and smashed the qualifier. An unfortunate run-in with a lapped car led to one marshal, but I still managed to win by 4 seconds, taking the overall TQ and pole start in the A Main 45-minute final. The rest of the day the weather held. As the lower finals were running, the track continued to dry out even further. I was super happy with my car, engine and tires for the final, so I decided to not make any unnecessary changes to my vehicle.

For the 45-minute final, I started off with a clean start and began to gap second place. After the first fuel stop, I was slowly gapping away from the pack as my car was working amazingly well and was super easy to drive with great speed. Soon the race was mine, as I continued to clock fast consistent laps to go on to win by 3 laps over second place and have the fastest lap time of a 28.8!

Products used
#80914 RC8B3 Nitro Team Kit
#315 Reedy LiPo 2100mAh 7.4V RX/TX Battery
#27107 Reedy RT2207A Digital HV Hi-Torque Aluminum Competition Servo

Thanks to Kyle and Scott McBride for this report.

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