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USA; Easton reports from ROAR Nats (27/06/2012)

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Reporter

Linked to:
Cobra TE 1/8 4wd buggy, Cobra 811 Buggy 2.0 1/8 4wd buggy, Cobra Buggy 2.1 4wd 1/8, Cobra Buggy 2.2 GP 4wd 1/8


2012 ROAR Nationals
Hosted by: LCRC  
Lost Creek, Pennsylvania

This year the ROAR Nationals were held at LCRC in Lost Creek Pennsylvania. The track is located in a mountainous area with rolling hills, trees and lots of rock. The scenery is actually quite beautiful. The LCRC crew did a great job building a fun layout to race on as well as provided many great amenities, including compressed air and onsite food vendors. My hat goes off to them for the great job they did.


The track layout was not the easiest, but not because of the twists and turns, but more so the condition the track was turning into. The track had a great driving groove, but was a bit dusty. I personally, was having a terrible time getting through the whoop section. It really challenged many drivers, but for sure that was the toughest part of the track. The layout had so many different types of jumps and turns, that included a long double into a 90 deg. Right, quite a few off camber turns, banked turn, downhill zig zag, and even logs in the shape of a wagon wheel. You were going up and down, twisting and turning to complete a lap. I really enjoyed the layout and thought many others did as well.


When it comes to the cars, I really can not complain too much about them. They actually were working quite well. In buggy from the time I placed it on the track, it ran really well, was fast and easy to drive in the condition. My Cobra truggy, felt good, had good steering and traction, but perhaps was a little too stiff. Overall, I tried a few things on my Cobra buggy, which included moving the rear shocks out on the rear arm, but mostly, I left it the same as I had tested at previous visits to LCRC. In truggy, it was a lot of the same, the only difference was I came to the race with a new setup I had never actually run before. On the truggy, I moved around the front shocks, changed the kickup and messed with the rear shock position. I don’t really feel I ever had the right combination, and if I could do it all over again, I would probably change two things I did not have time to do. I felt the front spring was too stiff along with the rear oil, so I would change that now if I could. The big trick, was to not only have stability in the high grip sections, but to also have stability through the bumps, dust and logs. You really had to find a balance in all the areas, to have a good race.


In qualifying, I was a bit unfortunate and had a flame out in the first qualifier of buggy, when I was in position to take third in the round. A little bit of bad luck/decision making lead to a loss of that qualifier in buggy. My other buggy qualifiers were good, but nothing to throw a party over.  In truggy, things where going great up until the 3rd qualification, when my Roma let go on me. At that time, my only backup was a Bonito, so having to swap out my power plant crippled my truggy race program. After throwing away a couple needed qualifiers in both classes, I didn’t exactly have the best bargaining chips going into the semi final. Luckily I was able to finish 12th in both classes, which was good enough for a semi final run, but mid pack would ultimately be my demise.


As my truggy final kicked off, I had a clean start and was sitting in the 5 position and half way through the first lap, a vehicle jumped the track and hit my truck. When the collision happened, they sent me down the hill and caused me to drop quite a few positions. In the next turn following my return to the racing line, I was hit again, sending me further into the back. So, going from 5th to 12th was not exactly my idea of a good time in that final. I battled back, ran some great laps, but the distance from me to the transfer position had grown so much in the earlier minutes of the final, there was know way I would be able to make a bid for the final.
The buggy final, seemed a whole lot like the truggy final. I will keep this one simple….Great start, shortly into the race, collisions with rogue cars, back of the pack again.  The only difference in buggy was that my car was actually quite a bit faster than the others in my final. I was able to run my way up to the transfer position quite fast. The end of my run came when my engine had a random flame out just when I made it to the transfer position. At that time, my bid for a spot in the final again came to an end.

My nationals didn’t go as well as it could and it appeared I had run short on some luck. I should have gone on ebay to take a look if anyone was selling lucky charms, I definitely could have used one on main day.

Congrats to Tessman for his double victory, I have to admit though, he seemed to have nabbed up all the luck. .Dakota was on a mission and had things gone his way, he would have been the double victor. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes things are well earned, and sometimes things fall into your lap…Until the next race.

My set up buggy and truggy
http://serpent.com/racing/setups/

Billy Easton
Team Serpent

Thx to neobuggy.net for the images.