Hey guys, I've got a race report on the new truggy...

While I wanted to go another week or two of just practice, my buddy Mark pushed me into taking the new truck to a race at Wolcott. For those of you that don't know the Wolcott track, it is about the best way to battle-proof a vehicle known to man. The track is big and is just loaded with jumps and not small one's either. There is usually at least one very big jump that gives you anywhere from 6'-9' of distance between you and the ground.

During Practice, I shook out one of the common 8T 2.0 issues right away, shock ends stripped. The hobby shop didn't have the replacement parts but luckily one of the racers had a new pack and I just bought it off him. Amazingly the shock shaft was fine, I didn't even loose the spring. After that I had a wheel nut come loose - I was very worried it was the dreaded rear hub bearing issue but it was just a loose nut. I checked them after each run after that and it was not a problem. My final issue was also a common one, the wing mount screws backed out completely. It's another issue where longer screws will actually thread into the nylon of the nut and should go away. For the day I made use of the short screw and some copious amounts of locktight.

Once those issues were worked out I could really drive the truck and of course it is just amazing. I think having now driven it at two tracks I can honestly say that it's not worlds of difference from what I had, maybe it's only really 5-10% better than my old CRT but 5-10% is actually quite a bit. I give it high marks in two areas. Without a doubt it's a better jumper. It is lighter so it jumps far, high and fast. It also lands and settles much better. My favorite track feature was this incredible step-up big kicker tabletop. The truck just launched 8 feet in the air and with a tap of the (motor) brake landed the downside every time. Really smooth and beautiful. I also give it high marks in low speed corners. I could cut inside just about anyone in low speed. I still think on-power it has a lot of push but that is more likely because it's Electric and on-power it transfers lots of weight to the back. I plan to work on that a bit but it was acceptable.

During the actual race, I was quite surprised. Now in all fairness to any Wolcott guys, this was an odd week. There were only two heats of Truggy, about 12-13 truggies, and just about all the local Wolcott fast guys were absent so I wasn't up against their best. I got out front in the first qual round and just never looked back. I drove smooth and consistently. I focused more on not crashing than on trying to push the truck. I was careful with my jump timing and did really well. I won the heat and after the second heat of truggy ran, I was TQ. For the second round I ran a little more experimental. I was very far out front and I realized because of a transponder error (on the track's part) I wasn't clocking. It didn't really matter to me as I was TQ already and I had to leave before the main anyway. So I went a little wild. There was one section in the back where there was a double double. ALL of the Nitro guys were doing it double double. I did see a guy running an Electric 8ight buggy QUAD it once. It wasn't pretty but he did land it. So I went for it. Amazingly the truck LOVES to be pushed hard. I must have landed the quad at least 4 laps in a row. I was psyched. I'm sure my lap times were even better than round 1.

I did not make round 3 or the main b/c I had some family commitments. I left the track at 2:30 after getting there at 10am. All in all it was a great day of early season racing and I feel like now with (most of) one race day under my belt with the new truck, we are off to a good start.