Wisconsin Nitro Series Rd3 report

As the summer continues on, so does the Wisconsin Nitro Series. Round 3 was Sunday at the MARRCA Race track located just outside of Madison Wisconsin. A great turnout was expected and that is what we had. 101 entries from 3 different states joined us for an exciting day of racing. We have had some great races so far in the series and round 3 produced even more, but good racing was not the only thing racers had in their future on this beautiful day. The other thing racers had to look forward to was what has become the common theme of the WNS and that is rain. The weather man said this weekend was going to be perfect, well he was wrong. As we started the first round promptly like we do each race at 10am. I checked the radar and saw that there was a large line of storms heading our way that no doubt would affect the later stages of the event. So I decided to shorten the warm-up time between heats in hopes to expedite the program and get all the races in. We also needed to shorten up some of the mains to also ensure we could get all the races in and it worked!

The expert Buggy and Truggy classes have produced some thrilling racing so far this season and this round was no exception. In the Truggy class it was Jeff Stanford who took the TQ honors followed by Tory Wensel and Sarah Ernst rounded out the top 3 in qualifying. As the storms were continued to head our way, we shortened the Expert mains from 30min to 15. It was Stanford who had a great start and slowly pulled away from the field. The early battle was for 2nd place between Tory and Sarah. They had a great fight and it was Sarah who was able to take over 2nd and pull away, unfortunately for Sarah at the 10 min. she had a steering failure which dropped her out of the race moving Tory to 2nd and Fabulous Frank Krivitz to bring home the final podium spot.

In Expert buggy it gave us the best race of the day! In the world of Nitro one of the most popular parts of this form of racing is the bump up format. With this format no matter how qualifying goes, you still have a glimmer of hope that you will be able to make the A final and possibly still take the win. Expert class it was Jeremy Whiting taking the TQ spot followed by Round 2 winner Taylor Timmerman now running for Team Losi and 3rd on the grid went to Mugen driver Dave Bengston.

At the tone it was a great battle for the top 5 positions, this went on until the first round of pit stops. As the leaders battled it was bump up driver and winner of the B main Aric Seffrood who was the man on the move. Aric who started 9th in this final showed great patience and methodically worked his towards the front. As the race progressed, Aric found himself in the battle for the 3rd place with leader Tim McNamara and Jeremy Whiting. Unfortunate trouble for Timmerman and Bengston caused them to fall a few places back. The battle for the lead was intense. McNamara continued to hold off Whiting and the hard charging Seffrood. Again patience was the key to Seffrood’s progress in this final. Sitting back in 3rd for many laps just following the leaders as they continued to battle. With 5 min to go, Seffrood’s patience paid off as he took advantage of the leaders small mistake and went from 3rd to 1st and did not relinquish the lead for the reminder of the race. Unfortunate for Whiting a failure dropped him out of the race with 3 min to go. Seffrood had built up a good lead over McNamara and the race on the track was for the final podium spot. It was Joe Sr and Dave Bengston who had a great 2 lap shootout with Joe taking 3rd by 1.3 seconds. A big congratulations for the A main win in Expert buggy to Aric Seffrood. Taking full advantage of the bump up system and driving a brilliant and patient final to take the win.

In the Intermediate Buggy it was Chris Eckelberg dominating qualifying and taking the shortened A final win. In Truggy it was a good fight in qualifying between Mike Kerchner and Round 2 winner Scott McTaggart, McTaggart TQ’d round 1 but Kerchner put in a great round 2 run to take the overall TQ. What was looking to be an exciting A final between these 2 racers quickly changed as McTaggart had terrible luck at the start and went all the way back to last place. This bad start allowed Kerchner to put it in cruise mode and bring home the win. After the rough start that McTaggart had, he was determined to salvage a good finish and was able to come all the way back to 2nd.

Short Course had up to a C final and was as expected a great class. Frank Krivitz was the top of the qualifying ranks with Brian “Cookie” Koch right behind and Jason Gibson taking the 3rd qualifying spot. In the final it was a great race between Krivitz and Koch with Gibson having to fight his way out of the pack. Frank and Brian continued the close battle and Gibson slowly closed in on the leaders. A small mistake by Koch allowed Gibson to take the 2 spot and he slowly closed in on Krivitz. Frank held off Jason for the last couple of minuets of the race not giving Jason any chance to pass, but one small mistake by Krivitz in the closing stages of the race gave Gibson the chance to make a pass and he was able to hold on to the lead and bring home the win.

4×4 Short Course saw the Buck/Jason Hills cage match continue and it was Buck who got the upper hand. Jason falling victim to couple of mechanical failures throughout the day keeping him a bit off the pace. Buck was quoted after the race calling Jason out saying. “That guys got nothing! Nothing I say, any time, any place, You name it, I will be there! J

The other class gaining popularity in the WNS is the 1/8th Electric Buggy class. This division is growing nation wide and we are planning on running it indoor at Trackside when the new track is finished. I have been very excited for this class as it is what I am planning on running during the WNS. I received my Team Associated RC8E last week and I was able to run it and all I can say is WOW! I have outfitted my RC8E with a Tekin RC8 with a 1700KV Motor and it was so much fun to run. The electric 1/8th gave the same feeling as the nitro with the only thing I found to be missing will be the long mains. I was fortunate enough to TQ the class but I made a mistake at the start which dropped me way back and I was only able to work back up to 4th. The battle up front was between Neil Pestka and Buck. These two had a great battle up front and during the whole race. It came down to the last lap and they were both right with each other but it was Neal who was able to get around the last lap the quickest to take the win.

It was a great day of racing and I personally want to thank the Marcca club for allowing the WNS to come to their wonderful facility. The club has done a spectacular job building their new facility this year and I look forward to next years WNS when we can bring the series back to Marcca.

I also want to thank all the racers for choosing to be part of the WNS, Next up for us will be Dirt Heaven raceway just outside of Green Bay WI on August 7th 2010. Let’s hope Mother Nature will cooperate with us and give us good weather for round #4. See everyone next month.

Thanks
Scotty