Adam Drake wins scorching JBRL Rd4

Last Saturday was round four on Southern California’s JBRL Nitro Series, sponsored by TLR, held at Palm Desert Raceway. The event turnout was light with around 100 entries due to the Holiday weekend and the extreme temperatures of 118 degrees with a track temp of 166 degrees. In qualifying it was Team Losi Racing / Novarossi driver Adam Drake who set the pace in both of the expert 1/8th classes, the extreme temperatures making chassis and engine tuning difficult for most of the racers. At the start of the truck main Drake began to pull away and at the end of the 25 minute main Drake took the win followed by Brad Wintermantle in 2nd, who was also driving a TLR 8ight T 2.0, with Jessie Robinson in 3rd for Mugen.

In the buggy final, Drake led from start to finish and won the 25 minute final ahead of Cody Smith, with Tim Long finishing third with his TLR 8ight 2.0. Due to the extreme heat a number of drivers had engine problems, but Drake’s Novarossi engines ran prefect all day and he took the double victory. Novarossi engines also TQ’d and won the intermediate buggy and truck class. Congrats to Jacob Haas on winning truck with his TLR 8ight T 2.0 and to Sean Gaffney for winning the buggy class.

1/8th Expert Truck
1. Adam Drake (TQ) – TLR 8ight T 2.0 / Novarossi Bonito / Losi Kingpin (red)
2. Brad Wintermantle – TLR 8ight T 2.0 / OS / PL
3. Jessie Robinson – Mugen / OS / AKA

1/8th Expert Buggy
1. Adam Drake (TQ) – TLR 8ight 2.0 / Novarossi BTTS / Losi Kingpin (red)
2. Cody Smith – Kyosho / Novarossi
3. Tim Long – TLR 8ight 2.0 / Orion / Losi Kingpin (red)

Source: TLR [tlracing.com] / Photos: Brian Cross