Short Course Showdown Rd3 report

Round 3 of the Short Course Showdown Nation Wide Tour was held at West Coast RC. Racers from California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida attended to enjoy the fun that is Short Course racing. The SC Showdown is all about the fun that SC racing has brought to the hobby. The race program is run different than most normal races as we run heads up racing in the qualifiers and do bump ups in all classes for the mains. Since we were in Southern California it was no question we would have some factory drivers attending the event and put on a great show and we were not disappointed. Names like Kinwald, Truhe, Hartson,Thielke, Root, Wachter and others joined in the fun.

Our first class up was Stock SC. Through the qualifying rounds there was 1 driver who had a step on the others in the class. Local racer Jason Dias was the man, Taking TQ in all but 1 round of qualifying. JConcepts driver from Florida “Double D” Dave Duncan who has attended the 2 previous Showdown events continued his streak of A main appearances and qualified 2nd on the grid as well as did Richard Trujillo who has also attended both previous Showdown Tour events qualified 6th in the A. As I had mentioned we had some big factory drivers in attendance, but we also had some other big guys join us, It was great to have the President of Losi Bill Jeric join us for his 2nd Tour event. Bill for many years was a accomplished 1/12th scale carpet racer and many time Champion back in the day and is loving getting back behind the wheel and racing Short Course and sharing the experience with fellow racers. Also joining in his 2nd tour event after a very successful run at Round 2 at Trackside taking the TQ honors there was HPI Racings John Shultz, John who now days is the face of HPI as his job is to travel around the USA and visit shops and support events for HPI did very well putting it 4th on the grid. We also had fellow track owner and racer Garrett Tokuno who joined us for the event. Garrett is the owner of 702 Raceway in Las Vegas Nevada, Garrett going into his 3rd year of owning 702 recently hosted his own successful Short Course event and did very well in the Showdown. Joining us from Lake Havazu Arizona was 8th qualifyer Scott Welte, Scott is an all around great guy and had a enjoyable time at the showdown, wishing he had better luck qualifying but was happy to be in the A.

Action in the A final started out with a great move into the first turn by Dave Duncan, who went outside and then inside on pole sitter Jason to take the early lead, the 2nd section of the track made for difficult starts with it going under the first of 2 cross overs and then an uphill double left hander into the first cross over. Mid pack got bottled up in this section allowing the leaders to put a bit of a gap on the pack. With in the first couple of laps, Dave did a great job putting a straightaway on the field and TQ Jason got caught up a bit and made 1 costly mistake that dropped him back. Jason’s mistake made him battle with John and 5th Qualifier Brent Smith. As the race progressed Dave looked to be in control but in the long 7 min main motor gearing is important and in the later stages of the race his truck started slowing down a little bit and this allowed Jason and others to slowly close on Dave and Dave fell back into the field to finish in 6th place. Up front it was TQ Jason Dias overcoming his tough start to work his way back to the front to take a well deserved win. John Shultz brought home 2nd and Brent Smith took the final spot on the podium. A couple other notes to this field were our bump up drivers from the B main. Thomas Germain who works for Traxxas and was here representing them ran his Slash and did very well against this field. Local youngster and part of a full racing family was Vevan Howard. The entire Howard family lead by dad Scott race many days a week and their 3 young boys are becoming accomplished racers. And when I said it was a family, that includes mom who is there helping out each time and is the designated track turn marshall always helping out marshaling during practice or when a volunteer is needed. Having some of the toughest luck in the A was Scott Welte, Scott got hung up in the pile up on the first lap and although he tried to work is way back to the pack, things did not go his way.

Stock SC Final Results
1. Jason Dias
2. John Schultz
3. Brent Smith
4. Garrett Tokuno
5. Richard Trujillo
6. Dave Duncan
7. Bill Jeric
8. Thomas Germain
9. Vevan Howard
10.Scott Welte

Next up was 4wd SC. This was our largest class and had some great stories. Maybe my favorite part of this class was the amount of talented young kids racing in this class. Of course kids want to go as fast as they can and love the speed of the 4wd SC but these kids could handle the speed and did very well on the track and were contenders in all their races. Brenden Cast, Kevin Motter, Albert Mendoza, Zach Kindade and David Jenson all did very well and should be proud of how they performed.

In the A final it was a great fight for the top spot. TQ went to Mike Truhe driving his Losi followed by team mate Frank Root. Starting 3rd and the first time really racing his 4wd was Team Associateds Steven Hartson followed by Cody Turner, Brent Newman, Randy Kung, Jason Kung, Kevin Smith, Ryan Dunford and David Jenson.

At the tone the fight was on. The guys went at it hard core. The top guys all took turns leading the field in this long 7 min final. Each would lead and then give it away, as the race hit the 5 min mark, it was Team Associated’s Steven Hartson who was able to string some great laps together and take advantage of the leaders mistakes to take the lead and put on a stellar drive to be the first across the finish line. The battle for the final podium spots were between Losi team makes Truhe, Root and Turner, all trading position and it came down to the final 2 laps to determine the top spots. I mentioned him earlier when I talked about the kids who raced with us, Proudly taking 5th place and sincerely earned it was young David Jenson. Not sure of his age but around 12 or 13 did a fantastic job. If we look at his hot lap of the final it was 20.5 and lets compare this to our winner Steven fast lap of 20.0. So you can see he was not that far off the pace and for many laps ran right with the bid dogs! He took 5th over all but looking at the final results he was only .5 tenths of a second behind 4th place Cody Turner. So a big congratulations go to David and his dad Dale for the great job this weekend. I cant forget mom who was there supporting him and cheering him on. Also I would like to give congratulation to a duo of brothers in the field. Rand and Jason Kung. They both struggled in qualifying have a few DNF’s but were able to overcome them and make the show. Dad is the chief mechanic for the boys and they did very well. I know they wanted to finish higher in the rankings, but they did a very good job.

4WD Final Standings
1. Steven Hartson
2. Frank Root
3. Mike Truhe
4. Cody Turner
5. David Jenson
6. Kevin Smith
7. Randy Kung
8. Ryan Dunford
9. Brent Newman
10.Jason Kung

The other highly contested class was 2WD Modified SC. The big guns all wanted this win also and it was up for grabs, The TQ was shared throughout qualifying by a few drivers but it was Team Asscociated’s Brian Kinwald earning the pole position followed by Losi’s Cody Turner and then Losi’s Frank Root. At the start it was a great fight with most of the front runners battling it out for the lead, swapping the lead back and forth many times. As the race progressed it was pole sitter Brian Kinwald who was able to stay out front but not without a fight. His teammate Hartson was not that far back and they battled lap after lap in the closing stages of the race but it was Brian Kinwald who held off Hartson for a well deserved win. Brian who was already a winner in the Nation Wide tour taking the win at Round 1 at RC Excitement and a 2nd at Trackside in Round 2. Now takes his 2nd win in the Tour. Steven Hartson took a well deserved 2nd place in what was his first real event running Short Course. Rounding out the poduim was Losi’s Mike Truhe. Bringing home a well deserved finish was J Concepts driver Paul Wynn. Paul bumping up after winning the B main had a difficult start but never gave up and worked his way through the field for a strong 5th place finish. Right behind P Dubb was another one of our younger racers who did a fantastic job, it was Varon Howard of the Howard racing family who ran with the stout modified field to bring home 6th. Followed by Jonny and Clint Wachter, Cody Turner finished 9th and the racer who gets the tough luck award for the weekend and that is Coby Poh. Colby came out of the gate when qualifying began and had a fantastic run which held him a A main spot all the way through qualifying but it was not to be as just like in some of the qualifying runs he experienced some sort of problems and was not able to start the final. A tip of the hat to him as he took the tough day well and was professional as his day was not what he had hoped.

2WD Modified Finals
1. Brian Kinwald
2. Steven Hartson
3. Mike Truhe
4. Frank Root
5. Paul Wynn
6. Varon Howard
7. Jonny Wachter
8. Clint Wachter
9. Cody Turner
10.Colby Poh

As Round 3 is in the books, we look forward to our final stop of the 2011 Tour which takes us to the Lone Star State, Texas. Playing host to our final stop will be MIke Darnell who is the owner of Mikes Hobbies just out side of Dallas, Mike flew out to 2 of the past 3 events just to see what they were all about and to get everything ready for the final stop of the Short Course Showdown Nation Wide Tour. You can check out their website at www.mikeshobbyshop.com

We want to thank all our sponsors for their support of tour for without them it would not be possible to make it happen.

Traxxas, Losi, Team Associated, Spektrum, JConcepts, Novak Electronics, Thunder Power, AKA Racing, Futaba, Viper RC Solutions, Upgrade RC, Liverc.com, RC Scoring Pro, Rc Excitement, Trackside Hobbies, West Coast RC and Mikes Hobby Shop.

We look forward to seeing everyone at the final stop in Texas and if pre registration holds true, then the cliche about Texas is right. “Everything is bigger in Texas” We will see you for our biggest event of the Tour Sept 16-18th 2011.

Thanks to Scotty Ernst for the report.