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JBRL Round 4; Hartson and Root – Lay it Down….

Harton's B4

Event: JBRRL Round 4
Race Reporter: Frank Root

The JBRL series got to Pegasus Hobbies for the 4th round of the 2009 campaign this past Sunday. The track a Pegasus was well prepped to be run dry for maximum traction. Through the day, the track deteriorated little by little, but was still in great shape for some exciting main events! Team Associated and JConcepts drivers Steven Hartson and I were both there to battle it out, along with Brent Theilke of Team Associated. We were all running 2wd and 4wd modified.

In 2wd, the tire of choice through out practice was the Bar Code. Steven and I both preferred Blue rears, but he liked Blue fronts, while I preferred oranges. As the first round got underway, Brent, Steven and I were all in the same heat, and battled closely on the clock over the first couple of minutes. I had a traction roll which broke my antenna tube, so I retired, and I watched Steven pull away from Brent late to take the early TQ. In the second round of qualifying, I was able to lead the heat from start to finish, but unfortunately the track had become much slower. Even with a pretty good run, and fast time of the round, I was only able to manage P5 on the grid. I had my work cut out. In the main, Steven got away clean followed by Brent. I was able to work up to the 3rd spot, and closed in on Brent for 2nd in the first 2 minutes. Unfortunately, I found a rut on the large table double, and broke at that point. I was able to watch Steven comfortably pull away for the win! This is his 2nd TQ and win, and against 2 TQ’s and wins for me, we are now tied in the points half way through the series, well ahead of the rest!

4wd was almost a mirror image of 2wd. Steven and I both chose the Blue Bar Codes all the way around on the 4wd, with And-1 foams. Brent was in the first heat and put in a good time for Steven and I to shoot at in heat 2. Steven jumped out to an early lead, with me in chase. I actually took over the lead, but had a long crash with about 2 minutes to go. I pushed hard trying to catch up, but couldn’t quite make it back. Steven took the TQ by 1 second over my time, which was 1 second ahead of Brent! The second round went much like 2wd, with the track much slower, I put in a better run than the first round, but on a slower track, it yielded no result. The main was set, Steven in P1 and me in P2, both with FT B44s on Blue Bar Codes. Steven and I both bobbled early, put ourselves back in traffic and giving a commanding lead to Thielke. Steven and I worked back up to 2nd and 3rd and started to hunt down Brent. Unfortunately, Steven ran into a crashed back marker in a blind spot and broke his 4wd, which put me into second. I was able to close the gap and overtake Brent with about 1 minute to go and cruise home for the A-Main win! This is the 3rd A win for me, and Steven won the other A.

JConcepts tires are now undefeated in the 2009 JBRL, TQ’ing and Winning every 2wd and 4wd Modified win in dominating fashion!

We have about 2 months off until the next round of the JBRL, but Steven and I will be in action at the 2009 Hot Rod Hobbies Off-Road Shootout in July!

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