October 7, 2019 Trevor Duncan

Online Coverage Of The 2019 RC Compound Off-Road Throwdown [VIDEO]

This past weekend I attended the RC Compound for their 2019 Off-Road Throwdown trophy race. This is the second year in a row that they have held this event, but this time they expanded the race to a three day format.

On Friday open practice was held from noon to 9pm. This gave the racers plenty of opportunity to test their skills on the new layout.

The track design was very technical with a rhythm section that required expert precision to obtain the fastest racing line. If you didn’t hit it just right you would lose valuable time or worse yet you might break a front arm on the wall or fly out of bounds. Many TQ runs were either made of broken in this section so a driver had to be very consistent through there.

There was one section of the track with a straight that led into a “sweeper” which allowed you to use full throttle. But as you got to the end of the sweeper you had to pull a 180 and prepare for the most fun part of the track.

This double or what was referred to as a “kicker” would launch you car into the air before landing on the downside of the jump. Drivers could really get some big air and pull out some nice looking whips, but the fastest line was just to get enough clearance on the jump so that you could downside it without loosing time floating in the air. There were some lead changes on this section of the track and it was definitely more fun to watch it than to marshal.

On Saturday the doors opened again at 8:30am for more controlled practice till around 11am.

Drivers could also register at this time and receive their raffle prize tickets (more on that in a bit). After a driver’s meeting three rounds of IFMAR style qualifying began.

There was over a 100 entries with 18 heats in a round so the racing would be long and intense that day. The qualifiers ran for five minutes each and only the driver’s top two runs would be used to determine the starting order on Sunday. The top six qualifiers in each class would be locked into the A Mains. But each A Main consisted of eight cars so the number seven and eight qualifiers would be pulled from the lower mains. So if you competed in the B main and finished either in first or second place place then you transferred into A Main group.

There were 20 sponsors for this race and the title sponsor was Pole Position Raceway in Grimes, IA. As part of their sponsorship, every driver that finished in second place in their respective class each round received one free race ticket to Pole Position Raceway! Drivers really enjoyed this promotion and after qualifying was done that night many headed over to the Pole Position to do even more racing.

Speaking of sponsors, between rounds two and three the race program was halted to give away the numerous door prizes! Each driver received a small brown bag with a raffle ticket inside plus a few small door prizes. Then when the larger items were ready to be handed out the drivers anxiously waited for their ticket number to be called.

Many drivers walked away with armfuls of goods and it was really cool to see companies outside of the RC industry support this event too!

And throughout the day drivers were also treated to free decals, discount passes, product sample bottles, and issues of their favorite RC magazine as well!

On Sunday morning the doors opened again at 8:30 for some more practice till 10am. Then the lower mains started as drivers battled one another to transfer into the A Mains.

In the Mod 4WD Buggy class, local TLR/JConcepts/Trinity driver Tom Rinderknecht was able to capture the top qualifier spot with the soon to be released TLR 22X-4! Tom debuted this new wheeler at the IFMAR 1:10 Electric World Championships over in Slovakia recently and this was his first race with it at the RC Compound. This new car looks lighting quick and I can’t wait to see it more in action!

During the racing action this weekend the drivers were also treated to some donated food courtesy of Tim and Lynne Sutherland. On Saturday they provided some pulled pork sandwiches and only asked for a free will donation in return. And on Sunday they provided some chili free of charge too. But the best part of it all is that the money they received as donations went right back to the track and they raised nearly $200 that weekend!

After the racing was done the drivers gathered around for the awards. But first the RC Compound race management team met to discuss who was the winner of the Sportsmanship Award. This special award was sponsored by CowRC and to earn it a racer had to go above and beyond at this event to help out with the race program, their fellow drivers, or a combination of both. The winner of this award received a special 19″ x 24″ magnetic pit mat along with a Jet Blaster Turbo which is valued at $125!

After discussing it the race management team announced that Jared Scott was the winner of this year’s award! In fact if you watch my videos listed towards the end of this story you will see that in about every A Main Jared is marshaling the kicker section of the track in a bright orange shirt. He really answered the call for help this past weekend and his efforts were truly not unnoticed!

The 2019 Off-Road Throwdown is in the books now and it was a successful event. This race keeps growing bigger each year and I can’t wait to see what happens with it next year!

Below are podium pictures for each class plus a link to the videos I recorded that are streaming on YouTube. Till next time!

Link to all videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhq2k5C5pTbQV8sNEq3bcW_9IT-ygzTSj