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Tekno RC Sin City Nitro Encounter Recap

Tekno RC Team made the trip to RC Tracks of Las Vegas for the first official race of 2016 in this venue, the Sin City Nitro Encounter. Joe Bornhorst reports back from the race:

RC Tracks Las Vegas Sin City Nitro Encounter layout

This week the Tekno team consisting of Daniel, Matt, Ryan, Joe and Billy traveled to Las Vegas for the Sin City Nitro Encounter held at RC Tracks of Las Vegas. Upon arrival, we were greeted with a fun but slightly challenging layout to race on for the weekend and also to get some very valuable testing in for the upcoming IFMAR World Championships this fall. 

Practice was held on Thursday and the team focused mostly on running our NB48.3s throughout the day. We spent most of our time testing setup options, tires, and learning the tricky surface. When we felt comfortable with out Nitro Buggies we then moved on to the EB48.3 and NT48.3 vehicles. After doing much of the same thing with them we called it a day and headed back to the hotel to get some rest.

Long days at the track....

On Friday morning we got to the track bright and early to get prepared for qualifying. Scheduled for the weekend was two rounds of qualifying Friday, two rounds Saturday, and then mains Sunday. With a lower amount of entries than expected, Jimmy Babcock made the call to change it to four rounds of qualifying Friday, one round on Saturday morning and then mains to follow. Throughout qualifying, Ryan, Joe and Billy were all comfortable with their car’s setup so most of the time was spent experimenting with different tire treads and compounds throughout the day. We had some good battles for round wins and actually got three out of four round TQ’s in Truggy for the day with Joe winning round one and Ryan taking rounds two and three.

 

Another early and brisk morning was upon us for Saturday. After the final round of qualifying was ran Ryan ended up snagging the TQ spot in Truggy, Joe was 3rd and Billy qualified 6th. For buggy, Ryan qualified 3rd, Joe in 5th, and Billy was sitting 2nd in the B main. On tap for the mains was a 30 minute buggy B, a 45 minute truggy race, and an hour long buggy final to finish the day. First up was the buggy B main. Billy was battling hard for the bump spot but unfortunately had a mechanical issue early on and had to retire. Up next was the truggy race. All three of the NT48.3s were going good and battling for top spots. About 15 minutes in Ryan and Joe were battling for 2nd place when Ryan ran into an issue and had to retire from the race. Joe then settled into 2nd place and Billy in 6th. After 30 more minutes passed by, they held onto those positions and finished. Last up for the day was the 60 minute Buggy final. At the start, the entire field freight trained around the track together for several minutes. When everyone settled into a pace the front runners separated themselves from the field and left the rest to fight for positions. For the first quarter of the race Ryan was running 2nd and Joe was floating around positions 4-7. After a mid race mishap, Ryan fell back a little bit and had to fight back through the pack. At around the 50 minute mark, Ryan caught back up to the battle for the top three, and Joe was stuck in a battle of four cars all for position. When the dust finally settled, both cars finished the race with Ryan coming in 4th and Joe coming across the line in 7th.

Nitro Truggy Podium

Nitro Truggy Podium

Nitro Buggy Podium

Even though the racing was done, we were back at the track early Sunday morning. Since the race program finished a day early, we got to have a full day of practice and testing. With the World Championships in sight an extra day of testing is always welcome. Once again we were just testing setup and tires but almost solely focusing on our NB48.3s. After a successful day with hundreds of laps ran we called it a day and slept in preparation for another day of practice to follow. 

Monday was the shortest day of the race weekend for us. We finished up some final setup testing at about 3pm we packed up our things and officially finished our weekend in Las Vegas. Even more practice and testing is on tap for Joe and the team in California this week. We will see everyone in about a week at the Dirt Nitro Challenge!

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