North West Model Hobby Expo Race, Report by Jesse Munn:
The 2016 North West Model Hobby Expo was held this past weekend, 1/29 – 1/31/2016, at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe, WA. The 3 day event featured a swap meet, drift racing, battle robot competitions, drones, boat racing and the highlight of the event (at least according to me) was astroturf off-road racing in front of an impressively large crowd. Saturday was a DieHard RC points race and Sunday was a completely separate event also put on by DieHard RC in which all the entry fee money went back to the racers as each class had cash payouts based off of finishing position.
Both days used a format that consisted of 2 rounds of qualifying and single main events. My Tekno teammate Keith Hadley and I battled bumper to bumper over all 4 rounds of qualifying and both mains over the 2 days. I beat Keith by just .1 seconds in the first qualifier and he beat me in all 3 of the remaining qualifiers by small margins to take the TQ both days. After extremely close battles I ended up on top in the main events but it easily could have went the other way as Keith and I swapped positions seemingly every lap. The Tekno SCT410.3 trucks were working great on the high bite surface and Tekno took a podium sweep on Saturday and top 2 on Sunday. DieHard RC put on a great event, check them out on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DieHardRC and look for them to be posting information on more great events coming up here in the Pacific NW!