The practice events have ended, the standings have been reset, and the start of the biggest season to date was about to kick off at the Rescue Community Center R/C Track. With 6 points series events on the schedule and three classes to compete in, the opening round of the 2022 JConcepts Points Series did not disappoint! The return of the “Crazy 8’s” track layout was on the menu for all classes and would lead to some exciting racing on the day.
We start with the Nor Cal Performance Diesel 2.2 class and last year’s champion Jeremy Bunting picked up where he left off taking the top qualifying position setting the fastest time of the day with an 8.51 with his “Crash Test Dummy” Black Market RC chassis. David Heimbigner’s “Flyin’ Hawaiian” and Zac Soares with “Excaliber” joined the sub-9 second club while Sam Elliott’s two entries were within .03 seconds of each other to round out the top 5. The downside of being that consistent was qualifying 4th and 5th in an 8 truck field which meant “Hell Raiser” would be eliminated by “Get Er Done” in the first round. Bunting would advance over Sam Olson’s “Deep Blue” entry, and Soares and Heimbigner would take out Kirk Noakes’ two entries setting up a final four of the top four qualifiers. There would be no upsets in the semi-finals setting up a Bunting-Heimbigner finals. In the finals, Bunting would put Heimbigner in the right-hand lane after winning the previous rounds in the left lane and that proved to be the difference as “Crash Test Dummy” would take home the first win of the day.
In the Bee Line Trucking 2.6 Monster Truck class, Soares was a man on a mission laying down the top two qualifying passes of the day with his “Prospector” and “Excaliber” trucks setting the pace with an 8.56 and 8.63. Bunting’s “Bad Company” was right behind with an 8.68 and Heimbigner was as consistent as it gets with two 8.81 passes with his “Son Uva Digger” Ice variant and 8.83 for “Flyin’ Hawaiian” rounding out the top-5 all under 9 seconds. The top 9 trucks would get a bye into the second round along with Ryler Powell’s new “Mage” truck as he was matched against his “Shadow Hunter” entry. Noakes and “Rebel Racer” would take out Ray Johnson’s new “Gold Digger” truck and followed that up with eliminating Taylor Clarke’s “Grave Digger” to get both entries into the next round. Jacob Smallwood’s 13th ranked “Hot Shot” took out Taylor Underhill’s “Freedom” and then came up with the upset of the first round eliminating the 10th ranked “Son Uva Digger” of Casey Elliott with his 23rd ranked “Live Wire”. Wes Harriger, who qualified 9th and 11th has had prior success on this course layout when it debuted in 2020, easily advanced his “Bigfoot” over Johnson’s “Toxic Peach” before Sam Elliott’s all new “Saigon Shaker” brought the boom and eliminated series new-comer Frank Bruer’s “Black Chevy” Clod.
With the field now down to 16, things would get interesting as the wind picked up and track started to dry out. Harriger would play the Cinderella role and upset the 8th seeded “Black Out” and then take out 6th seeded “Ragnarok” eliminating both of Casey Elliott’s trucks and one of Sam’s. Heimbigner would take out a hard-charging Noakes and “Rebel Racer” and follow that up with knocking out Smallwood’s “Hot Shot” setting up his two entries paired in the quarter finals. Smallwood’s run would continue however with his “Live Wire” getting a controversial win over Bunting’s “Titan” that had pushed wide into Smallwood’s lane and then Smallwood slid into Bunting before Bunting finished the race. However, because the collision happened when Bunting was in Smallwood’s lane, it was a disqualification and Smallwood advanced the 23rd ranked truck into the quarter finals. Bunting’s “Bad Company” would end Noakes’ day putting out “Knucklehead” and Soares would continue his run putting both “Prospector” and “Excaliber” into the next round eliminating “The Mage” and then finishing the round with the race of the day barely edging out “Saigon Shaker” in a photo finish.
The quarter finals would see Soares’ number 1 ranked Prospector go down to Harriger’s “Taurus” in a tight race with a wild finish in which both trucks two-wheeled the ramp, setting up a semi-finals match with Heimbigner’s 4th ranked “Son Uva Digger” while Harriger would take advantage of Bunting landing on a cone and eliminate “Bad Company” sending Bigfoot to meet Soares once again as his “Excaliber” ended the underdog run Smallwood had with “Live Wire”.
Three heavy hitters remained in the final four spots and Harriger’s 9th seeded “Taurus” would eliminate Heimbigner after a rollover in the turn. Soares would give Harriger his first ever loss on the “Crazy 8’s” configuration eliminating “Bigfoot” sending “Excaliber” to the finals where Soares and Harriger would once again face off. In the final round, both trucks would be even going into the final turn, however Soares would go wide and even ended up love-tapping Harriger who would go on to put “Taurus” in the winner’s circle after a very entertaining bracket of racing.
In the Black Market RC Retro class, all 8 trucks would qualify for the first time and points awarded for qualifying and racing. Sam Elliott’s “Beast would take the pole position with the only run under 10 seconds and face Noakes in the first round with his “Bigfoot 1” and Noakes was smooth as could be and got the big upset knocking off the top-seeded qualifier in the first race of the bracket. Harriger qualified 4th with the “Coors Extra Gold” and would put Heimbigner’s beautiful new “Bigfoot 2” out while Bunting’s 3rd ranked “Shotgun” eliminated Soares’ new “Samson”. In the final match of round 1, we’d see another upset as the 2nd ranked “Excaliber” would lose to Underhill’s “Freedom”.
The semi finals would see Harriger stay on rails and advance to the finals over “Bigfoot 1” while Bunting knocked out the “Freedom” clod setting up a finals matchup between the winners of the first two brackets of the day. In the finals, Bunting would get the jump going into the turn, but would clip the turn obstacle and roll over and Harriger would go on to claim his second racing title of the day.
Finally, the day wrapped up with the Blu Chrush Mega Truck Freestyle Competition with obstacles and dirt added to the track and 100 seconds to impress the judges. Noakes set a high bar early with a 19 as the second truck out in the 2.2 class filling the clock. Last year’s freestyle champion Sam Elliott would then set the new high mark with back to back runs with scores of 23 and 24 showing once again that he’s going to be a contender as he consistently filled the clock with great momentum and air to match. Valiant efforts from Soares and Heimbigner would fall short due to early breakage and rollovers with only one truck remaining. Bunting would take to the track and fill the clock with a high speed run and the tricks to match the “Crash Test Dummy” name scoring a 26 to take the victory resulting in only the second ever occurrence of a truck taking top qualifier, winning racing, and freestyle which results in 2 bonus points.
In the 2.6 class, Taylor Clarke and “Grave Digger” set the early high mark of 17 as he was the first to fill the clock. Casey Elliott and “Son Uva Digger” would then take the lead with an 18 before Sam Elliott and his new “Saigon Shaker” brought the boom with a clinic of a freestyle run filling the clock with saves, big air, backflips, and no rollovers blowing into the lead with a 27 with 15 trucks still to go. The pressure was on the rest of the field and which led to a lot of broken trucks! The only way to win would be to have a run that would fill the clock and not have a rollover and of the 15 remaining, only 4 would go on to fill the clock. Once again, Heimbigner, Harriger, and Soares gave valiant efforts with scores in the low 20’s but nobody could top Sam’s run and he would capture the first freestyle win of the year. In another first, Zac Soares became the first Event Champion to claim the overall event win with his “Excaliber” truck after not winning racing or freestyle, but his consistently strong day of qualifying 2nd, finishing 2nd in racing and 2nd in freestyle garnered 67 total points giving him the bonus point for Round 1.
At the conclusion of the event, we had a great raffle consisting of swag and gift certificates from JConcepts, AMain Hobbies, Wrenchhead RC, a gas card courtesy of ZWS Hobbies, and the grand prize of a Losi LMT! Once again, the unluckiest guy on the track became the luckiest guy in the raffle as Ray Johnson took home a new LMT to go with the two season passes won in the prior two raffles. A big thank you to all who came out to race and for all of the help making the event run smoothly. Additional thanks goes to Insano Industries for providing our new trophy backdrop along with the new table cover, canopy, and decals for the Series.
Our next event is Saturday, May 7th at AMain Silver Dollar RC Raceway in Chico with registration starting at 10:30 AM. Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram @norcalrcmt and subscribe to our YouTube channel for event video coverage.