Despite temperatures over 100 degrees to start the event, 44 trucks turned out to Auburn RC for Round 4 of the JConcepts Points Series to take on the new “Double Crossover” track. Racers would race a Chicago-style course, but rather than chasing each other would square off starting and finishing going the same direction taking a crossover jump or chicane in the turn. The track surface was very tacky along with a deceivingly tight and technical layout which would result in some of the biggest upsets and surprises of the season.
In the Nor Cal Performance Diesel 2.2 Mini Monster Class, Jacob Smallwood’s “Max D” set the fastest time of the day to take the pole position in the 11-truck field. David Heimbigner’s “Flyin’ Hawaiian”, Zac Soares and “Prospector”, Sam Elliott’s “Get Er Done”, and Jeremy Bunting’s “Crash Dummy” would join Smallwood with byes into Round 2. The quarter finals would kick off with Soares’ “Excaliber” entry knocking out Smallwood after qualifying 8th from a penalty. “Crash Test Dummy” would take advantage of a rollover in the chicane by “Get Er Done” to advance to the semi-finals. On the bottom half of the bracket, Soares would advance the “Prospector” over Kirk Noakes’ “Soleyna” entry while Elliott would score a big upset knocking out “Flyin’ Hawaiian” to round out the final 4.
Soares would go into the semi-finals with both of his entries still in the bracket and a chance to have them meet in the finals, but would have to get through Bunting and Elliott in order to do so. In the first race between “Excaliber” and “Crash Test Dummy”, Bunting would get the win in a close one after these two met in the finals in Round 3. Elliott would keep the underdog streak alive with the 7th seeded “Hell Raiser” advancing to the finals to meet the 5th seeded “Crash Test Dummy”.
Elliott would have another shot after his other entry was eliminated in Round 2, but Bunting and “Crash Test Dummy” would run the cleaner pass and take his second racing win of the year in the 2.2 Class.
In the Bee Line Trucking 2.6 Monster Truck Class, 24 trucks would take to the course with the top 8 receiving a bye into the next round. Heimbigner would set the fast time of the night in qualifying with a blistering 8.22 second pass with his “Son Uva Digger”. Elliott’s “Saigon Shaker” was right behind with the remaining byes going to Heimbigner’s “Flyin’ Hawaiian”, Elliott’s “Ragnarok”, Soares’ “Prospector”, Casey Elliott’s “Torque”, and Bunting’s “Titan” and “Bad Company”.
Round 1 would be a sign of things to come as it was kicked off with Ryler Powell who failed to make a qualifying pass, knocking off the points leader after Soares rolled “Excaliber”. Casey Elliott would make his return to the series and knock out Wes Harriger’s 14th seeded “Bigfoot” with his “Black Out” LMT after qualifying 19th. Harriger, who also struggled in qualifying and did not complete a pass knocked off Eric Myers and the 10th seeded “Blue Thunder”.
With the field narrowed down to 16 trucks, the first two races would see “Son Uva Digger” and “Bad Company” advance, which would be the only times that the higher ranked truck advanced in the round. Kirk Noakes would become the big story taking out “Prospector” and then “Saigon Shaker” eliminating the 2 and 3 seeded trucks. Michael Letcher came up from Menifee to compete in Round 4 and would advance both of his trucks into the quarter finals after qualifying in the middle of the pack eliminating “Ragnarok” and “Torque”. Casey Elliott would advance “Black Out” after eliminating “Flyin’ Hawaiian” and Harriger kept his improbable run from the 23rd spot going taking out Bunting’s “Titan”.
The quarter finals would start off with a tight race between Heimbigner and Bunting that was even until the final turn when Bunting clipped the lane barrier and Heimbigner cruised to victory. Letcher would then go on to put both of his trucks into the semi finals eliminating “Rebel Racer” and “Black Out”. Noakes “Knucklehead” would put an end to Harriger’s run knocking out “Taurus” and making his first semi-finals appearance.
The final four trucks consisted of the top qualifier and the 11th, 13th, and 15th seeded trucks in one of the most unpredictable brackets of the season. Heimbigner continued to be on rails and eliminated Letcher’s “Shocker”. However, Letcher would get a rematch as he would put the “Gunslinger” LMT into the finals ending Noakes’ night and ironically eliminating a truck running a body that he created back in 2018. The final round race between North and South would be even going to the final crossover, but Heimbigner would pull away and Letcher would hit the lane barrier over the final jump putting Heimbigner’s “Son Uva Digger” BMRC Peace Maker chassis in the winner’s circle.
The track was then changed to a three-jump straight line drag for the Black Market RC Retro class. Qualifying proved that it would all come down to reaction time and getting just the right bounce as the difference between the fastest and slowest qualifier was only .54 seconds meaning this could be anyone’s night. Smallwood would once again claim the pole position with the fastest time with his “Hawaiian Punch” Regulator chassis. With a 9 truck field, Heimbigner and Harriger would race to make the final 8 truck field with “Bigfoot II” knocking out “Coors Extra Gold”.
Despite having the slowest qualifying pass, Heimbigner would then knock out Smallwood to move on to the semi-finals. After overcoming issues in prior rounds, Soares would get the unlucky draw of having his “Samson” match up against his “Excaliber” which would automatically advance as the higher seed into the semi-finals. On the bottom half of the bracket, Sam Elliott finally had his “Beast” running right and eliminated Bunting’s “Shotgun” who had won the prior two rounds of racing. Letcher ended Noakes night advancing his “Outlaw” into the next round on his quest to repeat as a Retro Class Champion after taking the win in Round 4 last season.
In the semi-finals, Heimbigner would make it to the final round for the third straight time eliminating Soares and the “Excaliber”. He would once again face Letcher in the finals as “Outlaw” ended the night for “Beast”. Prior to the race, Letcher had been told by fellow So Cal racers to win or else, with threats of homelessness possibly looming. Meanwhile, Heimbigner has been so close to getting a Retro class win, but has come up just short and had an opportunity to win it all after qualifying 9th.
On green, both trucks were even over the first jump but a slight bobble over the second jump for “Bigfoot II” was all it took and Letcher would send “Outlaw” into victory lane. After four rounds of racing, Heimbigner gained some ground in the standings now trailing Bunting and “Shotgun” by 15 with Soares and “Excaliber” only two points behind in third. Despite missing the first round, Smallwood is now in fourth with Harriger and Elliott right on his heals.
After Round 3’s more “simple” freestyle track, extra attention and obstacles were brought to Round 4 to provide a much greater challenge with more ramps and obstacles already on the track during racing. Georgia Smallwood kicked things off with her “Blazing Rainbow” and set the bar high with a 17 nearly filling the clock and having some incredible saves and unique jumps.
Georgia would stay in the hot seat until Elliott’s “Get Er Done” filled the clock and received a 23 halfway through the field with the usual heavy hitters still remaining. However the treacherous track was winning the battle for the evening with many runs not even filling a minute of clock due to rollovers and breakage with scores in the low to mid teens. It would come down to Bunting and “Crash Test Dummy”, however a failed backflip with too much time on the clock would only net a score of 20 giving the freestyle victory to Elliott. Bunting would secure enough points to claim the Overall Event Championship for Round 4 increasing his lead in the class to 33 over Heimbigner with two events remaining. Elliott’s two entries take up the third and fourth spot in the standings only 3 points apart and Soares is still in the hunt as well.
Connor Anapol would get things started for the 2.6 tire class freestyle competition in his final event of the series. While this run would fall short of what he had in mind, he has definitely given us many wow moments over the past four years and has been part of the series since the beginning showing great improvement while always being a joy to be around. We all wish Connor the best as he starts the next chapter of his life in Florida.
Ray Johnson was next to attach the track and was able to nearly fill the clock and keep up a decent amount of momentum and score a 14. The score would stand for quite some time as the track once again was winning the battle early on leading to early rollovers and breakage. Perhaps the most spectacular moment of the evening came when Ryler Powell absolutely launched “The Mage” and landed on the jammer obstacle and did a front flip and kept going. While it definitely got the other racers and the growing crowd of on-lookers to go crazy, the truck was unable to keep moving much after and Johnson’s 14 would remain the score to beat.
Johnson’s score would not be topped until Eric Myers and his “Blue Thunder” received a 15. After a disappointing night in racing, Soares let his “Excaliber” Warpath feast on the track with some great stunts early on completing multiple flips and running on the ragged edge getting the highest Tricks/Stunts score of the night and the first to get into the 20’s.
The score of 20 would stand until Sam Elliott had a great run going until a big crunch from a hard landing deep into his run put an end to it. However, he would take the lead with a 21 on a night when high scores and long runs was hard to come by with 10 trucks still remaining.
The remaining ten trucks would definitely go for it with a score of “only” 21 to beat, however rollovers, early breakage along with obstacles that were no longer intact and tough judging made for a challenge as none of the remaining trucks would break into the 20’s, but did make for some amazing photos of big air and carnage as captured by Eric Myers Photography. You can find this entire photo gallery here.
Heimbigner’s “Son Uva Digger” would give it one final shot however would roll after his first big hit and then again only a minute into the run giving the win to Sam Elliott and “Ragnarok”. This would be Elliott’s second freestyle win of the year. Despite only getting a 9 in freestyle, Heimbigner had accrued enough points between qualifying number one and taking the racing win to secure the Overall Event Championship.
The points standings are as close as ever in the 2.6 Class with just one point separating Soares and Elliott for first place in the series with Heimbigner occupying third only 10 points out. All three drivers’ second entries round out the top 6 with former champions Bunting and Harriger still alive with two events to go.
A big thanks goes out to Auburn RC for being such amazing hosts and letting us use their beautiful facility. None of this would be possible without our sponsors: JConcepts, AMain Hobbies, Black Market RC, Insano Industries, Bee Line Trucking, Nor Cal Performance Diesel, WrechHead RC, and BluChrush Racing for their contributions.
Round 5 of the JConcepts Points Series will once again be held at Auburn RC on Saturday, August 27th in the evening. However, our next event will be the biggest solid-axle monster truck event on the west coast as we are hosting the Nor Cal RC Monster Truck Showdown at AMain Silver Dollar RC Raceway in Chico on August 6th. With racers coming from all over California, Nevada, Washington and even Colorado, this is one you don’t want to miss!
