11th Kentucky State Championship
JQ Racing Driver Zac Karr would take TQ and 2 in ebuggy at the 11th annual Kentucky State Championship held at Dixon’s RC Raceway. Zac would also start in 2nd place in pro nitro buggy and lead the field for 54 laps until he had motor issues. Well done Zac on the great performance and better luck next time bud!
TEKNO WINTER SERIES
JQ Racing Driver Young Gun Ashton Abdul would bump from the B and start from the back of the pack to finish third at the Tekno Winter Series at Hobbyplex in Omaha, behind Julian Malvanets(HB) and the Legend himself Jared Tebo!!
Ashton and team mate Dustin Thompson would both qualify into the A main of EBuggy but unable to capitalize on their starting positions and podium. Dustin would also finish 3rd in truggy behind Chris Marrant(HB) and Julian Malvanets(HB) congratulations to Ashton on his hard fought 3rd !! As well as Dustin for third place in truggy and making the A in Ebuggy. Congrats to Team Rep Jeff Werner for assembling a dynamic duo of racers in this competitive region and we look forward to more results like this!
THE FORCE SERIES
Great weekend at The Force Series Strickland RC Raceway! ” JQ Products had a great weekend with A LOT of A Main finishes. Had a great time with our new team members Bobby Moore Jeff Keeton Jake Lasko and many others. I was very proud of Trent Walker performance in both Nitro and Ebuggy. One of the stand out memories that I will take away from this race was my younger son Kaden, in probably his 5th race ever and only his 2nd 1/8 ebuggy race was able to Win The D main and (due tue some issues?) was able to go on to beat me in ebuggy lol!
For myself, my nitro car was on point. Taking a 2nd and a 3rd in my qualifiers I qualified 9th into the A main and went on to finish 9th. My Black Edition is honesty the best 1/8 scale I have ever driven to date. If I can ever get these old eyes ? to cooperate with me, I may climb that ladder now that we have a great racing program with some great companies!” -Mike Walker
The First Race Recap by Jeff Keeton
The Force Series
First I wanted to send a huge shoutout to Dean Lloyd and the Strickland RC Raceway crew. I am not sure what we Florida RC racers did to piss off the gods above but if there is a race schedule it’s going to rain at some point. The track crew did an amazing job getting the track in shape for us to race on. So I wanted to thank them for their efforts and dedication to the hobby.
Now, onto me, because we all know I like to the be center of attention. To sum up the race day with the new car I can do it with one word “ frustrating”. Friday practice went good I tried a ton of stuff some worked some didn’t but I felt I got both the nitro and ebuggy working decent. I felt good going into the race day Saturday and had a game plan on more changes I wanted to try through the day. If you know Florida tracks then you know the track will change every time you go out so thinking ahead was key.
Q1 nitro is up I’m ready I’m excited and I felt I could put in a good top three run. My amazing pit woman and bestie Maria throws down my car for warm up I ran two laps and felt the car running on I come into the pits for a quick tune and boom clutch is locked up. Total epic fail. The let down of all let downs. Premature ejaculation at the worst possible moment. If I had any feelings I would have cried.
So I go back to the pits with my head down tail tucked like Joseph Quagraine famous bathroom picture. And start pulling the engine. I fix the clutch and go through my ebuggy with a fine tooth comb.
Q1 ebuggy. I put in a decent run safe nothing to really talk about the car was ok my driving sucked but nothing new there after all it is ebuggy. Finished 5 for the round. After the run I knew I wanted to make the car a bit more aggressive so my plan was to go up on diff oils from 12/12/4 to 15/20/5 which is what I have in my nitro car.
Q2 nitro. The sun is starting to set temps are dropping but I am ready. I go out for warmup and the car sucks. Wrong tires car was pushing like a dump truck everything just felt wrong. I put in a terrible run finished 12th for the round.
Again I am pissed in the words of my favorite little racer “I’m not having fun, I’m not having fun”. Then the jokes start flying anyone who wanted to take shots at me for making the switch came out of the wood works. So now my car sucks, the people suck, and I suck which isn’t at all what I had planned this day to go. But again I make a few more changes to my car, I seek out some guidance from my good friend Jader who is always the first to tell me like is. And I make some shock changes and front end changes and prepare my car for the b main.
Q2 ebuggy was up and again it’s ebuggy so no one really cares the car was better after the diff changes but still needed to make some shock changes. Finished 3rd for the round.
Main time cars are ready I made some changes and headed out for the dreaded b main. My amazing pit team Maria and Jose. Toss my car down for warm up and right off the bat my car felt good. WhAAAAAtttttt, Like really good. Like holy shit kinda good. So the buzzer sounds and we are off. Had a clean first lap and throughout the ten minute main I was able to do anything I wanted with the car. Put in solid laps and lapped the field. I come off the driver stand with the first smile of the day. Saying where’s the peanut gallery smack talkers now. It was definitely the best my car has felt since I started driving it.
A Main time
The start of the A main was aggressive to say the least I had a few bad laps and had a lot of work to do. Once I got into a rhythm the car was fast and very easy to drive I worked my way up to 2nd place then had to pit. I had a very longgggggg pit stop thanks Bobby Moore which dropped me back down to 5th. With five minutes to go I worked my way back to third taking it over I on the last lap to finish 3rd overall.
A1 ebuggy. I finished 3rd and I pulled a shock end on A2 for a DNF. But the car was definitely better with the changes I made to the shocks.
All and all it was a long day but the end result was positive. Brandon and chase. Both did well finished 5th in nitro and 7th in ebuggy. And I learned a lot about the cars and what not to do.
Thanks to all the JQ Products and JQ Racing USA team guys for the help, advice and laughs. I wasn’t my normal bubbly self but all’s well that ends well.
Shoutout to those who always stick by me JConcepts, JQ Products, Beach RC & Hobbies, M2C RACING
The Force Series Race Report by Trent Walker
Just got back from a pretty successful race at Strickland RC Raceway for the final race of The Force Series. I ran both of my buggy in the expert classes with the intentions of finishing top 5 in both.
In the first round of qualifying I would finish 15th overall in nitro after dealing with some tuning issues. I decided to pull in every other lap in the qual so my father and I could work the problems out rather than push it.
In electric, I had a flawless run with no mistakes and scored a 3rd overall for the round.
In the second round of qualifying, I had a good run in nitro with only one mistake and finished 4th in my heat and 8th overall for the round securing me a 8th place position in expert nitro buggy A main!
My electric run for round 2 was good but made a few mistakes through the rhythm section which cost me but I still managed to finish 4th overall for the round placing me 4th in the expert ebuggy A main!
I had good run in nitro but made a couple costly mistakes at the start but I made my way back up to the sixth position and held it for the rest of the race. My motor ran great and my tires held up really well. My car did everything that I wanted it to do and I had no complaints throughout the race!
In A1, I had a good start following the lead pack but a rut at the end of the straight bit me at the wrong moment when I was closing in the top 3. I worked my way back up and was really close to the battle for second but after some tight racing I got shoved into the pipe one the last lap which dropped me back from the pack and I would finish in the fourth position.
In A2, I wrecked on the rhythm section at the start of the race and I played catch up the entire race after dropping all the way to the back of the pack. I got pretty close to the battle for 4th and 5th but I wrecked again in the rhythm because I wasn’t being patient and I would finish 7th giving me the 5th position after both A mains were ran!
All in all I had a great time with some awesome people and the facility was amazing and the track was perfect from the start of the race to the end. I was very happy to see the amount of spectators that were rolling through and watching the races as well. Next up Super Cup Championship Series!!
SOUTHSIDE RACEWAY CLUB RACE
The JQ GangGang man himself Kenneth Pope would take 3rd in Sportsman at the Southside Raceway in Lake City,Florida! Congratulations Kenny P GangGang!
AKK Motorsports Gala
It’s not often you get to see Max Max Mört dresses up and with out a hat or hoodie! He attended the AKK Motorsports gala honoring individuals that do well in all forms of Motorsports. Max received an award for his performance in the Nordic Championships in 2018 ! Congrats Max we think it’s pretty cool that the Finland Federation considers RC Racing a Motorsport!!
