XRAY Nitro Challenge hosted by Greater LA R/C

I received the new Serpent 747 about 2 weeks prior to this race, but since then I had no chance to run the car until the race this weekend, so I arrived late Friday to start getting the car ready, the first qualifier was ran on Friday so I didn’t get a chance to run it.

On Saturday I had a chance to practice in the morning then went to run the first qualifier, the car felt good right away, but since the engine was still in the break in process I ran out of fuel on lap 16.

For the second qualifier I made some changes with a harder rear end to avoid some rear roll I found in the first round, the car was definitely faster, the engine tuned a little better but it ran out of fuel on lap 18.

For the third qualifiers I try some other changes that didn’t work so well by running a stiffer car, this time I was able to complete the 5 minutes run making 19 laps and running  out of fuel right after the finish line.  This last round put me in fifth place to start the main.

I did some more testing and tuning after qualifying getting ready for the main event, I knew that since the engine wasn’t fully broken in I had to make stops every 4 minutes, so I was looking for a setup that will make the car very stable.

On the main I started fifth but move to fourth position in the first lap, the car felt very smooth, so I decided to pace myself making no mistakes. Before the 5 minutes mark I was already in second place just taking my time and saving tires for the end of the race, this track is very abrasive so you have to be careful with tires. I took the lead at about 15-20 minutes during the 30 minutes long race. From there I just drove the car clean with no mistakes to take home the victory ahead of Mike Swauger (XRAY) in second and Richard St. Cyr (XRAY) in third.

I would like to thank Serpent America and Kamikaze Racing for the support.

Walter Diaz