7th Annual Big Kahuna Shootout

Another race weekend in the books. This time out we had Myself, Abiye, Jesse's Girl and a last minute jail break of JB from school. Fred and Chet went ahead of us while we waited for JB. Took us 4 hours to get there including a food stop so not too bad. We arrived to a HUGE building and a rather large track. Sweet. It is a little dark in there so bring your pit light! That or you can rent a private pit room. The track looked sweet (as usual Al's layouts are super fun) and the drivers stand is nice and high. Tire choice seemed to be all over. Lots of fast guys running Panther Switch, Losi Pink Taper Pins or BK Bars, Proline MC Suburbs and JConcepts Gold Barcodes. Most ran them full pin. There were so many entries that we had to run only two qualifiers (with rocket round). This didn't pan out so well for a lot of us...lol. Lots of people broke in one and a few broke in both. I broke one of mine and got tangled up with lapped traffic in the second so I ended up in the B Main for 2wd Mod. No Canadians in the 2wd Mod A main this year. We were all stuck in the B Main :(. In 4wd Mod All the guys made it to the show and Chet was up into 3rd place before he broke. I think everyone else finished mid pack. In the 8th scale electric A Main, Abiye swapped it out with Dakotah Phend for the first bit, Dakotah put an inside pass on him right before the big jumps and Abiye gapped the whole section, passed Dakotah in the air and ALMOST stuck the landing. It was an awesome pass attempt but Dakotah passed back while Abiye was waiting to get marshalled and took the win. 2wd A Main saw Al Horne and Dakotah trade spots early but Al ended up with the win. I didn't see the truck A Main as I was taking a nap before the 4 hour drive home at 1 am. Al gave me shit for not taping the truck main as he finally took Dakotah off the top step (which is the class he usually owns). All and all a great two days of racing and definitely a track you should check out ( http://www.amsraceway.com/) when in Michigan! Can't wait to get my 8th scale electric MP9 built up and get back there to try it out.

Random Thoughts:

- US Customs always does a double take when 4 adult men say they are going to a model car race. We cruised through though.
- Only took 3.5 hours to get home. Not too bad even with a double stop looking for an open gas bar at 2:30 am in the middle of nowhere.
- Thanks to Visa for security locking my card during those gas stops thinking I was a fraudster.
- The track was sweet. We can only dream of having a facility like this in the Toronto area.
- Our private pit or "igloo" was awesome. Tons of light, our own heater and tons of space. Very cool. It is a little impersonal not getting to chat with all the locals, but the private pit is a cool idea and our was always open to visitors....Dunno what our Canadian nitro counterparts were up to in there weeks prior as locals kept coming in looking for Heineken...lol
- 8th scale electric is friggin cool. I think that it is the future for electric in Ontario at least. With 10th scale on the decline....again...many people are jumping on the 8th scale electric band wagon.
- Cheers out to Sarah Ernst for making the trip out. Good to see the Filipino infiltration into the hobby...haha
- Thanks to Johnny Loguidice for letting me check out his TQ cars and giving me the lowdown on them. TQ have some fast drivers out there and are quickly giving the car credibility. Johnny also did the memorial lap honoring the Big Kahuna. Very cool.
- Abiye's superman jump/pass attempt on Dakotah was one of the coolest moves of the night. If he could have stuck the landing he might have held off for the win. They both raced a very clean race. There were a couple of times where they could have pulled off a hack pass but they didn't.
- Nancy came trough with the cupcakes again. Awesome. I even got a few for the trip home. I suppose I feel a little better in that we are now getting beat by a teenager at least. Happy 13th Dakotah!
- Sorry to Al Horne for not getting the video of the Truck A Main. He said it was rare Dakotah didn't win that class and was super stoked to take the win with his RT-5. The downside to the private pits I suppose. Was quiet in there and I thought I'd take a nap as I had to drive home and didn't want to drive off the road with some head snapping. Props to the new Red Bull mini shots. Tasty and effective on those long tired drives.

Ryan'ism's

Ryan: "Should I unplug my Lipo for the trip home?"
Us: "It will be fine for now"
Ryan: "I unplugged the positive lead"
Us: "So it is fine"
Ryan: "Should I unplug the negative lead though?"
Us: "Do you know how a circuit works?"
Ryan: "Yes I know how a circuit works, but I don't know if it would back feed through the negative lead or something."
Us: "So you don't actually know how a circuit works then...."
Us: (insert laughter)

Some pics and Vids: