Some minor packing going on!
Been a bit quiet on here, compared to normal. That’s mostly because after 6 months I am moving back to Europe, and it’s always surprisingly hard to uproot your life and move. It’s 3am again, what a surprise, and tomorrow I’m flying back home. It’s been emotional.
Today I raced at Thunder Alley. Last race for me in America. I finished 2nd behind Cody King.
I also built a brand new BLACK Edition! This car is staying here in SoCal and will be available for people to try. April is already fully booked, but if anyone is interested, please let me know!
It’s been 6 months since the Worlds. I have mostly spent it in America. I just went to China for a couple of weeks in November.
This trip my goal was to get fast. I wanted to be able to match the fastest lap times. I didn’t expect to win yet, but I wanted to be able to do the same lap times at least. I’ll write about that in another post.
2016 was the first year that my company was at a point where I could with a good conscience take time and focus on my driving. Even so, after Cavalieri spent one day with me at the track, and saw the work I did after getting home, he sincerely questioned “How do you do it? You shouldn’t have time to do anything!” It’s true, it’s pretty hectic, But I chose this over a family, a home, a “normal” life. And I’m willing to get up at 8, and go to bed at 2, and work all that time. I do many fulltime jobs, but I do it because I love it, and I want to achieve epic shit.
That’s why when things go wrong, it REALLY pisses me off. There are two issues I don’t have an explanation for, and I am reaching out to you for answers. Please reply if you know what causes this:
1. The pipe makes a motor flame out on throttle. It is guaranteed to happen, but it only happens after a certain time, and the motor is fine up until that point. Then you punch it and it flames out.
2. A tank does the same thing.
What actually happens? Why does a pipe, or a faulty tank suddenly start flaming out a motor? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Today I did something a little different. I headed to Perris MX track and we shot a video with me racing my car against dirt bikes on the motocross track. We had Renaud Margry originally from France, riding over here now, and THE Mike Craig, Supercross race winner back in the 90s I believe, and father of Christian Craig. They thought they got my silly RC Car covered but they were ready to do battle regardless.
Well, to be honest, they did have me covered, but I still think I got more corner speed! I hope we got some good shots, and it will be a fun edit. We were almost done, and were filming a nice berm section on the track, and the roost of the bike kept flipping my car over, so I went first into the corner. It worked great the first time. 2nd time I hit a soft spot, lost speed, and got steamrolled by a 450 dirtbike. It blew the body off and tore it up, smashed my pipe, and bent my chassis and front shock! Damn it! But we still filmed another section after that too. JQRacing – Built to survive being run over.
Thanks to Jimmy from Freethepeeps for setting it all up, it was a lot of fun! Below you can watch Craig Jr battle Webb, in one of the best races I have seen. And that move at 3:25…..If I’m having a bad day, I can just watch those 3 seconds, and I’ll be all ok again. And below that, you can see that it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for him. MX is a tough sport.
1.Ryan Maifield
Been over this already. Scary good.
Maifield blowing a gasket didn’t phase Tessmann. It’s all good eh.
2. Gord Tessmann
Just a tad off the pace. Close but not quite where he used to be yet. Seems like he is not quite comfortable and confident in the pillow ball car. He makes uncharacteristic mistakes, which usually happens when you aren’t quite in tune with your car. The pillow ball car handles quite differently to a c-hub car, as the steering is different on/off power. A pillow ball car has a distinct feel. It will either take a bit longer to figure out the setup, and to get used to it, or XRay will release a c hub car. Let’s see what happens! I mean they have all the parts so….
3. David Ronnefalk
Degani was questioning why David was over in America racing? He won the worlds, why would he come over to America and lose? He is on top, stay away! That’s Degani’s thinking. Well a podium is not terrible. Not what David was looking for I’m sure. He was fast, but just lacking a bit of something. I don’t think he had any issues, started at the back thanks to drama on the first lap, and was playing catch up.
4. Ryan Lutz
Fourth, not bad, but no cigar. I mean he won Truck, he was on it, but that buggy just isn’t quite up there, like the truck is, or Lutz forgets how to drive in the couple of hours between the truck and buggy mains.
5. Jared Tebo
Tebo is old! That’s what Degani keeps saying. Well he kind of drove like he was. If the American Adrien Bertin was pitting for Tebo, he would have been yelling up a lot to tell Tebo to quit pussying sections. Don’t worry Tebo, soon we will all see if you really are a washed up family man, or if you will just dominate NEO once again. Neo suits Jared’s smooth and controlled style perfectly. Let’s see if he is too old or not!
6. Adam Drake
Not quite as exceptional as at the DNC where he was running in 2nd for a while. Maybe the lack of a legends class? Anyway, another solid finish I guess. Drake just keeps motoring on!
I’ll give you one guess…
7. Joe Bornhorst
7th, the most average position to finish. Bornhorst beat everyone that had problems, and one village idiot. I mean it’s not great, but it’s something. Lacking some speed just like Drake and the village idiot.
8th Joseph Quagraine
A waste of space in the main, way too slow. He beat everyone that broke and flamed out. Great job, the whole world is proud of you. At least he won the car designer class.
On a personal note, thanks for not watering the track…..idiots! Other than that, I had a good race going with Bornhorst and Drake for what ended up being 6th, but at the time was more like 8th, but then two things happened, and I had a 50+ second lap. Degani managed to bounce my car off someone else’s in pit lane so it hit and broke the bar over the pit lane exit, landing backwards and needing marshalling. Then this idiot backmarker decided to race me instead of just let me go, so additional time was lost. And that was it, Drake and Bornhorst were gone!
9th Mike Truhe
I don’t know if this counts as beating Truhe. (Remember he said he would quit if I beat him). He either had to stop for a cigarette, or he flamed out. I don’t know. I was racing man!
10th Tanner Denney
Tanner was fast but if you can’t keep your engine running then JQ is gonna beat you!
12th Spencer Rivkin
The World Champ was number one! He seemed lonely in the AE pits, he kept coming over to hang out in the cool pits, with me and Degani. I told him he was number one on the team now. He asked if he was automatically number two when Cavalieri was there, with clear disappointment in his voice. I said “Of course you are!”, and Degani added: “What are you talking about, this isn’t astroturf!”. At one point he was looking specially sad so we offered to build him a track in our tent on our carpet.
He did do well though, making all his mains. Unfortunately he flamed out and lost to JQ. After the race, in an attempt to cheer him up, we gave him a full roll of astroturf so he could go home and build a track for himself.
It’s just going straight again Kev!
13th Dakotah Phend
If Dakotah could figure out how to make servos last more than 5 minutes, he might win some races. He is really fast until his car goes straight into a fence. He is one of those drivers that makes you hate him because he makes looking like you are about to fly off the track, without actually doing so, look easy.
14th Josh Wheeler
Possibly Wheeler’s last big race. Josh is talented driver, sneaking it in the main once again. Something ridiculous happened to him again at this race. We have to sit down with Josh and list all the crazy things that has happened to him during his career! The slowest looking fast guy in the world!
Back when Easton was Maifield.
15th Billy Easton
After his stellar B main run, this geriatric gentleman ran out of steam and needed a nap. He just couldn’t keep his shit together for 45 minutes. Great job though, and proves that the new Serpent car is on the pace!
On a scale of 42 to your mum, how annoying is track watering?
The thing about watering is it makes racing a lot harder, not only does your car need cleaning all the time, you are picking tyres like you pick lottery numbers, and it extends the day by 7 hours. It’s actually impossible to figure out how to set your car up, because not only is the track different beginning, middle and end of a qualifier, each of the times you hit the track, the beginning, middle and end are different too.
“It’s the same for everyone, quit complaining”. Yes, well it’s just that it’s not the same because of this thing called talent. We have been over this. Talented drivers adapt fast, non talented drivers don’t. Search “talent” in the blog, I have written about it.
Why isn’t watering consistent? Partly because of time of day, partly because of stupid decisions being made, water every heat, water every second heat, re-seed, water this heat, water that heat, but in the end because of saving money. When a toothless sign spinner from Hemet can’t figure out how to use a hose, don’t be mad at him. He is, after all, a sign spinner. When the rastafarian at the other end of the track is so baked out of his mind that when he actually is there, he can’t tell the difference between the sky and the track, don’t blame him, because…
After all week, mudbog in practice, mudbog to just damp in quals, then figuring out how the track works in a long main when wet, basically drying, becoming dusty, then slick as an ice rink, you know what would really be a genius move? How would you really then prove to the entire world how ridiculous the whole event is when it comes to watering, and putting on a fair and just race? After all this watering of the damn track all week long:
Do not water the A main, at all.
There, prepare for that suckers! Now the track is different again, and I guess an airport shutdown imminent! What is the explanation for this? How does it make sense NOT to water for the A main, when you water every single other race? There is none, it makes 0 sense. This is why racing in America is so hard. There are no rules (except for Truck tanks), no schedule, no consistency, and you just don’t know what you are gonna get, like ordering at the drive through at Taco Bell.
But please do water the PNB as it is indoors, and the dust is deadly! HAHA
Well it was another B main for me. Pretty standard. More track time if you make the main, that’s how I see it. The B main was looking pretty good on paper, but I felt like I would be able to bump if I didn’t have issues. Actually, even though I was all the way down in 7th early on, and spent some time in 5th, I was never worried, because this was a 30 minute race, and I knew that I just needed to find my bearings, and I would be ok.
In the end it turned out to be a relatively easy bump, because I made it even though my car went to shit towards the end, it was just too soft and hard to drive. Let’s take a look at all the drivers in the main.
1. Billy Easton
What a great drive from Billy! He said that if he didn’t improve his results he wouldn’t be racing these events anymore, I guess he gets to race some more now! He started off ok dropped off, and then came on strong in the last 3rd of the race. Best race he has had in a while! People don’t remember Billy used to be the man! Billy used to be Maifield. Really. Except he is World Champion! Sorry Ryan!
2. Joe Bornhorst
Started off great, and pulled a big lead, but then his tires or car faded, and he stared falling back, at one point I actually thought I might catch him, that’s how bad he faded. Don’t know what was going on there.
3. ME
I didn’t panic, I did what I had to do, and I bumped to the main. I had World Champion Mechanic Pierre Ronnefalk pitting for me. Sorry for breaking your hand in the first pit stop mate! It helps to have confidence in your pit crew. Tack så mycket för hjälpen!
4. Dylan Rodriguez
This is another guy that could be really good if he cared about RC. Very fast, but too many mistakes cost him a chance to bump. Lack of track time, that’s all.
5. Colin Herzig
The best race I have seen Colin Herzig drive. He never even blew out in the B main, and was challenging for the bump up. You may remember Colin is actually under contract by JQRacing, as we signed a 12 and a half year deal, bak in 2011. Colin has been working under cover, testing other cars, and collecting all of Kanai’s secrets from Kyosho now for the past few years. Everyone is leaving Kyosho, and now Herzig is moving up. Next dethrone Tebo. It’s not gonna be easy!
6. Greg Degani
After the Worlds I stole Greg’s car as I needed it. I then build him a car for DNC. That turned out to be a disaster for Degani. He cleaned up his car and threw it in the van. He unloaded it from the van at Silver State, and miraculously his complete lack of dedication and preparation paid off. He was dialed in Vegas. Complete domination of the 40+ class, and a great performance in the B main, beating many drivers who actually take racing seriously! This, if anything proves how good the new BLACK Edition is. Even Degani can make it look good, and perform at the highest level.
7. Billy Fischer
Got passed and beat by an old man with a DE bumpered JQRacing buggy, and a 150 dollar engine. Not the best race we have seen out of Fish-Daddy.
Kenny showing off his muscles that made sure the wheel nuts were tight!
8. Kyle Johnson
I won’t say anything because Kenny will threaten to kick my ass again!
9. CJ Tessmann
Mini Tessmann is fast, but a bit hit or miss in the mains. I have no idea how old he is, but he is progressing fast, and will surely be really annoying here in a year or two, as he will be stealing a spot in the mains.
10. Steve Harris
11. Mark Sousa
I like Sousa, he is a bit too punched out of his mind for his own good. A bit more thought into his driving and he will be good. Just more practice, and setup work, and he can start making the mains. 2nd best Canadian eh?
12. Aaron Gomez
Too punched also, leads to mistakes. Just needs more track time, speed is great at times. We can work with speed. Aaron was posting on FB about not being sure what to do as he isn’t achieving the success he wants. It’s the big question of to try harder or to give up. I think it’s pretty simple. Figure out what you want, and do that. I don’t feel like Aaron has worked very hard at RC yet, so if that’s what you want Aaron, then start working hard at it!
13. Noah Dickerson
Too much grab ass, not enough RC.
14. Cody King
Too much grab ass, not enough RC. His babysitter wasn’t at the race, so his focus was more off than normal. Couldn’t figure out how to route his fuel line so he flamed out. Karma for cutting the track.
15. Victor Guerrero
A: What is Victor doing in the Pro class?
B: How is Victor still in America? Trump said he was serious about these deportations!
Last of all:
I would like to thank Renaud Savoya for not attending Silver State, so I could finally get the last bump into the main. Thanks, and please don’t go to Neo17 either. Thanks for understanding Reno.
Three increasingly fast laps as I close in on the limits of the car, and hit my lines better. And yes, I did make 10 laps now, 3 times, in different conditions, as well as a 32.1. At least I am capable, now I just need to be able to do it with less practice, and at the race.
Well, left early in the morning, drove to AZ, and set up the pits, and camp at Fear Farm, for the 2017 Dirt Nitro Challenge! Looks like it has rained a bit here, so the track isn’t ready. I never understood why they don’t start with the most important track! Long night ahead. Layout looks rather technical, should be a lot of fun!
Due to #campinglife, the blogs may or may not be a bit slow here during the race. But whatever happens, there will be some insights latest next week after the race. Will be releasing the BLACK Edition too, so there will be info about that too.
On another note, Tessmann told me he is going to win, so there’s that.
THEQuagraine 