December 1st, 2012
Round 5 of the
KBRL series was held a
Paddocks Short Course, in Goodyear, AZ. For this round I was joined by Dean from
Wolfpak Racing, and our friend Ernest. Besides the practice round me and Dean got in, this would the first time I would be racing at this track. Coming into this round of racing, I was ranked in 9th place overall for the 17.5 Sportsman Buggy class, and for Pro-Lite I was sitting in 25th place out of 55 drivers for this class. We arrived early, getting there around 7:30 when they opened the gates, and were able to grab a nice pit space.
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| After arriving early, we were able to get all setup in the pits. |
Qualifying - Round 1
Pro Lite - Round# 1
Driver Laps RaceTime Fast Lap
Ernest Palafox 10 5:15.162 28.532
Dean Vuckovich 10 5:32.792 30.223
Frank Lilly 9 5:04.137 29.911
For round 1 of Pro-Lite, I was not that happy with my performance. I am still having trouble keeping the nose of TLR 22 SCT down, as on almost every jump it wants to parachute and point up. I am going to try ordering some of the aluminum parts for the front, and I have almost all the cutout on the body removed. Dean and Ernest was able to pull 10 laps each, but at the end of round 1, none of us were in the top 10.
17.5 Sportsman Buggy - Round# 1
Driver Laps RaceTime Fast Lap
Kartman 10 5:14.696 28.716
Frank Lilly 10 5:26.783 29.667
Parker Ayers 10 5:29.299 29.739
Kevin Kilday 9 5:02.238 31.250
JR Rymond 9 5:04.263 31.205
Mike Burdeshaw 9 5:13.145 31.738
Robert Kakela 9 5:16.588 33.177
Dean Vuckovich 9 5:22.616 31.080
David Kellogg 0 0.000 0.000
This round was one of the strangest, after a restart, and a confusing restart at that, it showed me finishing in second place with 10 laps, and Dean finishing in last with only 9 laps. After looking over the lap times, it cam to our attention that I was counted for an extra lap manually by the race director, and that one of Dean's laps did not count. So after bringing this to the attention of the race director Kenny, I actually finished with 9 laps, and Dean had 10.
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| Me in the pits during round 1. |
Qualifying - Round 2
Pro Lite - Round# 2
Driver Laps RaceTime Fast Lap
Ernest Palafox 10 5:03.879 28.718
Dean Vuckovich 10 5:22.896 30.240
Frank Lilly 9 5:05.628 30.878
Things didn't change much between round 1 and round 2, all three of us ended up about the same. I ended up qualifying 27th overall and starting 3rd on in the D-Main. Dean qualified 23rd overall and would start 7th in the C-Main. Ernest did the best out of the three of us, he qualified 15th overall and would start 7th in the B-Main.
17.5 Sportsman Buggy - Round# 2
Driver Laps RaceTime Fast Lap
Kartman 10 5:33.339 29.470
Dean Vuckovich 9 5:05.534 30.264
Robert Kakela 9 5:09.823 31.389
Frank Lilly 9 5:10.221 31.620
Parker Ayers 9 5:13.699 32.115
JR Rymond 9 5:15.299 30.497
Kevin Kilday 9 5:15.651 32.777
Mike Burdeshaw 7 4:06.315 29.673
David Kellogg 0 0.000 0.000
This was a very good round, and my buggy felt great. A couple of inopportune crashes close to the end of the race caused me some time, I felt I could have finished in 3rd or even second.
The Mains
17.5 Sportsman Buggy Mains:
For the Buggy A-Main, I was starting in 6th place. Although the buggy felt good, I feel I was pushing it too much and crashed a lot. I ended up finishing in 7th place, a little disappointing, as I felt I could have driven a much better race, especially how well I did in round two of qualifying.
Pro-Lite Mains:
For the D-Main I was having a fantastic race until the last two laps, I made some slight changes to the truck and it was handling great. It was a scary first lap, with the first place car clocking out and never looking back, it was a different story from 2nd place on back. When we started we were all lined up on the middle straight, with the first turn being a large high-banked 90 degree turn. We started okay, but the 4th or 5th place car must have had nitro because on of the two came flying into the corner and took out the entire front of the field except the first place truck. By the end of the untangling, I was able to race back into second place, and was able to hold that place up to about less the a minute left in the race. I got hung up on a pipe (totally my fault), and by the time I got marshaled, and back on the track I was down to third place. I only blame myself for what happened next, as I got over aggressive trying to catch back up to second place and once again hung myself up on a pipe and then dropped to fourth, were I ended up finishing the race.
