Ryan Lutz Triple Win at North Carolina Series Finals
Ryan Lutz reports from the North Carolina Series Finals:
This past weekend saw the Series Finals for the North Carolina State Series held at Awesome Badlands RC. All the other races were held in North Carolina but they decided to hold the Finals in South Carolina, I believe because of the awesome facility we got to race at. This was my first time to South Carolina and just minutes from the Atlantic Ocean and Myrtle Beach. For the past couple weeks I just kept hearing how amazing this track was and so I couldn’t wait to get there and see what all the praise was about.
I was able to bring three of my Durango vehicles with me this weekend. My DNX408 Nitro Buggy, DEX408 E-Buggy, and DESC410R 4WD SC truck. The turnout was just over 130 entries which the track crew and series promoter were very happy with. I flew in on the Red-Eye Friday morning and drove straight to the track from the airport for the day of practice. My first impressions of the track were of how dialled it looked. Full on grass in the infield areas and one of the smoothest layouts I’ve ever seen. Everyone had kept saying how the track was going to get super high bite but it never did fully materialise this time like most thought. On qualifying day I did go from running Soft tyres in the morning to Medium in the afternoon to Super Softs for the main under the lights. I’ve never done that before so it was a change. The track was extremely fun and had an awesome new layout that had just been put in.
4wd SC Open
Ran my Durango DESC410R for the first time in at least a month and it just felt like I hadn’t taken the time off with it at all. It was flying around this track and the on-lookers were amazed at the speed of the Durango. In the first qualifier they had the minimum lap set at 33 seconds and for some reason they were never mentioning my name during the race even as I was passing everyone. Come back to see the race results and every one of my laps that did count was a 62. So I was getting 31 second lap times at least! In the second round when the bite came up I was able to get down into the 29 second lap times on occasion which was just about 1.5 seconds off my nitro and E-buggy! I was able to TQ all three rounds. In the A main they were running it for ten minutes! I’m lucky to make 7:30 with my car if I am really driving it so I was a bit leery of trying to make ten. I ran the race trying never to pull past quarter throttle. Down the straight I let off the gas completely half way down and just let it cost the rest of the way – a good thing my Tekin stuff was fast enough to already be flying at that point! Anyways I drove it easy and was able to finish the full ten minutes and win by a couple laps on the field of 15.
1:8 Electric Buggy
My Durango DEX408 prototype was loving this track. Everyone kept stopping by my pit area to ask me if they could look at it but unfortunately I’ m still having to keep it under wraps. Hopefully it will be out soon because I know there is a lot of interest in this vehicle, and rightfully so! In qualifying I was able to take the first two rounds to take the overall TQ for the class. In the main I ran back-to-back SC and E-buggy. I didn’t do any practice laps in E-buggy because I was going to change tyres really quick before the main but realised quickly that I didn’t have what I thought I had and thus I just left on the tyres I had ran all day. So the first couple laps I struggled trying to find my E-buggy finger having just babied around the SC truck for ten minutes. I fell into a battle with the top three and we battled for the first couple laps until I got by and they both made a mistake on the back right jump section and I never looked back. I began extending my lead and I think by the end of the ten minute main I had put a lap on the field! Another win for the prototype Durango DEX408!
1:8 Nitro Buggy
My Durango DNX408 buggy was on rails this weekend. I had some bad luck in qualifying with someone landing on me in Q1 and breaking the ear off my CF rear shock tower. In Q2 I took a commanding TQ by around seven seconds or so. In Q3 I had two laps of bad traffic and thus finished second for that round. Overall this put me second on the grid. The format was a little different where they took the top 2 qualifiers and put them directly into the A main. Everyone else had to bump in from the semis so thankfully finishing second allowed me to make it straight in. In the main for the first few minutes I had a battle with track local Jason Smith of Losi. It was a great back and forth battle we had where one would make a mistake and then the other but eventually he made one to many mistakes and gave me a little cushion and I got in my groove and sped off. The race was done by laps and it was a 60 lap race which in the end translated into about 32 minutes. My AKA Super Soft Impacts were dialled and my Alpha Plus A852 was rippin the track up and I was able to get a two lap victory by the end of the race! So it was a Durango Trifecta for me this weekend. I’ m so pleased with my cars as we are making such great progress on them. All my sponsors are working so hard to make their products better and better for everyone and I’m really enjoying seeing the results firsthand!
Source: Team Durango
