This past weekend I attended the 2013 Short Course Nationals @ RC Madness in Enfield, CT.  Due to prior engagements the rest of the usual crew had to stay home. I made the 3.5-4 hour trek on a solo mission for Short Course Domination. Well, that might be taking it a bit far.. but I had fun at the event last year, and with a perfect forecast this year, this was a can’t miss for me. I need to thank Jason Punty (Team RCE) and Jim Decker for their help in making my attendance possible. In fact, I ran Jim’s SCB at the event – all I did was bind-n-drive.

I rolled in late Friday night, just in time to stay over and get to the track first thing Saturday. I missed practice day which was all day Friday due to work. Gotta pay the bills somehow right? By the time I got setup, the track was closed and I got zero practice laps in. The qualifiers would be the first time my cars hit the track. Great. haha. Below is my table setup. Rocking the new CowRC Standard Work Mat. It’s a much more convenient travel size than the Jumbo Mat that has been a staple of our build up articles.

The following are various track pictures from throughout the weekend.

Here everyone is huddled around the drivers stand trying to see which heat they are in. It would have been nice if they posted this on the other side of the building as well, where a lot of people were pitted. It would have cut down on some of the congestion. No worries though, as far as I know, nobody missed their race. Alex Valdez did a good job on the mic with the announcing and calling the next heat up to Tech before it was their turn to run. Can’t say enough how helpful that is. I do wish that RC Madness would broadcast on LiveRC though, that way people can keep track of what heat we are on right from their smartphone.

Here’s the drivers stand. It’s plastered with all the sponsors from the weekend.

This is the busy Tech department. Before each race you had to bring your car to tech for inspection. They checked to make sure stock classes were in Blinky mode and that you were running the right motor. During the last 3 rounds they also started checking battery voltage. You couldn’t be over 8.44 volts for 2s lipos. This type of tech is common in oval racing, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen it done at an offroad event that I’ve attended.

Drivers stand.

Pit row. haha.

A racer wearing the bright yellow 2013 Event Shirt given out to all entrants. I love races that give out shirts. It makes the $40+ entry fee seem so much more worth the cost.

The was a 6 rotor coptor flying around during some of the racing catching some awesome action on film.

Shots of the track. It was dry and a little dusty. They didn’t water it once all weekend. It grooved up and took rubber by the end. Traction was off the charts because they sugared it Thursday night. It hardened like asphalt. You just had to stay in the line or risk getting in the fluff on the outside edges. Overall for the most part, the track was awesome all weekend.

There’s that flying camera again.

To give you a better idea of the layout, here is a video of one of the qualifiers.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqvaEoboWAk[/youtube]

The final few heats on Saturday ended up having to be raced under the lights. While Madness does have lighting, I think really this is an area that could use a lot of improvement. They need a lot more. They have roughly half of the lighting that we are used to running at CRC. I heard more than a couple people in those heats say they wished they would have ran the last 4 heats or so first thing in the morning. It’s tough to make that call because nobody knows how different the track would be the next day. It might yield an unfair advantage for those who got to run the next day. I guess it just would have been nice to have a little more lighting.

Here are some closer shots of the track surface. It’s hard to tell from the pics, but it’s rock hard. It did have some holes and ruts by the end, but thats the nature of offroad racing.

Look at that sky! I can’t stress enough how awesome the weather was. Coming from NY, where we had probably record rainfall this spring/summer it was a welcome change in weather. It wasn’t as hot as last years event either which was great. Really it was the track and the weather that to me made this race phenomenal and probably my favorite race of the outdoor season so far.

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