Last weekend Jarodd and I made our way out to Fitchburg, MA for the JConcepts Fall Indoor Nationals. We wanted to go to this race last year but the schedule didn’t really work out. This year we made it a point to put it on the schedule way in advance as it was one we didn’t want to miss. Early promotions from RC Excitement touted top national drivers such as Ryan Maifield and Dustin Evans would be in attendance, so you knew it would be big.

I don’t think anyone could have predicted just HOW BIG though. When the heat sheets were first posted with 52 heats and 498 entries, I think it blew everyone’s mind. After the sort for round 2 though, that number dropped a bit to around 425 entries. This was due to people signing up and not being able to make it, etc. But still, I believe this is 100 entries more than last years race. Impressive!

As I mentioned, the race was held at RC Excitement in Fitchburg, MA. The JConcepts National series makes 5 stops across the US and always brings in the top drivers. This stop was no different. In the house we had Ryan Maifield, Dustin Evans, recent 4wd IFMAR World Champ Steven Hartson, as well as top Northeast drivers like John Cravotta, Paul Sinclair, Chris Cristo, Mike Aliberti, Gunnar Rieck, Alex K., Toddie Anderson, Kyle Rhodes, T-RCE’s Jason Punty and too many more to mention. It was a full house with very stiff competition.

This was our first trip to RC Excitement. It was about a 4.5 hour drive for us from Central New York. Not horrible. I have to say I really like the facility. They have a bit of everything. They have a scaler/crawler course out back, a decent sized outdoor track, a decent looking indoor carpet track, and of course their great indoor clay track that everyone ran on all weekend. They actually had to cover the carpet track with tarps for more pit space over the weekend. Even then they still couldn’t fit the massive turnout. They did have enough foresight to setup a large tent outdoors, and a number of people were pitted out there (luckily for them the weather was decent). We were fortunate enough to get there early and got a pit spot in their normal pitting area.

We got there mid-day Friday for the controlled practice sessions. We were able to get the cars on the track and get a feeling for what tires were going to work out. We stayed there until 6:30 or so and then grabbed a decent dinner. Saturday came way too early and we got up in time to discover the worthless breakfast at the hotel. We moseyed on over to the track shortly after they opened around 7AM and got one last practice run in before we started prepping for the first qualifier. I ran 2wd Stock Short Course and Jarodd was running 2wd Modified Short Course as well as Super Stock 17.5 2wd Buggy with our Atomik V2MR. I have to say, single classing an event this large was not my wisest move. There is a lot of downtime, like.. 6+ hours between rounds (or it seemed that way). We were there basically 12 hours on Saturday for the 2 rounds of qualifying and I had 10 minutes of total track time. It did give me time to get pics, mingle, and help Jarodd when he needed it. So it wasn’t all bad. I certainly had enough time to charge my battery.

Sunday we ran the final qualifier early, did a quick session of door prizes, and then got into the mains. As usual with our event coverage, I’ll let the photos tell the story and chime in here and there.

Below are a couple shots of the drivers meeting. The first one gives you a little idea on the track layout.

That’s a lot of people.

Continue reading through the pages to get the rest of the coverage (it’s WAY too many pics to fit on one page).