1/8 Expert Buggy
We always enjoy watching the main events.  It seems that at any major event there is always a top driver who is forced to start in the bottom of the mains due to mechanical issues on qual days and work his way up to the A-Main.  For this event it was Ryan Cavalieri in his Kyosho MP777 SP2 buggy.  Starting in the bottom of the I-Main, Cavalieri worked his way up into the A-Main and held the lead for quite some time until taken over by Scott Hughes and Taylor James.  Cavalieri ended up with 3rd place in the A-Main.  What a fight for the top!

For most of the race only 5 racers remained on the lead lap.  Atsushi Hara, Taylor James, and Ryan Cavalieri were a lot of fun to watch as they maintained a close distance to each other for most of the race.  Near the middle of the race Marty Korn and Greg Degani joined the pack and later on came Chad Bradley.  And out of the blue came the TQ Scott Hughes to take the lead and put his ride into cruise control to win the event with an enormous lead.  The rest of the race action was focused on James and Cavalieri as they battled for the 2nd spot.  Eventually James secured the spot when the track flipped Cavlieri over several times in the remaining laps.

Check out http://www.vegasrc.com/ for the Expert Buggy Results.

1/8 Sportsman Buggy
To be honest, we didn't film a whole lot of this race since we were incredibily busy discussing the results of the previous event (the 1/8 Unlimited Monster Truck race) with several people from Team Jammin'.  We'll get into that next.  However, Tyler Phipps took the title from TQ Jeff Keeton to win the race by a small 3 second lead.  One of our more favorite rising stars is young Curtis Door, who ended up in the 4th position after battling with Justin Tribe who took 3rd.  Watch out for Door in future races.  Our guess is that he won't be in the Sportsman class for much longer.  His improvement from last year is night and day and he'll be at the top of the ranks often.

Check out http://www.vegasrc.com/ for the Sportsman Buggy results.

1/8 Unlimited Monster Truck
Holy insane, Batman!  This was definately the race to watch of the weekend.  This race was like R/C Pro West Round 1 Expert Buggy all over again (better watch that race on the 'Do it in the Dirt' Volume 1 DVD), except with the UMT class.  We almost shouldn't even attempt to describe this event in words and wait for you to watch it in the DVD.  Here is our summary of the race:

Taylor James had to call 1 minute before the start of the race since his Jammin' CRT truggy was having a mechanical issue.  His teammates ran his truck back to their tent and fixed it and started it up (without a warmup) just moments before the start.  We don't know how he did it but he was able to maintain the lead with Chad Bradley (Jammin') and Ryan Cavalieri (the new Kyosho truggy) all the way to the end of the race.

Pretty much noone else stood a chance with these three dominating the track.  They seemed to find the fast line from the start and the huge ruts were nothing but small speed bumps underneath their truggies.  All three of them ended the race on the same lap but Bradley and Cavalieri put on one heck of a show.  They swaped positions so many times we can't count.  The real kicker was into the remaining laps when bradley pulled a risky move on the back straight launching his car into the 160 degree turn with enough speed to send him tumbling off the track.  However, like a golf pro, Bradley landed his truggy right in front of Cavalieri and into a huge rut just which helped stop his truggy enough and launch him into the next turn.  From this point the race was over since there weren't many more turns left for Cavalieri to try and take the lead.  Cavalieri attempted to return the favor and rolled his truck in the process.  The lead was secured by Bradley and he took the win.  The crowd was absolutely wild at this point.

Bradley, Cavalieri, and James all finished on the same lap which was 3 laps more than the 4th place racer.

Check out http://www.vegasrc.com/ for the Unlimited Truck results.

Production Monster Truck
Check out http://www.vegasrc.com/ for the production monster truck results.

1/10 Sportsman Truck
Check out http://www.vegasrc.com/ for the 1/10 Sportsman Truck results.

1/10 Expert Truck
Check out http://www.vegasrc.com/ for the 1/10 Expert Truck results.

The results are in for the Top Qualifiers for the 1/8 buggy classes:

• 1/8 Sportsman Buggy - Tyler Phipps
• 1/8 Expert Buggy - Scott Hughes

Some of our observations:

1. Scott Hughes laid down the TQ run in the 2nd qualifier with his Mugen buggy in race 28 on a freshly watered track.  With two more heats of fast racers we everyone was sure that he would not hold the TQ spot for long.  Hara, Pavidas, Korn, Bradley, James, Degani, Cavalieri, Coleman, Drake, etc. still needed to get their $.02 in on the track to take the TQ but none could steal it away.
2. As the day went on lap times slowly decreased due to the extreme ruts.  We haven't seen a track this rough since the R/C Pro West Round 4 race in Clarkston, WA.
3. Scott Hughes TQ'd in his 3rd qualifier on a dry and extremely rough track.  Once again, the top drivers could not take it away from him even with a freshly watered track surface.
4. Sportsman buggy was not about speed as it was about keeping your car on all fours.  If you could make it around the track without flipping you could almost guarantee a spot in the A-Main.  This track was rough!

The results are in for Top Qualifiers for the truck classes:

• 1/10 Sportsman Stadium Truck - Charles Charron
• 1/10 Expert Stadium Truck - Jared Tebo
• Production Monster Truck - Slayden
• 1/8 Unlimited Monster Truck - Mark Pavidis

Some of our observations:

1. Mark Pavidis did not make a single pit stop all day in the Unlimited Monster Truck qualifiers.  We spoke with Mark after his 3rd and final qualifier and asked him how he was able to pull 10 minutes on his O.S. .21 V-Spec in a truggy on a track with oodles of top end runs.  His told us that many people think he has made major mods to his engine.  He claims his engine is box stock but he has messed with the carb restrictors and head shims in order to achieve max power and runtime.  He also claims that he could never do the 10 minute qualifier on a single tank in the past until he switched to Sidewinder fuel.  After his final qualifier his engine temped at 206F.  Oh yeah, did we mention he's running the new MP777 truggy?
2. Chad Bradley is the runner up in the Unlimited Monster Truck class.  He has set the standard for all Jammin' fans with his setup on the X1-CRT.  Watch the video section for a few tips we found while snooping around the Jammin' pits.
3. Jared Tebo sweeped the Silver State 2005.  Taking TQ in the 1/10 Stadium Truck class this year shows that he still owns the track.  We'll watch him closely tomorrow in 1/8 Buggy.
4. Charles Charron is the Advertising Sales Executive at R/C Car Magazine.  Apparently, businessmen can race R/C cars and not just hang out on the golf course.

Since Wednesday and Thursday are designated practice days there isn't much to report on regarding the race.  However, there are a few racers that seemed to stand out to us.

1. Jared Tebo, the dominator of the Silver State 2005, looks to be running as fast as usual.  From the looks of things, he will be a top contender for the TQ position in the 1/8 Expert Buggy class.

2. Atushi Hara, running the Hot Bodies Lightning buggy, is just shy of Tebo on speed and consistency.  Because the track was a bit beat up by the end of the day we couldn't get a full idea of this guys potential.  He's fast and he knows it!

3. Richard Saxton, running the Thunder Tiger buggy, is HOLY MOLEY fast!  We didn't get to shoot some footage of his truggy today but we promise to bring you some tomorrow.  That thing is unbelievably insane!  His 1/8 buggy practice runs seem to be similar.

4. Adam Drake, Mark Pavidis, Marty Korn, Chad Bradley, (pick up your favorite R/C magazine and look up a famous nitro face and put the name here)... Need we say more?

5. Everyone else...no seriously, there are so many fast drivers here in the expert classes it's impossible to feel like you stand a chance.  From the looks of things, the A-main could easily represent the A-main finalists for the 2006 ROAR Nats this year.  Everyone who's anyone is here and they're out to win or die trying.

Check out the short videos we uploaded from the night practice sessions.

Check back to this site on Thursday, March 30th.  We will have some initial information about the SilverState 2006 event.