2022 Dirt Nitro Challenge

Wow, what a week, definitely a roller coaster of emotion. This past week was the Dirt Nitro Challenge held at the Dirt in Perris, CA. This was a huge race with almost 1000 entries. When we got to the track Tuesday for setup, I was happy to see there were no whoops, blind spots or step ups on the track, the track looked challenging and fun, and looked like it would have really good flow and had a good rhythm section. It looked like there would be places to pass which would make for good racing.

Practice on Wednesday was delayed until about noon due to rain, and then got shortened to just one seven minute practice session per class with your top 2 fastest consecutive laps counting for seeding which would make it difficult. I would seed in the B heat in ebuggy, in nitro truggy I would see in the A heat, and in nitro buggy I would be top seed. As the practice day went on the track got rougher and rougher, and Joey chose to do some repairs to the track Thursday morning for the start of qualifying which made it more enjoyable for everyone.

Thursday would be qualifying for ebuggy and nitro truggy. In Q1 of ebuggy I was on a really good run but late in the run I made a mistake and would end up 4th for the round. Q1 of truck, my truck was good, I just made a mistake and would take 10th for the round. Q2 of ebuggy I made a bad choice in tire compound and would only get 16th for the round. Q2 of truck I would have a decent run and the truck felt good but I wasn’t fast enough and would get 9th for the round. In the last round of ebuggy, they were supposed to water for our race and I made my tire choice on how they had been watering and they ended up not putting hardly any water on the track and it was just too dry for my tire choice and I would get 17th for the round which would put me 11th on the grid for the main. In truck I would get 7th for the last round which would again have me starting 11th for the main.

Friday morning Joey again fixed the holes on the track for the start of nitro buggy qualifying, which was a good idea as it was getting really blown out and difficult to make jumps, it was also getting dangerous for marshalling in some spots. The track held up really well and was still smooth for my first qualifier, my car worked really well and I picked the right tire compound and missed TQ by a couple of tenths and would get 2nd for the round. For round 2 I left my car the same but adjusted my tire compound for the temperature as the run was later in the day, the track was wetter and the temperatures colder. I still felt my car was very good and I was battling for the top spot when I had a mechanical failure which put me out of the race. For the 3rd qualifier I knew I needed a decent run to get in the main, I underestimated the moisture in the track and the temperature and I had made a couple of setup changes to go with this, I drove a little conservatively as I knew I needed a good finish and I just ended up going too slow and making too many mistakes. I would end up 24th for the round which would put me 3rd in the B main. I don’t think I have ever been to a race where the qual points were all over the map for most of the drivers, this is a testament to how difficult the track was.

Saturday morning the Dirt crew fixed the track again, we rebuilt the cars and kept an eye on how the track was changing throughout the day as my A mains would be run later in the day. My first main would be ebuggy which was run at about 7:45pm, so with all the racing on the track up to that point the track was getting rougher it was not only a challenge to get around but also a challenge to make any sort of passing. Starting from 11th I knew it would be tough with only 10 minutes, it definitely was chaotic at the back, and I was only able to make up a couple of positions and would finish in 9th.

The last main of the day would be truck, this was a 45 minute race and we started about 10:30pm. The temperature had dropped significantly but the track was staying quite dry as the watering had been light, so I made my tire choice based on this. My truck felt very good in the warm up laps and I was ready to start the main. I figured it would be chaos again at the back but I would at least have 45 minutes to work my way through the pack, it was definitely a tough race again trying to battle the track as well as the other racers around me. I would make my way up a few positions and then I would get collected in a crash or make a mistake, but eventually I would break away and start to make up some positions. I would make my way up to second and was able to close the gap to 6 seconds on first place, but would have a couple issues exiting pit lane and would lose some time and would end up finishing 2nd.

Even though the track got very blown out and rough on Saturday, for some reason it would not get repaired for Sunday. My B main was not up until about 5:45 so we rebuilt the car, and helped other drivers. I was confident in my car and knew I had a chance to bump up if I just drove well and stayed out of the holes on the track. I was able to make my way up to first early in the race and was able to pull away from the field and would take the win, which would put me 15th on the grid for the A main.

The A main would run at 9:30pm. Going into the A main, I may or may not have had a slight advantage running the B main first, but I wouldn’t recommend this option over qualifying straight into the A main. Again in my warm up laps I felt that my car setup was perfect, the tires were perfect and my engine was running great, and I knew that starting 15th it would be extremely difficult in a strong field of drivers but I felt confident. Early on in the race I was able to make up positions but would get knocked back multiple times and by 7 minutes in I was almost a lap down on the leaders. My Dad called me in for fuel shortly after to get me out of the mess of cars on the track, I would get out on the track with a little less congestion and was able to start clicking off laps and making up positions one by one. I would be in a battle for 4th place and then 3rd place and I was finally able to take over 3rd place and I would end in 3rd still on the lead lap. While it wasn’t a win I was happy with how I drove, how my car handled, and how my engine performed, I don’t car what anyone says my FX engine sounds the best going around the track.

Thanks to Daniel Blalock for the feedback on setup changes and tires, and for the marshalling help.