Bell wins 2015 Vancouver Summer Challenge

The annual Vancouver Summer Challenge was held last weekend at RRR Raceway in beautiful Vancouver Canada. Racers from around Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest USA congregated at the RRR Raceway in Vancouver for two days of racing action. The track is built on airport grounds in a large flat parking lot which allowed ample room for the 200’ straightaway. The infield featured an intricate layout with some very tight 180 degree corners. Finding the correct transmission package was tricky on this track.

In the 1/10 Nitro Sedan class qualifying, the local favourite John Tsang was the racer to beat in the early rounds of qualifying. Tsang had his Xray NT1 dialled from the start and improved the pace each round. The second quickest driver, Blake Bell, found a good setup with his NT1 but was struggling to complete the five minute qualifiers without running out of fuel. He had to drive somewhat conservatively in order to make the five minutes and that impeded his ability to challenge for the TQ. In the final round of qualifying, Bell made a mixture adjustment to the bottom end of his engine, and managed to reset TQ by three seconds.

After the lower mains and bump-ups, the 30 minute A-Main was set with a full grid of 10 cars. The main started very cleanly and Bell and Tsang quickly broke away from the field. Disaster struck for Tsang about 10 minutes into the race when he suffered some issue taking him off the track for about one minute, dropping him to 9th. Bell continued to lead, and built up a four lap lead with Tsang running into further issues at the mid-point of the race. At this point Xray drivers Ed Mardones and Luke Pittman were running second and third respectively. At the 20 minute mark, Bell caught a board and popped a turnbuckle off his steering bellcrank. Bell’s mechanic managed to fix the car but Mardones would take over the top spot while Bell was in the pit. When Bell rejoined the race, he was almost two laps down to Mardones. He pushed hard and managed to get back on the lead lap with about five minutes left in the race. He continued to run quick laps and with one minute left in the race he was challenging the leader Mardones. In the last minute, Bell passed Mardones and the two racers would hold their position to the finish. As the race came to a close, Bell held onto 1st place, Mardones secured 2nd, and Craig Roberts took 3rd.

The annual Vancouver Summer Challenge held each year at RRR Raceway in Vancouver Canada is always an amazing race. The race promoters and hosts work hard all weekend to make an enjoyable yet competitive atmosphere for all the racers. Huge thank you to John, Mario, Eddie, Kelly, and the entire crew at RRR Raceway for organizing such a great race – it was a job very well done! See you next year!

Final Results:
1. Bell, Blake – TQ – Xray NT1
2. Mardones, Ed – Xray NT1
3. Roberts, Craig
4. Pittman, Luke – Xray NT1
5. Chan, Ken – Xray NT1
6. Heczko, Mario
7. Hudson, Chad
8. Ho, Ken
9. Tsang, John – Xray NT1
10. Dinter, Eddie

Source: Xray [teamxray.com]