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Race report by Eric Anderson

The Psycho Nitro Blast is an annual race held in Unadilla, Georgia each March. It truly test both man and machine as the practice starts at 8AM on Thursday and doesn't stop until 3PM on Friday! The track usually starts out very good and hard packed but quickly turns into a track that makes 8th scale truggies disappear in some holes that form!! This year it was slightly different as they also had a 10th scale track for 2wd Open and 4wd open buggies. Practice for it followed a similar schedule with 2 qualifiers Friday and one qualifier and the mains on Saturday.

I decided to just run 4wd open buggy with my XB4 this year as the track was so extreme it was going to be too much work for 2 10th scale classes. The track was made up of huge jumps everywhere and started off hard packed but the surface quickly broke down and turned to a lot of loose sand in most areas. There were huge wooden jumps around the track but dirt downsides except for the triple/double in the middle of the track. This area proved to be the most challenging area on the track as the lead jumps of the triple double really blew out badly and caused a lot of issues. There were about 125 people signed up for the 10th scale classes when practice started on Thursday but by the time the qualifiers rolled around on Friday there were only about 60 entires left as the brutal track took its toll on cars and equipment and many drivers simply ran out of parts for their cars. To add to the racing all qualifiers and triple A mains were 10 minutes each! A true test of the durability of the buggies!

After the first few practice sessions I knew that my XRAY XB4 was on pace and was easily one of the most durable cars on the track! After settling on the final tire selection and setup I was ready for qualifying. Using the qual points system I ended up just missing out on a TQ run with some silly mistakes in the 3rd round and had to settle for 2nd on the grid. I do believe that my XRAY XB4 was one of the only cars to not suffer a DNF or breakage in any of the heats!

For the Main I decided to add a little rear toe for the very loose conditions and mount up some new tires. This was a good choice with the changing track conditions and the car was quite good for all 3 of the Triple A mains. I finished 3rd in the 1st A main, 2nd in the 2nd A main and I won the 3rd A main. I was tied will fellow XRAY driver Aaron Breuer on points but I held the tie breaker as the only person to run 23 laps in my best two runs and was the over all winner. I was also one of the only people to finish all 3 A mains and not break any parts on my XRAY XB4.

XRAY was 1, 2 and 3 on the podium showing just how durable the car was under such extreme conditions.