The Marty Barnes’ Pacific NW Showdown Tour made its way to Albany, Oregon on March 1st and 2nd. Conveniently located just off the I-5 freeway, NW Hobbies hosted round 4 of the 5 race series on an all clay, super high bite, tacky indoor race arena.

Practice was held on Saturday with 1 qualifier in the evening and 2 on Sunday with mains to follow. The layout was technical yet easy, but at the same time extremely challenging.  The most challenging part was deciding which tires to go with and playing with the amount of grip that was available. There was a fine line between speed and too much speed that would make the car very twitchy and edgey to drive resulting in increased chances of roll-overs and crashes. The window was very small and tire combo was definitely the key to your success.
  

Unfortunately, there were some technical issues with the computer system on main day that delayed the racing by a few hours and typically, this would be a double A-main event ….. was now a single A-main. Thanks to Tanner Day and Jim Dunlap for their help and getting the racing back on track!

Here is the results posted below. I have no video or race results to go off of and this is strictly from memory while trying to take photos of each main…… so my apologies.

Novice   —   2nd – Cameron Goodrich        1st – Tyler Delay          3rd – Dave Goodrich

I was glad to see novice added to the menu as this is where it all begins and also the future of our hobby. Congrats and thank you to all the novice racers who came out as I know it can be somewhat intimidating to step up from club racing and enter a bigger race event. Thank you all!

4×4 SC    —    3rd – Tyler Delay       1st – Dennis Sturgell            2nd – Kenny Kizer

Stock Truck   —    3rd – Lance Norton           1st – Mo Hille           2nd – James Johnson

Stock SC   —    3rd – Jackson Andres             1st – Jason Gainey             2nd – Elijah Gibbs

2wd Stock   —   3rd – Andrew Tuck           1st – Brad Hamer           2nd – Chocco Ferrell

Stock buggy, as always, proved to be an exciting race. With TQ, Jason Gainey, suffering a popped ballcup while leading the race, this allowed Brad Hamer to take his rear motor B5 straight to the top of the podium. Finishing 2nd would be Chocco Ferrell and 3rd is Tacoma’s Andrew Tuck.

4wd Mod    —    3rd – Casey Vitale          1st – Jack Leighan          2nd – Roger Seim

Jack Leighan is the man! Getting his B44.2 dialed, he capitalized on other’s mistakes and never looked back. As the backfield battled with each other for position, Jack drove a smooth race and kept it on all 4 wheels to take home 1st place. Awesome job Jack! Kyosho’s Roger Seim would finish 2nd keeping him in the hunt for the overall in the series. NW Hobbies owner, Casey Vitale would round out the podium in 3rd driving with his middle finger as his normal trigger finger was smashed by a car trunk! Beastmode x 10!

2wd Mod    —    3rd – Mikey Brown           1st – CJ Ferrell              2nd – Tanner Day

2wd Mod – The  industry is always changing from the progression of the cars, to the tracks, electronics, tires, bodies….. you name it and it’s always moving forward. One thing that is often overlooked is that the racers change as well. Some get worse…..some get wiser…. and some get faster. While the later is much harder to do, this weekend showed the emergence of some very young talented drivers from the Northwest. I’ve been able to witness their progression from almost day one and it has been a pleasure to watch and I’m very proud to see them come through the ranks.

I’d like to congratulate CJ Ferrell for winning his first ever PNW Showdown race in 2wd mod! The young Kyosho driver TQ’d 2 out of 3 rounds and put his Team Orion powered RB6 on pole in the single A-main event. With only a slight bobble in the beginning half of the race, Ferrell momentarily handed over the lead to Shaun Dunlap. A few laps later, Ferrell would close the gap and force Dunlap into a mistake and reclaim the 1 spot and pilot his RB6 home to victory.

Meanwhile, Kyosho’s Tanner Day would drive with heart and grit and emerge through the roll over carnage and take home the 2nd spot making it his best Showdown finish yet. However, the “Come-back of the Night Award” would go to Mikey Brown after suffering a roll over on the 1st lap and dropping back to 9th. With his eyes on the the prize, Brown never gave up and drove all the way back to 3rd and battled Tanner for 2nd place. With not enough time left on the clock, Brown would finish 3rd, but stay on the podium to help his series overall finish.

Here are a few pics from the photo gallery….as always, thanks for stopping by and like/share with others! Thanks goes to Casey and his crew for all the hard work. Even with computer malfunctions it still hosted some exciting battles on Saturday and Sunday. Also I’d like to thank those who drove a lot of hours to attend this race. It wouldn’t happen with out this fabulous community.