The Inaugural Silver Dollar Off-road Challenge wrapped up this past weekend. Held at A-Main Hobbies 2nd off-road track Silver Dollar Raceway. The facility has been featured in a few videos as well as the VRC virtual race video game. However after attending this event and seeing the facility first hand the videos while great do not do this track justice.
“For this race the Silver Dollar crew swapped out all of the dirt to squash the previous tracks tire eating nature. The called in one of the best off-road track builders of our time Joey “The Dirt” Christensen to work his magic on the new dirt and come up with a fun layout for the inaugural race. El Dirte’ and crew succeeded providing the racers with a fun, fast, flowing layout that while technical all seemed to make sense driving around the track. The previous dirt was known to consume tires at an alarming rate. The new track surface is nothing like that now. When ran wet or damp the track has very little if any tire wear. When dry the track provides excellent grip with moderate tire wear. Good stuff!” Randy Pike
Early on in the event in the 4wd SC class would be who could chase down and give Tekin powered Austin Blair’s Tekno a run for it’s money. BMiller Racing’s Josh O’Connell, Lou Figueria and Randy Pike would all give it their all to catch the young driver. The top 4 were all extremely close in qualifying, however Austin would take the overall Tq in the class. Come A main time the wind was going to be a huge factor. Wind gust over 30mph during the main would mean the drivers would all have to choose whether or not to risk the big triples and if they did timing the gust would be critical. At the tone the carnage would take out Blair and O’Connell right from the get go allowing Pike to take the front and lead the field over the huge step up. Leading into the next few turns Pike would get spun out by another racer and fall back in the pack. This would allow Blair and the rest to get back into the race. For the remainder of the race the racers would spread out and finish up with Blair taking the win, Figueira 2nd, O’Connell 3rd overall. The entire podium was Tekin powered with Austin Blair taking Tq and the win using the Tekin Rx8 Gen2 and Pro 4 HD 4300kv motor in his Tekno SC truck.
The event also hosted an E-Truggy class. Tekin’s own Randy Pike would Tq all 3 round of qualifying with his Tekin Rx8 Gen2 esc and T8 2000kv motor powered TLR 8ight 2.0e. The A main was somewhat uneventful as Pike walked away from the field lapping everyone around the 9 minute mark. A few wheelies and huge jumps to show off the power of the Tekin electronics filled the remainder of the 10 minute A main.
The last electric A main was the E Buggy class. This class was up for grabs during the A-main. Tq was Tekin powered Curtis Door with his Tekin Rx8 Gen2 T8 powered Tekno buggy. Tekin teammate Autin Blair sitting 2nd followed by Richard “The King” Saxton in 3rd. From the tone the 15 buggy group would blast around the track. The wind becoming a factor again in this race would force the drivers to exercise car control skills to keep all 4 wheels facing the right direction. Door would experience a steering issue forcing him to retire while in the lead. Blair would take over and finish up the main in the top position followed by Saxton 2nd, and Figueira 3rd. Austin chose the Tekin Rx8 Gen2 esc and T8 2050 to power his winning Tekno buggy ride.
