Who remembers when School was boring? Not the students from North Columbus High in Columbus, In. For the second year in a row AtomicMods and North Columbus high have joined forces to bring the second AtomicMods Race For Education. The 2006 race was held on November 17th through the 18th and this time around, was just as fun as as the first. The electronics department at North Columbus High is headed by Mike Riley and they utilize XMODS and Mini-Z cars in the classroom to teach technology in an fun and interesting way. Mr. Riley seems to be doing something right as enrollment in the program has doubled this year. Well, duh! who doesn't want to play with R/C cars, learn cool stuff to make them go faster and get school credits for it. This program is quite innovative and we support it in the form of product discounts to the school, event promotions and of course sharing our technical knowledge with the students.
This was a two day event in which we spent Friday in Mr. Riley's classroom doing various labs and tutorials and then on Saturday helped with the organization and direction of the Race. Rob was set up track side to help the racers with their cars and Cristian handled the race announcing and management.
The race was for both Mini-Z and XMODS, and was open to the public, so we had entries from the students, as well as those who lived in the community and even some from neighboring states.
Last year we had a single race among the points leaders and the winning driver (Donovan Michaels) won the coveted Factory Driver honor. This year we tried something different. We rotated the car among the fastest drivers in the previous heat of qualifiers the option to drive the respective car entered by Team AtomicMods. The best time from that heat excluding the current Factory Driver got the chance to drive it in the next heat. This resulted in the AtomicMods Factory Cars changing hands every heat throughout the qualifiers. Project X-Z was just too fast and the kids had a hard time driving it on the tight track. The
AtomicBuilt 2006 Team Edition AWD Stock was a different story as the car was, very predictable and quite easy to drive, yet still very fast. The overall best drivers from the qualifiers won the option to drive the AtomicMods cars in the A-Mains. Erick Magnuson opted to drive his own car in the A-Mains, and James England piloted the
AtomicBuilt 2006 Team Edition AWD Stock to a big win with a 4 lap lead over 2nd place.
The Lowdown
First Round of Qualifying
This was a one day event, as there was only 4 heats, we decided upon a tightly run 4 rounds of qualifying followed by single A Mains. The first run was used to simply decide which drivers were going to get to drive the team car for the official qualifying. In XMODS, Tom Lange was the fast man in round one, and in Mini Z the honors went to James England.
Second Round of Qualifying
The second round is when the action started, as things started to unwind, Eric started to display his dominance in the XMODS, turning the first 21 lap run of the weekend. Everyone else was a little bit behind, turning a couple of 19 lap runs and 18 lap runs. Tom had a little bit of difficulty piloting the prototype X-Z, so we decided to pull it out of competition. In Mini Z, James England again was the fast man, this time piloting the Team Edition AWD stock car provided by AtomicMods to a very fast 23 lap run ( the only one of the weekend). This time, the fastest non-AtomicMods driver was Bryce Jones, so he would get a crack at the car for the next qualifier.
Third Round Qualifying
In the third round, things didn't really change much in XMODS. James England managed to get a good run together in, that would put him second on the grid for the start of the mains behind Eric Magnuson. Mini Z was a different story, James England battled with Bryce Jones and James Bringle for the lead the entire race, Bryce and James Bringle had newfound power, and in the end the top three cars finished about a lap apart. James England had a 22 lap run, followed by James Bringle with 21/ 5:06 and in third, Bryce Jones, running the AtomicBuilt AWD Stock Team Car with a 21/ 5:08.
Last Chance Qualifier
Having had the only 21 lapper in the previous 3 rounds of qualifying, Eric Magnuson was the the man on everybody's list. In this round early favorite Tom Lange had his car dialed in and managed to run a fast 19 lapper, which would be the run to put him third on the grid later on in the XMODS A main. The rest of the positions remained unchanged, with most of the drivers not having their particular best runs in this round. In the meantime, James England, having been the fastest man in the previous round overall, not driving an AtomicBuilt car, had a shot at the AWD stock Team Car one more time. All James had to do this round was to finish ahead of the rest of the guys and he had an AtomicMods ride for the mains.
The Mains
Single mains were to be run for this event, 8 minutes for XMODS and 10 minutes for mini Z.
XMODS Open B Main
This proved to be a very good run for young driver Matt Wetherell. The winner of the B Main was entitled to a bump up to the A Main, to run with the big dogs and show what they are made of. Matt was third on the grid and displayed an amazing degree of skill staying clean off the walls and staying consistent throughout the run. Matt managed to get the holeshot from the first corner and pulled away in dominating fashion, finishing 7 laps ahead of David Eash and Ben Jackson earning himself a 6th place spot to start in the A Main.
XMODS Open A Main
Again this class proved to be the most exciting one of the day. Six drivers were competing for a brand new Mini Z ready set and it seemed like everyone had a pretty good chance. Off the start Eric took off once again and checked out. He finished 3 laps ahead of second place. The exciting race was between 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place. Young Matt Wetherell, winner of the B Main managed to move from 6th to second after one lap. The faster cars of Tom Lange and James England would catch up to Matt, but his clean, slow and steady driving style would help him pull away as the other guys overdrove their cars, After swapping positions with James and Tom for the majority of the race, Matt was able to pull away finishing about a lap and a half ahead of James England in third. This was Matt's first ever race.
Mini Z Open A Main
The Mini Z A Main was very close and exciting for the first couple of minutes. Off the start 4th man on the grid Zach Aufdy took the holeshot as the cars out in front got tangled up a bit. James England driving the AtomicBuilt 2006 Team Edition AWD Stock car, settled in for second with Bryce Jones in third. A couple of laps later and James took over the lead from Zach, and for the next couple of minutes they would battle as James would build a gap, crash, Zach would take over the lead, crash and James would take over. This happened a couple of times, but the AtomicBuilt Team car was too fast, too nimble and too consistent to be topped. And when James managed to find his groove and start building a Gap it was all over for the competition. In the end James England ended up winning by about 3 and a half laps with a 47/10:13 over Zach Aufdy, in second and Bryce Jones rounding out the top three.
Every wonder just what an XMOD remote is saying to the car?
Simply tune your short wave radio to the frequency of the crystal in the remote and you can hear it for yourself?
It goes "Waaaaa, blaaa, bla, waaaaa". which means, "turn left please".
Mr. Riley: "Hmmmm, is it a bird, or a plane?"
Rob: "Looks like it's a giant meteor coming to kill us all, but judging from the length of the debris field, it has yet to enter our atmosphere, so I think we have some time."
Cristian: "Cool, lets finish the race."