Today is a tense day here in Orlando FL as drivers for the Snowbird Nationals are trying anything to bump up their position – preferably into the A-Main!

Rob Walbrown and Mike Rooney sit comfortably in the B-Main for 6-Cell truck, but they too have one more round to better their position! The B-Mains will be run today as a final ditch effort for drivers to get into the A-Main as the winner of the B-Main gets bumped into the A.

Todd Hodge fights for 1st place (pictured left inside circle above).

Billy Easton gets ready for the 4th round while Todd Hodge checks the results of his own run.

Atsushi Hara (top far left) is one of the top R/C racers in the world – has broke in every round so far. Atsushi won the 4th round which will place him high on the rankings. Jilles Groskamp (Right picture far left) from Holland, has made an appearance at the Snowbirds over the last few years – and has won! Jilles is a top contender again this year.

Allen Stephens from Steel City currently is ranked 48th in the 4-Cell Stock class and 53rd in 4300 Brushless. Allen has done a terrific job in Brushless and is expected to rank high after the 4th round. Allen ran into some bumps and bruises as far as getting knocked around in the fight to place high. Allen has picked up a few sponsors such as PowerPush and Kimbrough.

All the awards are ready for the B-Main drivers which will run today! Other drivers are taking bets on who will break first!

The first heat was the 6-Cell Truck which is essentially a 1/10th scale touring car used in oval. All week Mike and Rob have been tweaking their cars to get the most laps within a 4 minute time period. Rob has been struggling all week where as Mike was able to make adjustments early thanks to some hot tips from the pros.

Today was the 1st of 4 qualifiers and Rob and Mike were up 1st. Rob started in 2nd position where Mike was 6th on the grid. The horn sounds and by the 2nd lap, there was a pile-up on turn 2 and Mike makes a quick turn – which popped/broke his steering spring in his JR R1 radio!

Above is where we had to go in deep to retreive a broken spring. Allen was able to bend a new loop and Mike installed it and reassembled.

As far as the race, Rob made up 6 laps and all the hard tweaking this week paid off! That is a tremendous feat if I do say so myself! Mike was up a few laps as well and placed 1 lap less than Rob on this 1st qualifier. Tomorrow we have 2 heats so the pressure is on!

Rob and Mike are up again at 1:30PM Friday

Allen has been amazing with how serious he has taken this HUGE National event. Allen has won oval nationals before but this one is the grand daddy of them all with over 700 entries over all. Allen finally got his car dialed in right by the time the 1st qualifier started for him. Al was quite nervous on the stand and was put into the board on the back stretch on the 2nd lap. Al calmed his nerves and made a comeback to 6th place.

A huge congratulations to Allen for picking up PowerPush as a sponsor!

Rob Walbrown, Allen Stephens and Michael Rooney are working hard practicing every chance they get to be competitors at this year’s Snowbird Nationals in Orlando FL.

Team Losi’s team pit area and Mike Rooney’s pit area.

Barry Hill and team Hyperdrive sport one of the best car paint jobs I have seen! Click here for pictures of the driver’s meeting with over 400+ drivers and over 700 entries.

What these guys were doing up at 4 am – I do not know! Keep posted to see how frosty they are for todays 1st qualifier!

Mike Rooney was interviewed by the R/C Live radio show here at the birds’. Great conversation about SCH, the videos from the past and present and other stuff like the Steelers using R/C as well as R/C Drags (Drag racing), etc. Keep posted for re-airing and live air time for the snowbirds. Sonny from Horizon Hobby (left) co-hosts the show and Doc Love was the host. To listen to this and other RC shows log onto the RC Race’n Radio: www.racetalklive.com. More info and video at www.snowbirdnationals.com.

Click on any picture to take you to a vast photo stream or click here for a look at pictures uploaded several times a day.

After the 1st practice heat, Mike needs to wrench on a few things.

1st, the motor needs to come out to cut the com.  Then we will head to Al’s dyno to see what kind of numbers we are turning.  Rob’s motor was terrible right out of the gate!  His com was not true and it was burnt from using heavy springs.  All fixed now.  Back to Mike, the ride-height needs to be raised about 1mm in the front.  A full set of foam tires is needed as this round was pretty rough – but no major breakage.  Next round is at 9:15 PM.

This year is almost no different than any other with setting up for the largest carpet race in USA history. Every year brings more experience and more technology to setting up a large carpet race. Below SCH shares a few pictures from setting up a few days before the first car rolls out onto the track.

The first 4×8 sheet of pressed fiber-wood from Lowes is laid down. Only 121 more sheets to go!

The Snowbird Nationals will be one of the 1st to use the latest in technology to keep everyone to spec – so cheating will not be an option here. The awards are top notch as well – which is just another reason this race is FUN as well as competitive!

Check out Scarecrow’s test drive of the helmet cam!  Keep posted for updated pictures! To view more pictures: Click Here