P-L Driver Dillon Caldwell Podiums at The Byrons Nitro Challenge on Pro-Line Blockades

Showing up at the Track Friday morning, it was raining and the track was mud. Luckily I brought my new Xray XB2 and ran it on the indoor track. That night all of the kids at the event went to a trampoline park for an hour and had a blast. The next day bright and early we show up at the track, and since it was raining all day Friday and Friday night, the track was still muddy. But the Fastlane Track crew was putting peat moss all over the track so we could try to get the event started as soon as possible.

Dillon Ran Pro-Line Blockades in the Mains and Hole Shots in Qualifying

At noon we finally started racing. Only a few went out on the partially muddy track and tried to practice. I was one of those guys. I got 12 laps in before qualifying which did help a lot. The track was very soft and spongy for qualifying. Every round was very tight. The top 10 were always within 3-seconds in Buggy. So one crash put you down quite a ways. The first round of buggy I got a 10, the second round I had a 7 and the third round I was on pace for second overall, but I had 2 bobbles and I got another 7. In qualifying I rocked X2 Hole Shots on my XRAY XB8 16’.

In Truggy round one and two I finished 5^th overall. In round three I was in fourth for most of the race but dropped off after a bobble and on the last lap I was pushing my car really hard to try and catch up, but I landed on a bump and I was going fast enough that I cart wheeled 20 feet and flamed out. In qualifying with truck I also rocked the Pro-Line X2 Hole Shots. Both of my a mains were 45-minutes long. These will be my first main more than 30 minutes so I was a little nervous.

The Truggy Main was up first and I started 5^th. On the first lap I got up to 3^rd was right behind 2^nd place of Chad Parks for the first 20 minutes. Chad made the first mistake for us 20 minutes into the race. That let me go in front of him and I had a very comfortable lead on him now in the 2^nd spot. There was 20-minutes left when I landed a jump on a weird bump and it hit the fly wheel causing me to flame out. That dropped me down to 4^th and I was just trying to be safe and not lose any more time. 3^rd place of Michel Gardener broke with 10-minutes left and I finished in 3^rd with Pro-Line X3 Blockades behind Ryan Lutz and Seth VanDalen. My buggy main was a short hour later. I started in the 9^th spot on the grid. I got up to the 4^th spot on the second lap and stayed there for 15 minutes until I crashed a couple of times and 5^th (Seth VanDalen) and 6^th (Nick Gibson) place caught me. We had a good battle for 7-8 minutes, I got sandwiched in between them, Nick bumped me and I bumped into Seth and my car hoped of and flipped because all 4 of my tires were touching other tires. So I was in the 6^th spot a half a lap ahead of 6^th and 7^th. But I flipped over in no man’s land and flamed out because my idle was too low. Oh well my dad and I leaned something there. That dropped me down to 8^th and I stayed there for the rest of the race. I used Pro-Line X3 Blockades in my Buggy Main as well.

This event was a lot of fun and I learned a lot! I can’t wait for the next one.

– Dillon Caldwell