Race Report Novi 2025 Season Opener!

Race Report: Saturday, May 11th was the Novi Season Opener race, and there were a lot of people there. Infact, the most people they’ve had at any race, 94 drivers and 180 entries. This made for some kick ass racing and a very long day in the sun.

I dragged Jim out with me as he had not been there before. I raced eBuggy and eTruggy. 5 heats of eBuggy and one larger heat of eTruggy.

eTruggy

eTruggy was pretty good. I made sure my truck was not set up all wonky, got my typical Novi tires on, and was ready to go. Then OhBoy comes over and here I am changing tires lol (glad I did). I took 3rd in the first heat and 5th in the 2nd. Fortunately, my 1st heat qualifier of 3rd stuck for the mains, and I would sit in p3 for the mains. Ooohhhh the mains. With a lot of people racing, there tends to be a lot of stuff that happens, and this day saw a lot of racers’ etiquette go out the window. I was running off twice and had other random things happen. I was super frustrated and decided to pull my truck. At first, I thought it was me, but a friend confirmed I was punted twice by hacky drivers who didn’t even check up after. Oh well. It happened, and I still had fun.

eBuggy

My eBuggy heat 1 and 2 was a shit show to say the least. I could not get my car to do anything I wanted. Heat 2 was better than Heat 1, but I still struggled. Diff changes, ride height adjustments, droop adjustments, tire changes, and even driving style changes had me traction rolling at almost every corner. At this point, I was ready to send it for the F main and call it. Jimmy says as I wait for the mains to start, “I think you should take a lot more droop out of your car. I was already at 113/123, so we agreed I should go down to 108/118. I had removed almost 12mm of droop from my car that day. Then Nathaniel says, “I have these tires I ran a race on, why don’t you try these and see if it is any better.

Hold on to your hats, y’all, cause this race report gets better!

My car finally felt like my car in the first main. I managed to bump 4 times from the F to the C. It was the most I have moved up in a race weekend, and although the sun was beating on me and my lack of bringing enough food and water was killing me, I had a BLAST! For many reasons, I couldn’t quite make it from the C to the B, but I fought hard.

Thanks!

I want to thank Jim, Nathaniel, Erik, and Wes for always letting me bounce Ideas off them and helping me when I ask. I would also like to thank Scarlet (Jim’s daughter) for dragging my car back and forth during my bumps to have someone swap batteries for me.