J Concepts driver Chris Baumgartner drove his BJ 4X4 to victory as Planet R/C hosted the second annual WinterFest over the weekend of December 10 - 12 2004 at their indoor facility in Indianapolis, Indiana. The race attracted several well-known factory drivers, including ROAR 2-wheel mod champ Jesse Robbers and 2-wheel A-main AE drivers Ryan Maifield and Al Horne. Also in attendance were Stock 4WD champ Rod Rippee, Losi-sponsored drivers Rob Schaeffer, Jason Switzer, Eric Clark, and AE drivers Brent Thielke and Brian Handwork. They all drove their buggies, the AE guys and Clark drove their trucks, but none of them entered 4WD. A pity.
The
format was open practice Friday, Stock Buggy & Truck Saturday, and Mod
on Sunday. There were 11 entries in 4WD mod out of about 85 total entries,
indicating again a good turn-out for 4WD. Two had to drop out with broken
cars, so 9 started the triple A-main format including 3 BJs, 3 xxx-4s, 2 xx-4s,
and an X - 5, so again we see four different types of car in the race.
J Concepts driver Chris Baumgartner won the first two qualifiers
to take the TQ spot. Curt May came down with an illness on Saturday and returned
home to Columbus, so Chazz recruited a young up-and-coming driver from Indianapolis,
Mike Bender, to drive Curt's X - 5. All the X - 5 pix are Mike driving with
Curt's body. Mike had just two practice packs Sunday morning on Paul's set-up,
but he took third in H-1.
The drivers were re-sorted for H-3 based on times and placed all in one race due to the two drop-outs. Bender got off to a poor start but took over the lead on lap 6 and never looked back as Chris Baumgartner crashed on lap 8 breaking a front control arm.
Chris again looked impressive in the first two A mains, running
away with the opener and winning the second, albeit with a couple of bad laps.
Nathen Bauer took second in A-1 with Bender third. The scoring sheet shows Baungartner
fourth in A-2 because somehow his 14th lap failed to trip the timing loop.
When you add the lap, he finished a bit less than 3 seconds ahead of Mike
Bender. With Baumgartner sitting out A-3, Bender won by almost half a lap
over Bauer to wrap up second place for the X - 5.
We'll post the race sheets as soon as we scan them in.
A race note: Check out the weight added to the chassis just outside of the motor on Rod Rippee's and Chris Baumgartner's BJs. This helps balance the cars because the other side has all the batteries.
Results 6 (A Main 1)
Results 7 (A Main 2)
Results 8 (A Main 3)
