1/8^th Nitro-

    Abyie Birku is Tamiya’s most experienced off-road driver on the team in Canada. He went on record before the race saying “that he doesn’t have much luck at this event”. Having attended the Shootout over the past four years things never go his way. After qualifying was over, it looked like his luck had changed! Abyie put his TRF801X at the top of the A main qualifying 4^th out of 118 racers who entered! Stiff competition!! For Steve Bortolotti (ex on-road ace) this event marked his 1-year anniversary for his 1/8^th off-road racing career. 16 cars started the A main 14 qualified in and 2 transferred up after finishing 1^st and 2^nd in the B main. Some bad luck in qualifying slotted Bortollotti into the B main and that meant he had some work ahead, racing 16 other drivers for the 2 transfer spots. Bortolotti spent the 1^st  5mins or so making his way to the top of the leader board in the B main and by the 15min mark he had cemented himself into the 2^nd position behind CRC’s Frank Calandra. Knowing that 1^st & 2^nd pay the same, he put it into cruise control for the remaining minutes and took the transfer along with Calandra into the A main. Making the top 16 out of the 118 drivers that entered is quite a feat in itself!

   At the start of the race Team Losi’s young star Dakotah Phend led the rest of the screaming cars and never looked back. Tamiya’s Birku known for is aggressive driving, made short work of the cars just in front of him on the grid, working his way as high as 2^nd until the bad luck caught up: and a bad landing caused the car to tumble uncontrollably and sent him out of the race! Bad luck also struck Southern California native Barry Baker. Not sure what happened, but there was a very unhappy Baker as he retired from the race. This left Phend out in front with Markham’s own Dave Henry in the 2^nd position and Mike Moralez in the 3^rd spot. Tamiya’s Bortolotti was quietly making his way up through the field after starting in the last spot. Bortolotti kept his TRF801X out of trouble and after the 30 minutes were up, found himself in 4^th place 

   The A main was going to be a battle for every position. The cars were gridded up in super tight with only a foot or two in-between each car. 16 cars in total were ready to do battle for the top spot. Calamity was the best was to describe the opening laps. Wright's car was part of a crash, and ended up rejoining the race in the very last position. Bortolotti stayed in the 2^nd position until the closing moments of the 10-minute race, when a bad landing caused a crash dropping him back to the 3^rd position and letting Birku close up. A late last pass by Birku swapped the two Tamiya Driver's positions.