Some race weekends go according to plan. This one did not and that's exactly why it made for one of the best trips of the season. Adrenaline RC's Jacob Hardison hitched up the travel trailer for his first-ever tow, hauled through a rainstorm, and rolled into LCRC for the Party Rock race with Sparko buggies loaded and ready. What followed was a full weekend of broken gearboxes, gambled-on tire choices, a hard-earned TQ, and two comeback drives to the podium.
Here's the full breakdown of how the weekend played out, tire by tire, mistake by mistake, and win by win, plus the gear that got us through it.
First Time Towing, First Time Camping at the Track
Before a single lap was turned, the weekend already had a plot twist: this was Jacob's first time towing a travel trailer to a race. Rain on the drive out meant no hotel search, no scrambling for a room — just a 22-foot trailer, a level pad at LCRC, and a pit spot on the back side of the facility. Less premium real estate, sure, but less dust too.
Joining for the weekend was Uriel Torrellini, or at least that's the name on his hypothetical fan sticker. Whatever you want to call him, he was on the stand all weekend running a Sparko buggy of his own, chasing his own goals!
Practice Day: Dialing In Diffs and Breaking a Gearbox
Practice day at LCRC is where the real setup work happens, and the Sparko platform gave Jacob a strong starting point. Geometry and shock oil were close to right out of the gate, so the tuning came down to diff fluid, a classic way to fine-tune how a buggy transfers power into a developing track.
The nitro buggy started the weekend on 15wt center and 15wt rear diff fluid, tested against a 12.5wt option, before settling into 15wt center for the E-Buggy and 15/12wt for the Nitro Buggy. Both cars were fast, right up until a hard hit over a skip sent the Nitro Buggy into pieces. The damage looked worse than it was: two broken gearbox ears, nothing bent, nothing catastrophic. A spare gearbox and some grease-covered fingers later, the car was back together and ready for qualifying.
Qualifying Day: The Tire Gamble
Every race weekend has one moment where you have to trust your gut over the room, and qualifying day at LCRC was it. The track looked dusty and slick after a heavy watering, and the local veterans were steering everyone toward a firmer compound — nothing softer than a blue, maybe an Aqua 2. Jacob's instinct said green.
The compromise: a green reflex for round one on the Nitro Buggy, with a late audible to a blue reflex once the water turned out to be lighter than expected. The result was a clean, four-point run — good enough to lock in a spot in the A-Main. The E-Buggy went a step further, running a blue reflex to a TQ in round one, which meant a front-row starting spot locked in before round two even mattered.
That TQ paid off in more ways than one — it also opened up track time to test tire options for the E-Buggy main without any qualifying pressure riding on the results.
Main Day: Rain, a Comeback, and a Podium (Nitro Buggy)
Main day started with more rain — because of course it did. The Nitro Buggy A-Main ran a longer, 25-minute race in wet conditions on Aqua 2 tires, and it did not start clean. An early mistake dropped Jacob to the back of the field, kicking off what turned into a full comeback drive.
By the closing minutes, Jacob had fought back to third — until a downpour hit with a minute to go. Starting late in the running order meant an extra lap in the rain that the leaders didn't have to run, costing valuable seconds. Even with that, the Nitro Buggy crossed the line in fourth, a step up from qualifying position thanks to a genuinely hard-fought recovery drive.
Main Day: A Blown Start, a Statement Pass, and a Podium (E-Buggy)
Starting the E-Buggy main from the pole after that qualifying TQ should have been the easy part. Instead, an early misjudged jump sent Jacob into the fluff and back to the field, followed by a racing-line mixup a lap later that cost another reset. Two steps back in the first few minutes of a 10-minute main is a tough spot to recover from.
But that's exactly what happened. As the tires came in, Jacob worked back through the field, capping the run with a clean, textbook pass that turned into one of the highlight clips of the entire trip. The E-Buggy crossed the line in fourth — a fitting finish after a run that started on pole and ended with a real fight to get back there.
Add it up, and the weekend closed with a TQ, a fourth in Nitro Buggy, and a fourth in E-Buggy — a genuinely solid showing for the first trip of the season to LCRC, and proof that a rough start doesn't have to define the finish.
The Gear Behind the Weekend
Both buggies on this trip were Sparko F8 Nitro Buggy and Sparko F8E Electric Buggy platforms — the same kits our own Lee Setser helped dial in, with his personal setup sheet available on our Lee Setser race setup page. If you're chasing this kind of consistency out of the box, the full Sparko lineup is in stock and ships same-day from our Virginia warehouse.
Tire-wise, this whole weekend came down to JConcepts Reflex and Aqua 2 compounds in reflex and relapse construction — browse the full range of JConcepts offroad racing tires to build your own tire bag for whatever conditions show up on race day. The E-Buggy ran on Cayote electronics, which handled the wet, gritty conditions all weekend without a single issue.
Up Next: Wicked Weekend
The trailer's getting cleaned up, the gearboxes are getting rebuilt, and the next stop is Wicked Weekend at the end of July. Follow along on our YouTube channel for the next build and race recap, and swing by our Winchester or Chantilly locations if you want to talk setup before your next event.