It's the night before your first-ever race. Your car is clean, your tools are organized, your tires are glued and mounted. Then it hits you: what else am I supposed to bring?
Good news — Jacob Hardison has you covered. In our latest video, he unpacks his Ogio bag piece by piece and explains why every item earns its spot. This is the same setup he brings to every single event, and it's a great blueprint for building your own race day kit.
Start with the Pit Essentials
Pit Mat
Car Stand
Every pit spot needs one. A car stand gives your car a stable place to sit between rounds, and it's a huge help any time you're rebuilding shocks or working on the chassis.
Tire Gluing Kit
Jacob keeps a dedicated JConcepts bag loaded with his tire punch, tire bands, gluing accessories, and a bottle of glue. If a tire comes unglued mid-day or you need to prep a fresh set at the track, you'll have everything in one place.
Power Cord with a Power Strip
This one gets overlooked a lot. Not every track puts you right next to a building — sometimes you're running off a generator or stretching a cord a long way to reach an outlet. A long cord with a power strip gives you the reach and the outlets to set up wherever you land.
Tools That Save Your Race Day
Pit Mat
Calipers
Calipers are one of the most useful setup tools you can own. Use them to measure sway bars, droop, brake linkages, throttle opening, and more — they turn guesswork into real numbers about your car.
Dremel
Stripped screws are inevitable. A Dremel with a cutting disc gets you out of that jam fast. It's also great for smoothing out a freshly cut wing with a sanding disc, trimming a body, or polishing up a pipe.
The Main Tool Box
Jacob uses a Plano box for his main tools. The top section holds miscellaneous pills, a little grease, extra dividers, fuel line, and engine plugs to keep dust out when the nitro engine comes out of the car.
Inside the main compartment you'll find:
- Drivers and bits, plus mini nut drivers
- Scissors, a flathead screwdriver, and a couple pairs of pliers
- A brush for tire sauce and a tire spring tool
- Sharpies and grease
- A ride height gauge
- Custom droop blocks and an engraved 17mm wheel wrench from Mallory Performance
- Piston drill kit parts, flywheel pullers, and body reamers
- Thread lock and spare bearings
Spare Parts: Be Ready for Anything
Breakages happen, and a well-stocked parts supply is what keeps you in the next qualifier instead of packing up early. Jacob splits his spares across two more Plano boxes.
Bulky Parts and Drivetrain
The second box holds shock springs, driveline parts like universals and center driveshafts, shock collars, arm inserts, and spacers. The main compartment has room for bigger items: buggy and truggy arms, plastic hubs and spindle carriers, diff cases, wing mounts, and fuel tank parts.
Small Parts and Tuning Options
The third box is packed tight. The top tray carries pistons, gaskets, hexes, screws, mounts, outdrives, shock parts, and brake linkage bits. Inside you'll find air filter boots, ring and pinions, shock rod ends, A and B plates, spindles and spindle carriers, a wide range of sway bars, shock shafts, and miscellaneous plastics like radio boxes and chassis braces — plus extra plates for tuning.
Oils for Every Condition
Track conditions change with the weather and the surface, and your setup needs to change with them. Jacob carries two separate bags:
- Diff oil bag — a full range of diff oils from Ultimate Racing, so he can tune for a cold morning or a hot afternoon.
- Shock oil bag — Ultimate Racing shock oils from 350 up to 800 CST, covering pretty much any temperature or track surface.
Having the full range with you means you're never caught off guard when conditions shift.
Power and Charging
Charger Bag
A dedicated JConcepts charger bag keeps the charger, wall and charging cables, and a couple of ready-to-go batteries for electric classes all together and protected.
Cordless Drill
Last out of the bag is Jacob's drill kit: the drill, a spare battery, and the charger. Power tools make wrenching between rounds dramatically faster than hand drivers, which gives you more time to focus on setup and less time fighting screws.
Odds and Ends
The top pocket holds a few miscellaneous items — including a big pair of channel locks for nitro racers, perfect for getting a solid grip on the flywheel without slipping.
Pro Tip: Protect Your Pit Board
One thing Jacob doesn't keep in this bag is his pit board. It rides in his tire bag instead, since tires are a lot softer than hard plastic tool boxes. He either packs his pit mat alongside it or wraps the mat around the board for extra protection.
Build Your Race Day Kit
You don't need every single item on this list for your very first race, but this is a great checklist to work toward. Start with the essentials — a car stand, basic tools, tire supplies, and a way to charge — and build out your spares and oils as you go.
Need tools, spare parts, oils, or tires before your next event? Shop the full lineup at Adrenaline RC Racing, or stop by our Winchester or Chantilly locations and we'll help you get set up.