The weather flip at the Round 3 nationals at Rage Raceway sorted the field fast. Rain on Saturday, sun on Sunday, and a track surface that went from swamp to hero-grip inside four hours. Here's how the A-mains went down.
Results
| Class | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Fast lap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mod Buggy | Jin Kwan | Ryan Cavalieri | Adam Drake | 18.412 |
| Stock Buggy | Mike Truhe | Sarah Vincent | Tim Hobby | 19.880 |
| E-Buggy | Ronnie Gonzalez | Jin Kwan | Kody Numedahl | 17.995 |
| 2WD SC | Dakotah Phend | Joern Neumann | Jack Ehmann | 21.120 |
What happened
Qualifying ran under a steady drizzle. The handful of drivers who gambled on slicks in Q1 paid for it spectacularly — the rubbered-in sections became skating rinks the moment the temperature dropped two degrees. By Q4 everyone had settled on a softer-than-normal compound and the lap times converged.
Sunday flipped the script. The track dried faster than the grid expected, which meant tires that felt right in morning warmup were finished by Lap 8 of the A-main. Jin Kwan's team was the only one to bring a second tire change into the A — which is exactly how he won by 0.3s over Cavalieri after fifteen minutes of flat-out running.
Takeaways
If you're going to race this surface again in July, bring two tires per class and plan to switch mid-main. The traditional "one-tire strategy" works when conditions are stable. At Rage in April, nothing is stable.