Article Title: Atomic West Coast Championships

The Event

This year, world renowned Mini-Z hop-up manufacturer ATOMIC has organized their own version of the Mini-Z World Cup. Their vision is to bring some of the greatest Mini-Z pilots from all over the world to a final championship race in Hong Kong sometime in September, 2008.

Rumor has it that pilots from Italy, Spain, South Africa, the U.K. and Taiwan will be amongst the participants. The best part of it all you ask? Atomic is picking up the tab for travel and accommodations for the winners of the modified classes at each of their qualifying events.

The first qualifying event was held Saturday January 12, 2008 at Inside Line Racing in Santa Clara, California. Pilots came from as far as New York to compete in this event. Everyone wanted a chance at securing their “golden ticket” to the exclusive World Finals.

Practice and Qualifying

Three rounds of controlled practice were run early in the morning. This set the tone early on to the racing atmosphere. It allowed drivers to check out their lap times and get the bugs worked out of their set-ups. Once qualifying came around some really close racing ensued.

In 2wd stock and modified, Reflex Racing’s latest addition TJ set the pace through out the day. In the modified class he had a bit of a challenge from Leo Zheng, but after the smoke cleared TJ edged out Leo by 4 or 5 seconds to secure the top spot on the grid. The top three on the starting grid for modified were TJ, Leo Z, and Bad Boy. In stock, TJ ended up with the TQ as well.

Formula 1 provided to be a very fun class to watch. Mr. F1, Joseph a.k.a. “Ruf” Chen and track owner Binh Do battled consistently for the top spot. Binh was a little bit smoother and Joe was a little bit faster. In the end Joe ended up taking the TQ spot edging out Binh by about a lap.

The last class was AWD Modified. These were perhaps the quickest cars at Inside Line, as the grip was lower than the average RCP Track. Qualifying was a battle between Mr. Willy Wong and Cristian Tabush. The first round went to Willy as Cristian’s car was slowed by a dead cell early into the qualifying heat. In the second round, Cristian answered with the fastest overall qualifying run of the weekend, managing to turn the only 48 lap run of the event.

The Mains

2WD Stock
The first mains to come up were the 2wd stock mains. Nothing uneventful happened, top qualifier TJ Macabuhay ran away with the first two mains and secured the title easily. Rounding up the top 3 were Joe Chen and Mike-Z.

F1
In Formula 1, the race was between Joe Chen and Inside Line’s owner Binh Do over all three of the mains. In the first main Binh and Joe battled through the beginning of the race. Joe managed to pull away slowly towards the middle of the run ending up a lap and a half up on the competition.

In the second main Joe Chen got into some trouble early on in the run allowing Binh to get a big lead. Joe charged the whole race, but just wasn’t able to get around Binh cleanly giving the second main to Binh.

The final main saw Joe pull away from the beginning as Binh’s car seemed to have gotten slower and Joe’s got quicker. In the end Joe won the third main easily and with that secured the title.

AWD MOD

This was a fun race to watch. Top Qualifier Cristian Tabush and 2nd place Willy Wong were very evenly matched. Whoever made the least mistakes would surely take the win.

The first main saw Cristian take a huge lead after the first lap, never looking back. Mr. Willy Wong charged really hard and in the end finished only 1 second behind Cristian.

The second main saw a similar start. Cristian built a huge comfortable lead and it seemed as he was on his way to Hong Kong. Unfortunately, about 6 minutes into the race, the leader ran into some trouble with traffic, allowing hard charging Willy Wong to inherit the lead and to take the victory.

The final main was a bit anti-climactic. Top Qualifier Cristian Tabush again took a nice lead off the start. This time his car did not seem to be on pace with Willy’s though. As Willy pulled closely to Cristian he attempted to hold him back with no success as Willy just pulled away for the easy victory and the trip to Hong Kong.

The final results were Willy Wong, Cristian Tabush and Steven Huynh.

2WD MOD

Modified 2WD was perhaps the most exciting to watch out of all the classes. TJ Macabuhay was looking to take a second West Coast Championship title, but with a couple of really fast guys behind him on the grid.

At the start of the first main, a tangle in the first corner allowed Leo Z to take the lead from 2nd on the grid. Leo managed to build a sizable lead and started to stretch it out. From out of nowhere cam Cristian Tabush inching closer to Leo lap in, lap out. About 6 minutes into the race Leo and Cristian were involved in an epic battle swapping first place a couple of times. At the end, Cristian was able to barely edge out Leo by about 1 second.

The second main saw 7 minutes and 50 seconds of Cristian and Leo battling once again. Cristian had the quicker car, but Leo’s flawless driving did not allow Cristian to get past. On the last lap Cristian got hung up on a corner and allowed Leo to stretch out the lead to give him the victory.

The last main would decide if Leo Z or Cristian Tabush would get the trip to Hong Kong. At the buzzer, Leo once again managed to get through traffic and pull away. Cristian got hung up and was 5th place after the first lap. Leo built a huge lead and the chances for anyone catching him seemed slim. Cristian managed to move up to 2nd place and started to hunt down Leo, who was about 7 seconds ahead. At about the same time Cristian started to clock the fastest 2wd laps of the weekend, Leo started to crack, making a couple of small mistakes. This allowed 2nd place to catch up to him rapidly. This lead to several laps of the firstwo cars swapping positions. Finally with about 2 minutes left, Cristian managed to make a clean pass on Leo and seemed to put it in overdrive as he pulled away easily for a comfortable, and yet tough come form behind win.

In the end we saw Cristian Tabush take first, Leo Zheng second and Reflex’s latest addition TJ Macbuhay third.

We’d like to congratulate all the winners as well as Inside Line and Atomic on a great race. The organizational level was incredible, the race direction was flawless, people were great and the racing intensity was even better. It says a lot of how far Mini-Z racing has come. There are fast drivers in every corner of the country and the world. We really hope to see you guys in the future. In the meantime, we have to go practice. See you in Hong Kong!