Attending the Hot Rod Hobbies Offroad Shootout for the first time has caused this reporter great disappointment for not attending before. HRH race events are organized by the legendary Jimmy “66” Babcock. If you’ve not attended a Shootout, a JBRL event or any of the weekly events at Hot Rod Hobbies you are, indeed, missing out.

The Shootout draws one of the largest offroad racing crowds to sunny Saugus, Calif., for five days of intense racing action on a beautifully designed, high-traction layout. 

Qualifying starts Friday morning, but many racers showed up as much as a week in advance to get valuable practice time and fine tune their setups. 

The big talk in the pits this year was the return of Brian Kinwald. He’s been away from racing for nearly a year. The ‘06 Shootout was actually one of the first events BK missed, so it was great to see him return for ‘07. Brian is now an X-Factory driver and has equipped all of his race cars with Novak brushless racing systems. Welcome back, BK!  Originally, he was not intending to race but couldn’t stand being at the track without turning a few laps. It just worked out that a few drivers missed the event, so Mr. Kinwald was able to fill in at the empty spots. Brian wound up in all of the B-Mains.

The three big Mod Classes are 2wd Buggy, Truck and 4wd Buggy. 

4wd Buggy found a mere two Novak-equipped drivers making the A final. Jesse Robbers took home the 2nd spot in his Losi/Novak GTX-powered buggy with Novak’s own Mike Truhe piloting his Losi/GTB/Velociti 5.5R-powered buggy to the 7th spot. 

2wd Buggy was again only a two man show. Jesse Robbers again took 7th, and he was joined by Franklin Root, who finished 10th.  Truhe missed the A final by a mere 0.01 of a second. Tight racing, indeed.

Mod Truck was a whole other story though. Of the 10 A finalists, six were equipped with Novak power – four of them using Novak GTB/Velociti systems. Forty percent of the field was Novak-brushless powered. Robbers took home another 2nd place finish with his GTX-powered Losi. Dustin Evans used his GTB/Velociti 5.5R combo to bring him and his Losi home in the 4th spot. Billy Fischer, also using a GTB/5.5R combo, came home 5th with Mike Truhe and his GTB/5.5R right behind him. Matt Chambers from Denver, Colo., took the 6th finishing spot, and Franklin Root came home in the 10th spot with his GTX-powered AE T4.

It was a great weekend filled with great racing and lots of fun. If you’d like to see the complete results, check out www.liverc.com.

We extend our thanks to all of our team drivers and Novak customers for choosing Orange Power. See you at the races!