HSRC was mine and Kris'
first competition. It was held at the Fort Washington Expo Center. Safety
check-ins started at 8:00, so I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning in
order to get there in time. I passed it fine, weighing in at exactly 12lbs!
I went in and set up my pit table. In front of me was Morning Star, behind
me was Project Fish Hucker, and next to me, sharing the table, was JB Johnson.
First Fight
I got a bye in the first round, so
In the second round I had to fight Dizzy Dragon, a walking spinner.
I had seen him at the CJRC, and was
scared of him, but I didn't have the weight to add any more Lexan armor,
so out came the roll of duct tape. I put on 5 layers on the front and sides,
and was still under 12lbs, so I decided to tape my batteries in also.
Since this was my first fight ever,
I was extremely nervous, and I forgot to take the safety cover off my saw
when I put Kris in the box. (DOH!) So they lock the doors, I give
the 'ok' sign, and the announcer says 'Lets go!' Now, since I was so nervous,
I forgot about the light tree, and just shot off across the arena to Dizzy
before the lights went green. My safety cover flew off half way across,
and Dizzy started his blade. We made contact, and that was it. Double hit.
He hit me on both front corners and I went dead.
A post-battle analysis showed
that nothing internal had been hit, just the frame mangled at both corners.
Amazingly, my Rx wasn't even scratched, and it was right up front in the
corner, drawn-in in these full size pictures:
More carnage pics:
I wanted to see why Kris went dead,
so I turned on the Rx and Tx again, and tested it. nothing. The batteries
were all connected, and the TD relays were lighting up, but not blinking.
I then took the crystal out of my Rx, and shook it next to my ear. I could
hear a faint jingle. Darn. the crystal had shattered (or whatever). I decided
to deal with that later, and quickly got to work rebuilding. The only thing
I had to do was repair my frame and armor. Luckily, I had brought more
Al angle with me, so I had my dad run to the car and get it. I only had
to cut two new pieces of Al, amazingly, and the rest I just hammered
straight. then I put on some spare armor panels that I had brought, and
Kris was ready. almost...
I still needed the crystal for my
Rx. I knew Derek Zahn was on the same channel as me because he had come
over and asked for the radio clip earlier. I was reluctant to ask him for
it, because he was diligently working on fixing Daffodil. Eventually I
walked over and asked him. the crystal I wanted was in Sunflower, so that
was good. But I can't thank him enough for going out of his way, taking
off velcro, 2 layers of electrical tape, and tin foil just to get to the
crystal. THANKYOU DEREK!!!
2nd Fight
My second fight was against TC12.
It was a low, fast wedge. I knew I had to get around him to get my saw
on his back and sides. This time I brought him into the box, and remembered
to take the safety cover off, but when I put him down in the box and turned
on the receiver switch, he started spazzing. I checked to make sure my
radio was off, and it was. Someone must have been using my frequency without
the clip. I ignored it, and walked out of the box. Kris kept on spazzing,
and just as they were locking the box, a wheel fell off and rolled away.
I got in, took Kris and the wheel out, and they gave me 3 minutes to fix
it. The only thing that was wrong was the set screw was loose, so I dremeled
the shaft a little more, put the hub on, tightened the set screw, and went
back over to the box.
The fight started, and It seemed
pretty even to me, I got in a couple good hits with my saw, even one time
lifting him onto me, but he could easily get under me and ran me into the
wall at least 5 times. One time he got under me and ran me into the wall,
but got stuck into it himself. Neither of us could move. Someone just came
in and got TC12 un-stuck, and took me off the top of him. He ended up winning
26-19.
