As always the day began with a concourse competition, pitting the bodies of all the drivers in the spec and spec + drivers against one another to see who had the surest hand when detailing their body.  When the dust had settled it was Doug Shelp and his green and silver Lotus that took top honors and the $40 cash prize.  There were a lot of great bodies on the table as always, with Doug's car grabbing the eyes of the judges and refusing to let go.

SR Class Action
Entries were light in the SR class at this event leaving just Mike Ricca and Todd B to go mano y mano for the title here at round #8.  Mike took an early lead in the points by winning the concourse competition, but after 3 straight wins in the head to head racing it was Todd B taking the overall victory.  Both drivers were awarded Hara Twister 2.2 speed controls for their efforts.

Spec Qualifying
Multi-time spec class champion Alex Neverette brought the heat in qualifying and had his silver bullet version of the Cyclone S sitting in the TQ spot after two great runs.  Roell Espina challenged Alex early on but fell just off the pace to qualify in the 2nd position while "Mr. Consistency," Mark Barden qualified in the 3rd spot.

Spec Main
Alex Neverette jumped out to an early lead while Barden made a move early on to get into the 2nd spot.  The top two pulled away from the pack in the early stages of the race and stretched out from one another as well.  This shifted the focus towards the battle for third which raged on throughout the entire 5 minutes.  In the end it was Joel Navarro of RCCA narrowly edging out Chris Chavez and his Extreme RC "fly girl" ride for the 3rd position.  (Chris would officially take the 3rd place prize money based upon Joel's finish in the Spec + class later in the day)

Spec + Qualifying
Qualifying in the spec class saw the emergence of a new dominant force; and the name of this force?......you guessed it, Joel Navarro.  Joel appeared to have found not only the setup, but the fast line around the track and easily took the tq over the likes of past podium finisher Mike Rydwell as well as Jason H.  It appeared as though Navarro would easily take the win in the main event barring some sort of natural disaster...

Spec + Main
The main event saw an early race battle between Navarro and Rydwell as they pulled away from the rest of the field.  The two sliced and diced throughout the first 4 minutes swapping positions on numerous occasions.  With one minute to go it was Navarro leading Rydwell and looking comfortable as the too scorched up the Bending Corners asphalt.  With one lap to go it appeared as though Joel would fulfill his destiny of taking the win in the Spec + main and solidify his place amongst the HB Underground greats.  Unfortunately for Joel, he hadn't bargained on his long time friend and carpool buddy T-Webb being in the pocket of Mr. Rydwell.  T-Webb put a sick block move on Joel and took him out on the last lap which allowed Rydwell to get by and take the win.  Joel was able to get going just in time to beat out a hard charging Jason H for the 2nd position.

That wraps up another great day of racing at Bending Corners Raceway in Orange, CA.  HB would like to once again give a big thanks to owner/operator Raff for his excellent work.  We would also like to thank Jeff from Speedtech RC and Bob Chang of SK Motion for their excellent racer support.  We would also like to thank Jason H for helping out with the pictures as well.

8 rounds down and 1 round left to go in the inaugural season of the HB Underground.  The next race is August 17th right back at Bending Corners and we hope to see you all there!