Since seeing the car in person at the Cactus earlier in the year, I really wanted to try the X-6. I had asked Chazz if the car would be in production by then and he said it was possible. My plan was then to just buy one at the race, throw it together and run it. A few weeks before the Shootout, I emailed Chazz and told him I wanted to run one and asked what he could do for me. He said he'd have a car for me to run there.

Due to personal stuff, I didn't get to the shootout until Friday morning at 8. I signed up (well, Jeremy Felles signed me up) in Expert 2wd Stock and 4wd Mod. The only 2wd car I had was my well used Losi XXX BK2 (with cheese). When I showed up, I found the X-Factory pit area and talked to Chazz about the new car. I saw two sitting out, one was Greg's. When I asked if I could run the other one, he said sure, all I'd need is front tires. Using my excellent knee-pad skills I secured a new set of red 3-row prescrubs and a new set of wheels. Four races before my first round, had Chazz's X-6 on my table. I didn't have time to get it together for the first round, so I ran my Losi first round.

My Losi car had been a bit of a handful in the first round. This could be partly due to my setup and lack of practice, but still, the car was far too hard to drive. To my surprise, it had more steering than I wanted; a problem I've never had before with that car. I was running the tire setup everyone else was running, so it could have been a setup problem. My hurting first run put me like 12th overall. I had like 2 real fast laps but the rest were pretty bad.

Second round I ran the X-6. The X-6 was much easier to get around the track than the Losi and a lot easier to push hard. The car did understeer really bad, particularly in the two fast corners at the end of the straight. I found out later that this was partly due to the dual rate turned down on my radio. Other than the slight push, I was very happy with the car. I was really comfortable with it almost as soon as I started driving it.

For the next round, I switched to taper pin fronts (silver) which was what everyone else was running, instead of the Red pre-scrubs I ran the first time. I also lowered the front end and raised the back as well as switch to a harder rear spring. The car felt great in the warm-up, but I broke a rear tower by over-jumping the big triple. Chazz said he hasn't seen an X-6 tower break there yet, and he kept the broken one to analyze. I'm sure they'll have a redesign to make it even better. I've seen a bunch of people break towers like that, so I'm not too concerned.

Fourth round, the car was really good. It had the steering I was missing earlier and started to rotate a little more. My car picked up a glitch at the end of the straight which made the sweeper interesting and cost me a little time. Also, the motor I had really started to slow down and the car lost its pep. My handout motor might need to be retired. Despite that, the car was real fast and I was on pace for a top 3 run when I jumped almost off the track to avoid a hole in the face of the triple and pulled a ball stud through the rear tower. Since I was fast enough to make the extra lap, I still ended up 5th for the round despite not finishing. Unfortunately, the 5th that round with the 8th from 2nd round was not enough for the main, I missed it by one point.

Overall, I was very satisfied with the whole experience. The X-Factory has a really nice car and it will only get better. I'm anxious to see what it does on a slippery track like SoCal. As soon as I get my own car, I'll be out there testing. My initial fears of the car being tail-happy and hard to drive were totally wrong. The car was quite stable and confidence-inspiring. Driving the X-6 is more like driving touring car. You drive smoother, more flowing lines, and less point-and-shoot like we're used to in off-road. During my testing later, I will come up with a speed controller setup to go along with the car setup, since I think a different speed controller setup would be beneficial on this car.

Well, that sums up my first experience, check back later for some more impressions and some setup tips.