Time for another event report this time the BBB Beetle Champs.
Post Tech check all good to go, the heaviest setup put on for the Tech check was in fact the ideal setup for the 3-way Rumble. Saves me time.
Ready table for the 3-way rumble against Kairos and Got any grapes? With an overhead saw and a big shuffler vert, I needed the reach and extra protection to deal with them.
With the big threat from Got any Grapes? I focused on them ramming them into the wall twice which off-balanced them and caused them to send themselves into the corner near the pit. Which somehow broke one side of the drive. Kairos attempted an attack and ended up feeding their wedge into the vert bending it up badly. After a quick repositioning, I managed to lift Got any grapes? over and they couldn’t get purchase on the floor leading to them getting counted out, although that engagement led to two of my forks getting bent. Now it was a 1 v 1 with Kairos. With their wedge compromised I had the ground game advantage. I used it to push and lift Kairos about until one of the sticks on my transmitter worked itself loose and I had to pause to fix it giving Kairos time to change tacktic and use their saw like a vert. The damage was mostly cosmetic but I was struggling to get a good ram and lift in most of the time Data Breach is still a tad fiddly for me to drive. The fight went to the judges and DB got the win.
The post-fight damage, two bent forks. I’m going to be upgrading all my forks to 6 and 8mm cause I’m losing forks too much.
One of the wheels had a chunk of rubber removed that I was worried would get worse so I swapped to a new one and kept the damaged one as a spare.
The top plate and extra armour could have some small slices to the back from the vert mode attacks by the saw. Mostly cosmetic so I didn’t swap to the spare.
With the win, DB was in the round of 32. Finally, DB had made it past the round one stage of a event at last. I had to wait a little bit for the redemption rounds to be completed to know who I was fighting. When I knew it would be the winner of the fight between Lawnmower and Abracagrabra I watched on with worry. Either I was fighting a spinner or a control bot. When Abra won I was relieved to avoid a spinner but facing a control was still a scary prospect knowing I’m not that great of a driver.
At the ready table. With my long forks done for, I swapped to my shorter ones. I had considered using the axe but Abra’s top offered unrealistic catch points to hook onto with the axe so I kept the lifter on.
This was a driving battle with both bots trying to get under each other Data Breach managed a few lifts and rams while dealing with a mini bot and my bad driving. After lifting and shoving Abra into the corner next to the pit they self-righted right on top of their mini-bot and got stuck. I made one attempt to untick them but it failed so I went and opened the pit and shortly after Abra and the mini bot drove into the opening it. A second win and Data Breach was in the top 16.
Still struggling to process that achievement I had to prep for Gizmo. There was no damage to repair only a quick battery swap and DB was as ready as it was going to be. I had some 8mm forks on order but they didn’t arrive till yesterday sadly so I couldn’t justify using the axe.
At the ready table the longest wait to face one of my scariest fights. Gizmo being unsure how they’ll do against DB wasn’t much comfort.
On go the game plan was just to attack and try to get Gizmo off balance and cause them to bounce about on their weapon. I couldn’t believe on the first engagement DB got under Gizmo and rammed them into the wall tipping them over. This would lead to DB having the edge for the first minute with Gizmo getting tipped over either by me or themselves. I couldn’t capitalise on it much as Data Breach is at its most manoeuvrable even with the drive set to 50% speed, DB is hard to drive with it turned faster than I’m used to meaning I’m making lots of corrections to my positioning. Gizmo finally started to take advantage of that and got some good hits in. After some back and forth the pit lowers (after a false call 10 seconds earlier caused by Garath leaning on the button, apparently the fight was that exciting even for the arena marshal 
) I was trying my best not to be between Gizmo and the pit or oota wall. My game plan however was to have Gizmo bounce into one of them but sadly Gizmo was winning the engagements and threw me next to the pit and before I could self-right Gizmo knocked DB into the pit and that was it.
I was out of the comp having reached the top 16 which has been my main aim since first competing in the beetleweights in 2021. So I can walk away with my head held high. Data Breach was rather battered after that fight the wedges, forks, lifter arm, base and wheels got chewed up. I swapped to the spares and while there was no more time for a whiteboard Data Breach was back to a fighting state.
Data Breach post-event sporting all the spares I had prepped a quick battery charge and I could throw it back into the arena. I have some upgrades in mind for DB which I’ll go into in another post at some point. But for now, it’s a chance to unwind for the winter and return next year with Data Breach MK3.2
