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| Nightmare competed at the November 17-19, 2000 BattleBots! |
Nightmare had a lot of major upgrades since Season 1.0. An all-new disc with new teeth, new weapon drive system, new wheel support arms with spikes, new hubs, and new speed controller.
Nightmare's upgrades put him dangerously close to the weight limit- so much so that when I checked him in for safety at the event, he was almost 4 pounds overweight!!! (Don't always trust your workshop scale!) I immediately started cutting holes, removing the spikes, and trimming down everything I could, even removing some washers, to get him down to 210.5 lbs. It took a while, but I got him there!
Nightmare's First Fight- vs. Surgeon General
Nightmare's first fight was versus Team Loki's new heavyweight entry, Surgeon General.
Once again, I had taken a look around the pits, sizing up the competition, and as always, I make a mental list of the bots that I worry about the most, well, what do you know, but here's another big worry of mine that I have to face in my first fight- Surgeon General! Yikes!
Surgeon General has a large spinning disc, much like Nightmare, except his spins horizontally. Surgeon General's disc sports four large tool steel sharpened teeth. He has a powerful drive system and can run upside down. Needless to say, I was worried about facing this bot.
At the start of the match, both Nightmare and Surgeon General spun up their weapons and approached each other. Surgeon General stopped, and attempted to come around the side of Nightmare, but I turned Nightmare instantly into SG and the spinning discs crashed together in what must have been the loudest sound I have ever heard come out of the BattleBox. After the impact, it was hard to tell what had happened, but within a couple seconds, I noticed that pieces of Surgeon General's shattered disc were raining down on the arena floor! His disc had been destroyed! The top half of Surgeon General had also been peeled back.
Stunned, but not deterred, Surgeon General, weaponless now, moved around to the side of Nightmare, where he proceeded to try to push his attacker in to an arena trap, but I pushed back with Nightmare. At one point, Surgeon General backs over the killsaws, and the remainder of the match is both of us pushing each other around, it comes down to a judge decision, and Nightmare wins, 30-15.
This fight did not air on TV.
Surgeon General
Damage to Nightmare's disc from Surgeon General
(his was much worse) ; )
Surgeon General's forcibly-removed S7 tool-steel tooth
Nightmare's Second Fight- vs. Mortis
Nightmare's next fight was versus Mortis, a very well built and powerful bot from the U.K.
Mortis was covered in Kevlar and Titanium armor, I knew he would be hard to hurt. He also has two very deadly weapons, a fast hammer/blade that can strike 3 times a second, and a lifter bar that can serve a double purpose of helping flip himself back over if inverted.
At the start of the match, I spun up Nightmare's disc and approached Mortis, who turned around and ran, exposing his backside, so I kindly obliged and slammed him from behind with the disc, but it was just a glancing blow, not enough to do much damage.
Mortis immediately spun around and got past Nightmare's weapon to his side, and started firing his sharp hammer/blade, but the aim was such that the blade kept missing Nightmare's body and was only hitting on the shaft of the hammer. This went on for a while as I tried to navigate Nighmare into a position to hit Mortis with the disc again. Next thing I realized was that the bots were somehow tangled together, and I couldn't move without taking Mortis with me, and vice-versa. The refs called timeout and separated us.
The match starts again and I am able to hit Mortis with the spinning disc before Mortis pushes Nightmare into the killsaws, but then stops moving.
Nightmare came at Mortis again, disc flying, and is able to smash a chunk of Titanium armor off the side of Mortis, but Morits had stopped altogether, the refs counted him out and Nightmare won after a 2:10 minute match.
This fight did not air on TV.
Mortis
Titanium piece of Mortis torn off by Nightmare
Nightmare's Third Fight- vs. Biohazard (Heavyweight Quarter Finals)
Nightmare's next fight was versus the previous heavyweight champion, Biohazard!
You've got to be kidding! I get to fight Biohazard? Well, this was certainly one of the robots I designed Nightmare to fight, however I didn't think I could do much to him, I was totally pumped to get my chance to face this bot in battle!
The match began, and I spun up Nightmare's weapon, heading towards the center to meet Biohazard. Biohazard tried to get around the side of Nightmare, but I moved into him, catching his side panel with the spinning disc and Titanium sparks flew as the hinge was torn up.
Biohazard tried again, starting to lift Nightmare's left drive wheel in the air, but the amazing gyroscopic forces of Nightamre's disc at full speed caused him to lift almost straight up in the air instead of tipping! It was a cool sight. I backed off Biohazard and moved into position again.
Biohazard attempted to move around Nightmare again, but this time, I jammed the stick forward and the teeth of the spinning disk gashed deeply into Biohazard's side skirt and Biohazard went FLYING! Pieces of flaming titanium continued to rain down on the arena floor for several seconds. It was COOL! The titanium skirt on Biohazard had been nearly completely cut in half!
Distracted from the hit, I was blindsided by Biohazard, who pushed Nightmare over the killsaws then under the pulverizer, lifting his arm up to suspend Nightmare right underneath the pounding hammer. I wasn't too worried about the hammer, the top armor on Nightmare was very tough, so I waited for him to drop me to get the next chance to line up, but it didn't come.
Turns out that the raised section of armor that I had installed above Nightmare's speed controller (to fit the larger speed controller in the case), had been hit by the pulverizer hard enough to break the welds, and the whole armor assembly came crashing down on the Vantec RDFR33, smashing the whole thing and disabling the drive system. Arrgh!
After the match, I reviewed the damage, the weld that had given was part of a weld that I had taken in to a local shop to have done a couple weeks before the event, but my usual welding guy was not there, and they had to assign a new guy to do it- someone who had obviously never welded aluminum before- by the looks of the weld, we might as well have taped the aluminum pieces together, there was no penetration into the metal whatsoever! Beaten by a bad weld! ugh!
Anyway, I was still very pumped up, this was a very exciting match, I totally enjoyed taking pieces out of Biohazard, and I exhibited a lot of excitement to the cameras after the match, even though I had lost. What a great time!
This fight aired on Comedy Central's BattleBots, season 2.0.
Nightmare's Last Fight- Heavyweight Rumble
Nightmare's next fight was in the heavyweight rumble at the end of the competition.
I don't remember much of what happened in the rumble, it is always a bunch of chaos! I do remember, not long into the fight, one of the bots (I think it might have been Panic Attack 3), got under the back end of Nightmare and lifted enough that Nightmare's disc hit the floor HARD, tearing a 7" gash through the steel near the edge of one of the killsaws.
After that, it was kind of a blur. I managed to hit a couple of bots before my weapon battery ran out, and I spent the remaining minutes just driving around trying to look good. However, I simply did not have enough juice left in the batteries to keep this up for long, and before the time ran out, Nightmare did. He sat near the side of the arena, watching the rest of the fight.
This fight aired on Comedy Central's BattleBots, season 2.0.
Post Season Update: I have since replaced Nightmare's entire battery system, and he will run MUCH longer now!
Nightmare says "See ya next season!"
Heavyweight Rumble
Damage to the floor Nightmare
caused during the Rumble
More pics of Nightmare from BBLV00
Nightmare showing off for the camera, new disc, new teeth, new wheel mounts, new belt drive, and more!
Nightmare relaxes in the parking lot.
Another post-battle shot of Nightmare
Special thanks go out to those who helped in getting Nightmare through this event: These guys were a HUGE help to me, and deserve extra gratitude and recognition.
- Don Lariviere for his fantastic work on cutting out Nightmare's new disc- Dan Cherney for his excellent machining and long hours on Nightmare's new teeth- Ramon Ebert for all his hard work on the Team Nightmare pit crew and beyond
- 'Richie the Welder' for his help in welding up Nightmare's new wheel supports
- Todd Mendenhall for his great work on Nightmare's weapon motor, motor mount and other work, prepared by the SORC Workshop.THANKS SO MUCH!
