Nightmare- Las Vegas 1999

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Nightmare made it through the Las Vegas BattleBots in November, 1999. The good news was that the BattleBots arena was upgraded with a 'ceiling' to keep parts from flying skyward and into the audience, so the BB officials allowed Nightmare to rotate his weapon in the correct direction! Here's how Nightmare did at this event:
This event was single elimination, which means you get ONE loss and you are out. Most of our past competitions have been double elimination, where if you lost one match, you still could stay in the competition. This put a lot of stress on all the builders and their robots to perform perfectly. Nightmare got a bye in the first round for his overall number 7 ranking, so he had to wait around til round two. Nightmare's first battle was against Namreko 3000. This is a great looking robot that is reminicent of the Dalek on 'Doctor Who'. It has two very mean circular saws on the front, a large lifting arm, and two side arms that can flip iself back on its wheels if it is ever overturned. This match started pretty much with a bang, as Nightmare's weapon reached full speed and made contact with the front of Namreko, completely ripping off one of the circular saws, tossing it across the arena. Nightmare backed off and attacked again, the spinning disc tearing large pieces off the front and sides of Namreko's shell. After another hit almost completely decapitated Namreko's bubble dome, Nightmare lined up for another shot, and the arena bells were going off, signalling the end of the match. I'm not sure, but I think Namreko was incapacitated at that point and the controllers called the match. Nightmare won by K.O., and returned to the pit unharmed. Here's the Namreko team getting ready to make repairs on Namreko after Nightmare met up with him. These guys were great, and really worked hard and got Namreko back together in time to get into the rumble at the end of the night	first opponent - Namreko 3000 Namreko team put on their "angry eyes" after the bout with Nightmare.
Nightmare's second match was against what I call a 'brick on wheels', Rhino. Rhino has probably the thickest armor I have seen on a robot, which makes him virtually impenetrable to most weapons in this sport. he also has a nasty CO2 powered spear in the front, that can punture 1/4 inch steel. A swinging club in the back, and the ability to run upside down make this robot quite a formidable opponent. The match started with Rhino trying to line his spear with up a good shot at Nightmare, staying just out of reach of the spinning disc. Rhino is considerably faster than Nightmare, so he was able to do this with ease. Nightmare was able to keep facing Rhino, though, so eventually the robots had to meet. The blows came fast and powerful, and it was all a blur, but somewhere in the mess, Rhino had managed to puncture Nightmare's left side wheel, and Nightmare had torn into Rhino's thick armor, leaving behind some pretty nasty dents, gashes, and broken bolts. Nightmare also managed to completely rip off the front of Rhino's spear, which, from what I understand, was made from hardened tool steel! Hitting such a strongly build robot as Rhino did its toll on Nightmare's weapon motor, shifting it out of position and loosening the chain drive. Although this did not cause problems, any more hits and the chain could have come off. Somehow during the match, Nightmare's other drive motor went out (strangely, NOT the one on the side that was flattened by Rhino). This meant that Nightmare could only drive in a circle with only one drive motor on a flat tire. (Not that it really makes much difference running on a flat tire- one thing I've learned is that flat tires on a robot are not necessarily a bad thing like they would be with cars). At one point, Nighmare was caught in a bad situation too close to the arena saws, and not wanting Rhino to pin him against them, I had to drive Nightmare backward over the saws. It looked cool, but caused only minor cosmetic damage to the rear end. Nightmare's disc continued spinning, but it only has a limited time as the motor starts to overheat (not a battery problem as reported by the announcers- no problem at all with batteries), so the disc (being on the whole time) was down to like 75% power towards the end. Meanwhile, the damage to Rhino was catching up to him as well, and the two of us limped around each other for the last minute, with nothing else really going on, and the time ran out. Rhino won the match on points scored by the judges. I enjoyed the whole thing and it definitely was a fair match Single elimination and Nightmare was out of the Match. Rhino went on to fight Vlad the Impaler, who won and continued on to win the championship this time around. Damage report: Nightmare came away with a flat tire (easy replacement), a twisted motor mount (replaced in 10 minutes), and a mysterious wiring problem to the other drive motor. I struggled with this the rest of the evening, hoping I would be able to get him fixed for the rumble, but was not able to finish in time, and I really didn't want to put Nightmare in there only being able to go around in one direction. I was really looking forward to the rumble, and was sorry I had to miss out.	2nd opponent - Rhino