This thread isn’t dead

Even though it must have felt that way, because nothing happened for two weeks. Just a small update of what is going on right now with the TT-02 KR project:

Since the race in Erlangen the car was laying around as a 3d puzzle on my table. My wife celebrated her birthday and together we celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last weekend, so I had to skip the last race in Bamberg. Chris won the race in front of Marc and my nearest points rival Sascha. This severely cut my points lead down...



Some days ago the new carbon fiber parts arrived. Tomorrow the 3d print parts will arrive. Then I need to assemble the car. I started today to put the electronics in a new tub.



The next weeks will be full of non-RC-work and I don‘t know when I will drive KR again. A very unsatisfying situation as I need to do setup work to make the car faster and better on asphalt... At least I have some clear ideas and a plan what to test.

Maybe three weeks ago I played around in my CAD program to check for a possible rear diffuser. After several approaches I decided for a design that uses the maximum of available area and that would not lead to a stall of the flowing air by having a steep angle.
In between my work I let the old 3d printer build the now following prototype. It came out quite good and is stronger than I would have expected. I will now use it for a pre race test on saturday. My aim is to renounce the normal rear wing on larger fast outdoor tracks... This aspiration is maybe utopian, but I will try. Well I am not really overmotivated, but will give undertray downforce a last chance.

Thank you! I hope it will work like you described it.

It looks much better fittet to the Venom body

Thanks for sharing. The angle is very steep. A clever design with the channels to throw the air upwards.

Time for a (loooooong) race report

I got up early on saturday to travel the 200km to Bad Gögging (Bavaria). It is an old roman town with a lot of wellness baths, hotels and golf holes. At the side of it there is a beautifully placed racetrack for our onroad cars.




What then happened was all clumsy and mishaps. First I roasted my esc by getting the polarity wrong, then after installing a new loaned esc, I chose the wrong tires and drove the car into the wall, killing my servo. Again on the track with a loaned servo I lost a tire in the middle of my run After a little more than one hour I was already in a mood to commit the japanese ritual suicide (seppuku). I regained my will to continue and have to say thank you to all the guys who helped me out. One guy even sacrificed his spare car to give me his esc. So three guys saved my weekend after I behaved so stupid in the beginning.

I was able to drive the next battery incident free. Looking at the times I was over one second slower than Chris. This was a mild shock. I changed to the Volante Hybrid tire and was suddenly on pace. Then I changed to harder springs and a different front suspension geometry and was blistering fast. The times were up to 4 tenth faster than Chris, but looked better than they were, because he drove very old tires and I a new set. So it was a strange day, but with a happy end on my side.

At this point I have to praise the track layout. Consisting of a fast part with full and nearly full throttle corners and s-curves and a slow section with u-turns and slow chicanes. One section of the fast layout needed a special driving line to carry the speed from the main straight through a 90 degree left corner, a chicane, two left corners and one right corner until you reached the first hairpin after another short straight. You could run through all these full throttle, if you lifted just a little before the first one of the two left corners. Hitting the line and all apexes really made the lap satisfying.

Then a real nice evening followed. Chris and his wife Diana offered me to stay at their home. They prepared an extraordinary barbeque with fine meat, salads and drinks. We had nice talks and a good time. Thanks again for the hospitality

The raceday started early. I didn‘t change the setup and drove two runs to regain a good rhythm for the track. The first qualifier then was crazy. I was dominating, lapping the field twice except for Chris of course. Around this time the temperatures were maybe around 20-25*C. With new tires my car was awesome. Just the tight last sector was not nice. The car didn‘t build up the front grip under braking that I needed.
The second qualifier was very good, too. Not as commanding as before, but still nice. Chris changed back to the setup with what he drove his fastest laptimes the day before and reduced his times by two tenth that way. In the last qualifier I made a mistake, jumping the curb and losing 5.5 seconds laying on the roof.

Then a very long lunchbreak followed. I again used it to keep a good rhythm and drove for 10 minutes. In between the laps I stopped on the poleposition mark and practised the start and the first corners. No problem here, all went well.

The first final: Chris and I had a good start, while the rest of the pack seemed to be a little surprised by the starting signal. My car had understeer in every corner. Chris was at my tail and chased me through the tight section. I had to fight, but made every apex, preventing his overtake. Unfortunately in the last hairpin before the straight, he touched my rear end and pushed the body under the tire. Chris continued, the field got through and I lost around 10 seconds until the car was marshalled. I hunted the field and was lucky to see them chrash in front of me giving me the second place on a plate. I concentrated on reeling Chris in, but failed by just under 2 seconds after 8 minutes. Well I wasn‘t happy about our clash. The good thing is, that we openly discussed about it. The other side is, that we are not different from any other rivalling race car driver. We had two different opinions and no one saw a fault in what he did. We also sat next to each other in the paddock and started to speak about it several times.

I was in a bad mood before the second the final and chose another starting position. Even though the positions were marked on the track, at this race nobody cared if you had your car in the marked box or not. As the pole position was offside the driving line, we guessed that this caused my bad understeer in the first laps... (as stupid as the 1990 Suzuka pole position box ). All went well. Just the tight section still didn‘t suit my front axle. This time I didn’t let Chris come close enough to make a move. After some laps I opened up a gap and brought it home safe.

In between the runs, the technical inspection was very interested in Chris and my car. We constantly lapped the whole field. Well they had to accept that our cars were legal. Us drivers later recognized, that the magnetic field of the motors was recognizeable differing in strength. My motor is one of the first hour and has the weakest field. Chris motor has a significantly stronger field and newer motors show an even stronger magnet. So my dominance was helped not just by my lightweight car and less rear toe, but through a higher rpm of the motor. I am honest: I am not sad about it and I don‘t care that this gives me an advantage. I just hope this motor doesn‘t die like the LRP X11 did years ago.



For the last final I increased the brake power from 70% to 75% to help with the turn in steering in the tight section. And voilá, it worked much better. Chris still was a little faster there, but much less than before. I pulled away slowly and was happy with a better performing car. Even though the track got slower through the hot temperatures (30*C air) I drove a second faster overall.



In conclusion this was a nice weekend with a perfect result and a lot of mixed emotions. My nearest points rival didn’t attend, so I gained back my points advantage. The winner trophy is huge and heavy, which always makes me happy. I again learned a lot about my car and asphalt tracks. Chris and I are always close in a race, with him being the better driver and me having the better car. Changing luck then decides who is in front of whom. And we return ever stronger and faster.



After the chaotic beginning, I didn’t really test the diffuser as much as I would have liked. I just can say that it survived my bad driving in the beginning. I also want to build something to help with downforce in front in the near future