Got some race news.
Ran yesterday on a newer configuration of this track, dirt is pretty much the same and alot of the layout:
The big kicker was the wind, and I mean
wind. It was probably the worst it has ever been, with basically a driving wind so strong that you could feel the dirt (more like sand) just grating your skin. If you didn't have at a minimum sunglasses or full on goggles you would be toast. Even with that at times the gusts were such that it was still hard to see, let alone hear anything. Nitro vehicles revving to be flipped over could at times get missed.
My impressions pretty much can be summed up in this:
You need a lot more weight on the rear end to get the vehicle to work if the tires don't have the maximum bite possible. I would say if say an soft compound is common for a tire, you probably want the next softest one instead if its dry loose, etc. I could see a big diff in handling when I went from heavy panther step pin tires and the allow rear hub carriers to the stock ones and a Jconcepts green compound tires to get better bite.
The car was just all over the place. I did try a few things to try and generate more rear grip:
- Move the rear hubs forward
- Softer springs rear
- Move rear link position down on the tower from stock
- Went from 5K to 3K on the diff
Unfortunately with the wind and conditions I couldn't get the vehicle to plant. Now, mind you, the first heat had more water on the surface, and that made a BIG difference in handling as there was a tiny bit or traction at that point. But with the driving wind, it was dustbowl conditions and unfortunately I didn't have enough tire types to get to a base that would work for the conditions. Maybe a Proline M4 caliber would have been a better choice but outside of that, not sure what else from a tire perspective.
so that pretty much sums up my initial experience. there is potential there but it will definitely need a lot of work to get to something driveable if you have very little traction. Was worth a try though lol.
Oh, and i broke one of the rear wing mounts off of a bad jump where the wing caught and had me come down on that wing.