We had round 10 today of our club championship. Finally the weather was good to us, even if it was a little cool, it was much better than the rain we have been seeing lately.
I started out pretty poorly, still having radio issues even though I had changed to a lipo battery and changed the steering servo that I thought was the issue. Turns out, the throttle servo was no good as well, and this had me in the fence at the end of the main straight twice at full speed and a barrel roll across the infield that was pretty spectacular. The only damage was a chunked tire, a shock ball stud pulled out of the arm and the body is looking very second hand.
So by the third round of qualifying, I had a complete 5 min run and I was pleased and could start thinking about tyres and setup. In the fourth round with new tyres, the rear of the car was still very loose on turn in. Best lap up until that point for me was a low 17 sec lap.
I made some changes to the setup and redid my shocks as I think I may have used the wrong oil last time I built them. The car was instantly better from the start of the 10 min main. I was actually able to drive the car with some confidence which I haven't had for a while.
I had qualified 5th and I was 3rd behind Patto at the end of the first lap. I managed to get up on the tail of Paul but I didn't have enough in reserve to get by him. He was driving really well, even though he was down on engine power for the final. Since Paul was on all my apexes, I had to wait close behind him and see how things went.
Paul made the smallest mistake going on to the back straight and I got past before the next corner. I was able to make a small gap and we both seemed to gain a little ground on the leader but he had made good his escape by this time. At the end of the final, I was 3 sec behind the leader and Paul was only another 6 sec further back. So it was a good tight final with the first 3 cars covered by only 10 seconds.
I really enjoyed the second half of my day once I had gotten my radio issues under control finally. It has been a long time coming (probably 2 months since I had a clean run), and now I am looking forward to getting back to developing the setup (Paul had some interesting things on his car as well
) instead of dicking around with the radio gear.
Sorry for the long post, it just feels good to get back on the track.