BAck from Racing the N21R + 086hs with the boys.
Day started well, I TQ'ed and broke the track record. There's something about a "smoother" engine that really helps tighten the lines and not overdrive the car... in qualifiers at least, when you're racing the clocks and not the other guys. At club racing level, this really helps be consistent and smooth and is exactly what I was looking for by going to smaller-HP mills.
Mains were a different story - I had brought a buddy, smart but completely inexperienced to Nitro as he's coming from EP to be my pit guy for the day, so he got trained "on the job" during qualifiers, and he learnt the ropes quick or so I thought.
We run a weird mains format around here, 3x15mns mains.
The first one, he didn't understand the 10s rule and started refueling at 3s so when the horn blew the car was still in his hands with the tank open
started all the way from the back to finish 2nd. The guy who won by half a lap on me got the track record again, he was the original record holder so he had to regain it haha
The second one, I stalled during the warming laps. He couldn't restart it for like 30s, with like 3 people helping him with the usual (plugging the pipe, trying another glow heater, ...). Race was blown, so I came down from the stand, put new plug on, we tried everything for like 5mns until I asked him "you
did refuel didn't you??".... Long silence then
you get the rest. I start for like 3mns checking if everything was fine, but the mill was cutting like crazy for no reason, came back to the pits, the pressure line had been ripped off during the initial chaos. That's the first time I both DNS and DNF a main
Third one, finally, everything's fine, but this time as I knew I could still claim victory, I completely blew it and ended up 4th. can only blame myself.
The mill was super consistent all day, no overheating (except when no pressure line of course), top line good to very good, mid-range much more than OK, low-range so-so but enough to clear jumps when needed as long as the car was lined up properly. However, during the 3rd main, when canning it and losing focus on my throttle finger, I could barely hit 8mns. It stalled once at some point during the day, no one understood why, but new exhaust seals (one was partly chunked) seem to have cured it.
Overall a good little mill for sure, it took me a while but it seems to be rock solid now. Still a bit short on low-rpm power, so during close wheel-to-wheel racing it's easy to lose focus on the lines and mash the throttle helplessly and start overdriving the car itself out of shape, but then again for $150 you can't ask
too much.
Thanks all for the help,
Paul