OLAH my fellow G4S crews, familly, friends, dudes, bro's and other!!! OK all, here is how my 2nd race day went with my mini beast! Sorry for not getting it on here sooner as I was DEAD tired after raceing and driving all day. Remember my track is about 2.5 hours away. OK, lets get started here. We all remember my first race where It was insanely frantic because of those little ball studs that kept ripping out of the cool aluminum servo saver, plus was running on the TIGHTEST track in nitro car history with NO steering. Well this weeks track was setup much more normal for nitro. A few tight sections but mostly a fairly smooth and flowing track with a good straight and full sweeper at the end. Our traction is low to medium and pretty bumpy. But it's an older parking lot, so about what you would expect. I'm not bitchin because at least it's a track to go race. And even it being 2.5 hours away I am VERY fortunate we have this track.
OK, sorry for getting side tracked. Anyway, for this race I had gone through the entire car and changed basicaly the entire set up, including shock pistons, oil, springs and mounting position front and rear, 2mm cut off of rear arms (shorter wheel base), different front arm pin location with speed shot front end, totally different alignment, different engine, different gearing and clutch set up... etc. The whole nine yards so to speak.
First time out and the car felt pretty good. I started with GQ 40's all around and after a few laps new this wouldn't work, I needed more traction and steering. So I threw on some 38 KFactory fronts...but then the car felt too inconsistant. So I ultimately went for 38's all the way around. Good traction and good enough steering. I wanted to try 35's in the front but then practice was over...so stayed with the 38's. Qualifier #1 went very good. I ended up setting the pace for everyone and got first in this heat. I was like no shit! I really didn't feel that fast. But there is 9 more cars in the next heat so maybe I was with the slow guys, so I waited for that heat to end and sure enough I had TQ at that point. I was like cool man, my car is doing pretty good. I left the car alone and set a faster pace the 2nd heat out. Still haveing TQ. Then I wanted to try and find some more steering plus just play with the car a bit. I really only had about 3 minutes to make any changes because there were only 4 different heats for the day. I raced in two because of my 1/8th scale and had to marshal in two. So I had 0 time to do anything. The only adjustment I tried was changing the position of the rear shock. But changing it one hole made me a bit slower shown by lap times. On heat number 3 I ended up loosing a wheel nut on the last 30 seconds or so of the 5 minute heat. So I hobbled it around the track with 3 wheels. Hell, I was impressed with the handleling on 3 wheels as I was keeping up with guys.
Well I ended up loosing TQ on the 3rd heat by about 1 second. Which doesn't trip me out, since I was just so happy that the car was working pretty good. I did have some engine issues still, but nothing too major. So I started in 2nd position in the A main. I was happy.
OK now the main. I really wanted to put on a fresh pair of meats for the race, but I didn't have time to true any up plus I don't even know if I have any more KFactory 38's. So I left everything the same. Like I stated I started in 2nd position. The TQ dude is one of those fast guys at the track. We were missing our fastest guy, Sal DeFazio whom is a sponsored driver for Kyosho. He is our ULTRA fast guy we all compare our times to. He was gone due to illness in his family. I was sort of tripping out that I was 2nd because I feel I have a lot to do still to make my car fast. It didn't feel as good as I wanted it to. But that's good, because when I do get it set up for my driving style I will be that much faster. OK, the race started out awesome. Once I heard the "Tone", I was off. I was in first position immediately as I launched way past the TQ dude and already had a 2 second lead. The pressure was on though. This was a 20 minute race. Anyway right after my first pit stop I flamed out on the track.
That damn engine. Well this little flame out put me in like 4th or so. I managed to pass that dude and get to 3rd. But about half way through the race my tires felt a little greasy-like and my engine was loosing power. I definitely need to tune this motor differently, it's really got me stumped. Anyway at this pont I was about 10 seconds behind the leader and 2nd place. With the combination of power loss and tires acting up, I just couldn't catch them. So we finished in that order. I got 3rd in the A main.
Overall I was very happy with the car. I was not happy with my engine, or maybe my engine tuning. Not too sure yet. I still want more steering, but at least the car was manageable this time around. I owe this to everyone on here helping me out with my chassis tuning, special thanks to Patto, Hodak and Gansei and Razzor! But I want to thank everyone, because of our "Family", I was able to get my car where it is in such a short amount of time! Thanks EVERYONE!!!!!
My next race is in 2 weeks on the 15th, and then I might be off to Vegas on the 18th for the Mugen Gran Prix. WOO HOOO!!!!
