1st race back!

I decided to race at Hot Rod Hobbies in Saugus, CA for my 1st race back. It's only 20-25 min from my home, but it's an outdoor track, so it was going to be hot! I went to the local sporting goods store and picked up a collapsible chair and QuickShade to shield myself and RC equipment/cars from the intense sun, so I would be ready for racing on Saturday.

I showed up about 3 hours before the start time to get some practice in and knock off the 5 years of rust on my driving skills. I setup my new QuickShade, layed out my equipment on the table, and started charging some batteries for practice. During my first practice run my truck kept stuttering on acceleration, that didn't seem right, so I pulled it in. I realized that the Lipo voltage cutoff must be kicking in and causing the stuttering. During my testing at home, i noticed the same thing when punching the throttle on the carpet, but it was really brief and didn't think anything of it. But out on the track, it kept doing it every other turn, and didn't seem right. When you punch the throttle, the motor pulls alot of amps and the voltage of the battery drops below the Lipo cutoff voltage, thus the motor stutters. The track had just been freshly watered and my rear tires were picking up a lot of dirt, increasing the load on the motor, causing it to draw even more amps! I threw in another battery pack, and went out again when the track was drier, and the problem disappeared. I used this second practice run to learn the track layout and get my timing down for the turns and jumps. AHHH!! what fun it is to jump and offroad truck again :) Now to get ready for qualifying...

For racing I would be using my new Reedy 5000 mah 20C Lipo battery. Lipo batteries are practically maintenance free compared to the NiMH batteries I used 5 years ago. And I can use the one battery for both rounds of qualifying and the main event. With the NiMH, I used 1 battery per run, because the battery needed a long time to cool off and recharge and the performance dropped off if used multiple times in one day. During the 1st qualifier, I got a good start and ended up in second at the end of the 1st lap. Not too shabby after 5 years! I stayed there for the 1st 2 minutes or so of the race, but on a bad landing on the table top, a camber link popped off and I couldn't steer any longer. A turn marshall picked up my truck and popped the link back on, but it took a good 30 seconds or so, dropping me to last place in the race :( The track was also getting much rougher, and my truck was getting bounced off line alot. I picked my way through and still managed to finish the heat mid-pack.

For the second round, the track was watered again, and it was much more damp than the first round. This prompted the son of my friend, who was also racing, to change rear tires. Unfortunately, for me I had only one set of rear tires, which work in dry to damp, but not wet dirt. The track would be "wet" for the second round. I knew about the track being watered for racing, but didn't account for it being wet. I'll be better prepared next time! Sure enough, the rear end of my truck was sliding around on the power, making it hard to accelerate smoothly. To deal with the rough track, I increased my camber gain in the rear, by shortening the camber links, between rounds. This causes the tops of the tires to lean in towards the center of the chassis more when the suspension compresses, so hopefully the edge of the tire will be less likely to catch a rut. I'm not sure if that change helped much, since I didn't have much rear bite anyway. I finished the second round near the bottom.

I qualified 6th for the main event. The track would be wet again, so I would just have to deal with that, since I didn't have any other rear tires. That didn't matter anyway, as in the second turn, I got hit from the side by another truck while in the air, causing my truck to land on one of the front tires, breaking the servo horn on the steering servo. Thus, no steering to control my truck and not fixable in the midst of a race. I was out. Welcome back to RC racing!!!