T4 Practice Day

I've been wanting to shakedown my new T4 for a few weeks now, but haven't been able to on a race day. I had a free day today, so off to OCRC I went! I just wanted to make sure everything in the truck was working correctly and set it up to my liking.

For run #1, I moved my battery to the middle position. The 1st time I ran it, I had the battery in the back position, and felt it was pushing too much. It felt much better now :) The scoring system wasn't calling out lap times as you drove today, but you could check the laptop on the driver's stand or the monitors in the pits and see your laps :) It also showed your fast laps and average lap. I was turning laps in the low 20's and high 19's. That would be my baseline for the rest of my practice runs.

For run #2, I changed my front springs to Green from Silver. The Green springs are one step softer than the Silver's and should give me a little more steering. Ah, that was more like it! My T4 was starting to feel more like my T3 now :) Since I was happy with the handling now, I decided to try the "jump" line from the step-up jump again. This is where you jump off the step-up into the other lane, bypassing the 2 of the 3 humps in the hairpin, pull a 180, the head for the double. I was able to make it this time! Unlike last Sunday, where I kept endoing. I guess my truck isn't as nose heavy off this jump as my 4wd, as I was able to pull this line off consistently with my truck. After time was up (I time my practice runs to keep my motor from overheating) I headed back to the pits and checked out my lap times. Nice!! Mostly high 19's with the fastest being a 19.58!

For run #3, I tried changing the rear roll center, by lowering the ball stud. This is supposed to "square up" the rear end better off the corner. I wanted to try this to see if it would make it easier to get on the gas coming out turns. Hmmm.. My truck felt ok, but not as nimble as before, and my lap times proved it. They slowed to low to mid 20's now. To see if this was a fluke, I kept my settings the same for run#4, and got the same results. So, before I went home, I cleaned up my now "seasoned" T4, washed the tires, and raised my rear ball stud back to the original height.

I also put 2 runs on my B44, to make sure driving my stock truck wouldn't mess up my "feel" for driving 4wd mod. Now that I have my T4 working to my liking and I'm used to the B44, switching back and forth between the two isn't so dramatic as before :) I was also trying out a new setting on the B44. I tried lowering the rear ball stud on it as well, and didn't like on here either and ended up changing it back after taking my runs. Hmmmm... maybe I can race both 4wd Mod and Stock Truck tomorrow :) OH! Good luck to those of you running the Reedy Truck Race out at Hot Rod's! I would've run this race too, but my T4 wasn't quite ready. No matter. I plan on racing as many of the big local races next year anyway :)