It was madness this Sunday at OCRC, as a rainy weekend equals a packed house! There were 18 heats tonight, which took about 2.5 hours to complete! I'm usually home by 9pm on a normal Sunday, but today, my main didn't even run until almost 10pm!
Practice was crazy! Controlled practice was in effect, with two sessions, 1/10 scale then 1/8 scale and Slash. During a session, there was no place to stand on the driver's stand and traffic was nuts! There were also tons of people that couldn't drive in traffic at all and I kept getting hit :( But, I had learn the track, so I kept running anyway. My buggy was way under geared, as I haven't been able to pick up a 72 spur yet (nobody has them in stock yet), so I ran the entire session, which was about 15 minutes. If I had the correct gearing, I would've only run 5-6 minutes to keep the motor from overheating.
Two sections of the track were giving me problems. The rhythm section and the double in a corner. In the rhythm section, I just couldn't get the timing down, causing me to land short on the 1st set of doubles and get get out shape or wreck, or land long, with the same result on the second set of doubles. For the corner double, I just couldn't clear it consistently, so I decided to single them, but that made me slower.
I was trying out the new light weight LiPo setup on my B4. My car felt ok, but it seemed too soft, and didn't rotate quick enough in the hairpins. I would end up making small changes after each race. I went a little faster after each change/race, but I still wasn't happy with the setup.
After practice, I moved the rear hub to the middle position, and went 11:01, finishing in 3rd, with a fast lap of 27.312. I was also able to get a good start and avoid all the wrecks, as I started in the middle of the pack of an 11 car heat! For round 2, I changed over to green rear springs, to stiffen up the rear end, and hopefully get the car to rotate better. I got a good start again, and went 12:25, finishing in 4th, with a fast lap of 27.053. At least I went 12 laps!
For the main, I decided to shorten the rear camber link, again in an effort to get the car to rotate faster. I started in 4th and this time I got a horrible start! I tried to drive around an accident in the bowl turn, but the marshal stepped in front of my car and I got hung up on his foot :( Thanks dumbass@! Why can't people learn to let traffic through before marshaling a car? I ended up in last place, which turned out to be 7th, as some people decided to go home early. I circled the track in the back of the pack, trying to gain some ground on the field, but I got taken out by a car behind me going over the triple. He rear ended me at the top of the 1st jump. I try not to follow directly behind somebody over big jumps, for this reason. After that, all I wanted to do was run cars off the track! I ended up finishing 5th with an 11:01... At least my fastest lap went down to a 26.979! But, most of my other laps were in the 28 second range and not consistent at all.
I think for my next buggy race, I'll change my rear hubs back to the stock 0° hubs, mounting them in the rear position, and mount the camber link in the A hole. I also want to try some Panther Bobcat tires on the front end or some new ribbed front tires. And I'm dying to get a 72t spur! I also need to get my B44 rebuilt for the 1st race of the OCRC Saturday Series at the end of the month. Hmm... I think I may need to head out for a Saturday practice again...
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