Sunday, March 29, 2009

Hey an update!

I haven't felt like updating my blog lately, but I have been racing. Mostly Stock Buggy since Round 1 of the OCRC Series, because I have yet to win a race with my B4 :( I've been playing around with the Lipo setup, trying to shave some time off my laps.

I ran stock buggy Friday night a few weeks ago. I managed to qualify 7th for the A, but I was a lap off the pace, qualifying with a 13 lap run. I ended up finishing 5th with another 13 lap run :(

Next, I headed out to Hot Rod Hobbies for the 1st round of the JBRL Series. Unfortunately, it started showering at about 4am :( I got to the track a little before 6am, and set up my pit. The showers stopped at about 7am, and I thought that we might be able to get the race in, then it started raining again! It rained pretty steady for about an hour, then Jimmy finally canceled the race at about 9:30am. Round 1 of the JBRL will have to be rescheduled. While packing up I heard that a bunch of people were heading to OCRC to race the Sunday club race. I decided to go home, change into some dry clothes, and head down there to race myself, as all my gear was packed in my car anyways.

It was crazy at OCRC! There were tons of racers there and the heat sheet proved it! 21 heats of races and 150 or so entries! It was going to be a long night! I was going to just run my buggy, but during practice, I melted the sensor wire on my motor, so I switched to racing my truck, so I could inspect the motor and speed control on my buggy. It turns out that the timing ring had loosened, messing up the timing, overheating the sensor wire, which melted and shorted out. I replaced the sensor wire, reset the timing back to stock, and re-tightened the timing ring. A quick test showed that everything was working. Whew! That might have been really expensive!

I didn't have much luck in Stock Truck either :( I got stuck for about a minute in round 1, because the marshals weren't paying attention, killing my time. In round 2 I managed to finish 3rd, but my run was only fast enough to seat me near the bottom of the A main. In the main, I had to fight to finish mid-pack, ending up in 5th with a 13:11, a lap off the leaders pace :(

I headed back out to Hot Rod's to get in some practice for Round 2 of the OCRC Sat Series, which would be running here on the upcoming Sat. I thought the track was going to be run dry to build up the groove for the race Sat, but somebody decided to water the track! I guess he doesn't know that when Hot Rods track is left dry and blown off, the traction is much better and faster than when the track is watered. Although, it is watered for normal club racing. I've always wondered why, but I suspect it has to do with tire wear.

The layout was pretty easy, with wide lanes, and some good jump sections. It wasn't too technical, but I think this makes for better racing, as you actually can make passes, and not just hope that the car in front of you makes a mistake. I decided to run Stock Buggy again, as I am still hunting for my 1st win with this car! This time I was also trying out a 69T spur gear, which would allow me to use a smaller pinion, moving the motor forward, for better weight distribution.

I finished 3rd in round 1, then won round 2. This seated me in 4th for the A main, but I was still a lap off the pace :( In the main, I made a mistake on the start, which dropped down to last :( Then a few laps later, I was landing off the table top at the end of the center jump section, when my rear tire flopped over! Race over. It turns out a ball stud had broken off in the rear bulkhead. Great! That would be a pain to fix! :(

Next race up was Round 2 of the OCRC Sat Series, hosted by Hot Rod Hobbies! There would be no rain this weekend, as the forecast was for cold mornings turning into sunny skies with highs in the 80's! What a flip-flop from last Sunday! I would be running Stock Buggy and Truck again, with my brother sharing my truck with me, running in the Amateur class. This was also the 1st time in ten years that I would be racing at HRH on a hard, dry, high traction, grooved track. This called for Taper pins and BK Bars on the buggy and Taper Pins all around on the truck. During practice, my Truck felt good, but the steering on the buggy was too twitchy, so I changed over to silver front springs, which mellowed out the steering nicely.

In Stock Buggy, I finished round 1 in 4th with a 15:18, then was on a 15:11 pace in round 2, which would have seated me 2nd in the A main, when the motor came loose, moving the pinion away from the spur gear :( I guess I need to thread lock those motor mounting screws.. Most of the guys in the A were pretty close lap time wise, so it would hard to move up the leader board. I ended up finishing where I started, 7th. It was a shame that I broke in round 2, as I might have qualified in the top 3, and finished much better. I think I'm still 6th, points wise for the series, but I'll have to wait until the official results are posted. Thinking back, I could have probably geared up or used a more aggressive throttle profile in my esc, as my motor temps were in the 150°F range.

In Stock Truck, I finished round 1 in 4th with a 14:00 and round 2 in 3rd with a 14:03. This seated me in 6th for the A main. My truck felt slower than my buggy, and my qualifying times showed this, as I was knocking on the door of a 15 lap run, while my buggy was able to put down 15 lap runs. I think the difference was the motor. My truck runs my X11 LRP motor, while my buggy runs an Orion motor. This doesn't make a difference on a medium bite track, but on a high traction track, the motor pulls more amps, because it is loaded more, since the tires don't slip as much, and I'm able to use more throttle. This in turn heats up the motor more. The Orion motor in the buggy has more cooling holes to circulate air inside the motor, while the LRP in the truck doesn't have any cooling holes. My motor temps proved this as the buggy motor was 30°F cooler than the truck motor at 180°F. This caused me to gear my truck down 1 tooth, to keep from overheating the motor, and my lap times suffered. I was about a second slower a lap with the truck :( I plan to pick up the optional cooling plates for the X11 from LRP along with a new sintered rotor. I've been running this motor since last summer, with only 1 cleaning! Its probably time to do some maintenance on this thing! On to the main!

The main was more of the same for me. I ran in the bottom of the field, turning 21 second laps, a second slower a lap than the leaders. I eneded up finishing in 6th with a 14:12. I think I'm still 3rd in the points for the series though, as I had good showing in the 1st round, but will have to wait again for the points tally to be posted.

My brother had a much better day than me! He managed to qualify 3rd in the A main, and also finished 3rd, after leading for a few laps. He was also nice enough to record my races (we didn't record round 1, as we were too busy). See my races below! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to record my brothers races, as I had to marshall them! It was a shame too, as he had a good race going in the main :(

Current Points Standing







Saturday, March 7, 2009

OCRC Saturday Series, Round 1

I ran the 1st race of the OCRC Sat Series last weekend. The turnout was a little less than I expected, with just 16 heats of racing. I was racing Stock Buggy and Truck and my brother and I were sharing my T4, with him running it in Amateur. He did a good job of not breaking, which allowed me to take my runs :)

We got there at 6am in order to get a good pit spot, then had a long time to wait, as racing wouldn't start until 10am! I didn't even bother practicing until 90 minutes later, since the track was so wet. But by the time the track dried out enough, it was full of cars during practice. It was best to wait on the stand behind the spot where you wanted to drive from, and take over it as soon as the other driver left. It would be like this until the track was closed for maintenance, as no controlled practice was run.

Stock Truck
I had a really good run in the 1st round, finishing 2nd with a 12:18. It was a little loose though, so I changed the rear springs over to blacks for round 2. But I wasn't able to put in a good run as a lapped truck got tangled up with me even though I was clearly faster. That tangle ruined my time and I finished 6th with an 11:07 (IFMAR qualifying btw). But, my run from the 1st round would be fast enough to seat me in 4th for the A though :)

For the main, I got a clean start and held my starting position. I ran in 4th for about half the race, when an accident took out the truck in front of me, allowing me to move into 3rd. I kept it clean and finished in 3rd with a 12:03, taking 3rd place in the series :)

Stock Buggy
I did really well during qualifying, placing 2nd in round 1 with a 12:24 and winning round 2 with a 12:18. My round 2 run would seat me in 4th for the A. My good fortune would end in the main though, as I got a horrible start, which dropped me down to 8th. I was able to make it up to 3rd for a couple of laps, but mistakes dropped me back down the order. I ended up finishing in 6th with 12:24. Not a great start for the series, but we do get to drop our worst races from block A and B.

Random thoughts:
-need to run buggy grip on my tires every run, as it made a noticeable difference. Didn't I know this already?!
-my slipper needs to be run tighter when using buggy grip!
-new tires suck! They need at least 5 runs on them before they hook up.

Next round of the OCRC Sat Series will be on 3/28 at Hot Rod Hobbies! See you there!