Thursday, July 30, 2009

Expansion of OCRC's off road track!

OCRC's off road track is about to get a little bigger!

I went out there to do some midweek racing last night, and to my surprise I saw some posts bolted to the floor. They're about 2 feet away from the wall along the back straight. Robert tells me its to make room for the clay he plans to add in a few weeks, in preparation for the Proline Surf City Classic at the end of August. OCRC is about to get more traction! :) I wonder if the gold barcodes will still be the "fast" tire?



So, on to the racing.

I decided to run stock truck, to see if I could put in another 15 lap run, since I wasn't able to do it during the Saturday Series race. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to :(. Heck, even in the main where you get a short first lap because of the heads up start, I couldn't put in a 15 lapper. I even blamed my truck, since the rear shocks were leaking some. I decided that there must be dirt in the oil, messing up my rear bite, so I decided to refill them before the main. But, when I dumped the oil out, it was still clear! :( I was crushed! My driving was the reason I couldn't go 15 :( I must be making a too many driving mistakes and getting caught up with lapped traffic again. Looking at my lap times showed each run had 2-3 24+ second laps killing my chances. My 15 lap runs from last Friday were mistake free, with my longest lap being in the 22 second range. Dangnabit! My runs from tonight were 14:10, 14:11, and 14:06... Ended up finishing 2nd out of 5 cars.

Oh ya, I'm getting pretty fast at rebuilding shocks now, since I need to do it all the time :( When I bleed them I put about 5-7 drops of oil in the cap, push the shock shaft all the way in, level off the oil with the top of the shock body, then just screw the cap on! The rebound usually ends up being pretty close, but if there's too much air, just add another drop or 2 of oil to the cap. If there's too much rebound or the shock shaft won't go in, take away a drop or 2. That's it!

1 comment:

Kevin Deselms said...

After building the shocks on that Tamiya on-road kit, the Associated shocks are just painful! I generally fill the shock, run the piston a couple times, push it about 4/5 of the way to the top and if the oil is level, put a little in the cap, screw it on a turn or so, and then push the piston the rest of the way in as I screw on the cap, to drive out excess air. It usually works pretty good, but it's a surprise when I get the rebound to be just perfect between a pair :)