Hotshot Build!

During the past week I've been slowly building my Tamiya Hotshot that I picked up awhile back. I plan to get it working then run it at the track during practice or around my house every once in awhile. Here are a few pics I took during the build. 

Road trip to IERC Raceway

For this weekends racing we decided to take a trip up north to IERC in San Bernardino. This was our 1st trip to this track. The pit area was spacious, the traction good, but the surface was really bumpy, compared to our home track, SDRC.

I started off strong by setting the TQ for stock buggy in round 1, but things starting going wrong in round 2 after my car took a tumble that I didn't expect.  In the main I get hit over the 1st jump and drop down to last. Game Over.  Thanks for playing. 

The Red #1 Returns!

I place 2nd in Stock Truck last night and finished ahead of my brother, getting back the red #1 plate for my new truck body. I also currently have both plates for truck and buggy :). I also missed out on setting the new fast lap track record by 0.2 seconds. 

I set the track record at 25.259 after round 1 of qualifying but lose it in round 2. 

Still rocking the plate on my buggy!

New layout racing!

I raced stock truck and buggy on the new layout. I finished 2nd in truck and 1st in buggy on Friday. Satuday I finished 2nd in both truck and buggy. 

New Layout!

Wow 2 straightaways?!

New Lids!

My buddy Phil painted 4 bodies for me in my signature paint scheme. The yellow and silver are still transparent, so I will back them with some white so you can't see through those colors.  He painted an SC, 1/8 Finisher, truck Finisher, and my RC10 Classic bodies. 

Crazy Stock Buggy Win!

I get the win in stock buggy Saturday night on the last turn of the last lap of the race!  The leader, my friend Bryant, gets caught up in the crash of a lapped car right in front of him, and I manage to close the gap and pass him right before the line, taking the red #1 plate from him.

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What to do now?

Parts crazy!

I went a little crazy placing a bunch of small parts orders over the weekend. From Avid, the new RC8.2 aluminum shock towers and a bearing set for my RC10 Classic.  From Tower, parts for the camber link mod to use the Avid shock towers along with a few spares. From Amain, turnbuckles for the camber link mod and new RC8.2 shock caps which won't collect dirt when I flip over.  From MIP, spare drive pucks for my light weight 17.5 drive systems in my B4.1 and T4.1. Each order was $100 or less, but now I get to track 4 different shipments. 

In line ESC position

In an effort to go faster and lighter, I mounted my ESC in the back of my battery tray to centralize the weight in the chassis.  Maybe I should've left it alone since I'll need to fine tune the setup again because I've got just a little too much steering now with the battery all the way forward making the car twitchy and hard to drive.  At least my weight is now below 1400g due to the loss of some wire. 

Light Weight Car Experiment

So, the last few weeks I've been working on a really light weight stock buggy setup, using a 3000mah 100C shorty pack. I finally found a setup I like, but haven't had the best of luck in the mains. At least the car is fast. All I need is a clean run. Next time I guess. 

Not again!

I was able to TQ stock buggy against a fast field, but mistakes on lap 2 and 4 dropped me to 4th.  I got back up to 3rd and closed in on my brother in 2nd, but ran out of time to make a pass. Next time. 

Buggies Only!

This past Saturday was Buggies Only day at the track!  My race buddies and I decided to just bring our buggies out. They brought their B4's and I brought my B4 and 1/8 electric buggy, an RC8. 

I ended up finishing 3rd in buggy after jumping off the track and going to last place. In 1/8, the pro driver in the class was handicapped by a lap, while I started on the pole. He almost caught me by the end, and being chased by him got my lap times down into the 22's!  Only about 0.8 seconds slower than his fast lap :)