Motor Head RC Raceway

This was my first visit to this track. I've known about it for awhile, since a few of the bigger races have been held there, but I've never had a reason to drive the 1hr and 10min to race there. Until recently that is!  Some friends from SDRC mentioned that they wanted to race there this past Sunday during Satuday night racing at SDRC, and I managed to invite myself along.  They didn't originally think I would go, since it's quite a drive for me, but I was game since I've heard the track is under new ownership and was supposed to have some good clay!  Plus, I've never raced there before and wanted to check it out in person.

The track building. I thnk it used to be an auto repair shop. 

The track is right next door to a Farmer Boys!  They even share the parking lot with the track. 

Our pit area. 

Track pano pic. It's a square track box.  Joey C of "The Dirt" designed and installed this layout. 

Left side. 

Center. 

Right side. 

Pit area next to the track. 

Display case outside the hobby shop. 

Hobby shop entrance. 

My friends milled B5m and 22 chassis on sale!

I signed up for stock buggy, per the advice of my friend who races stock buggy with me at SDRC.  I listened to him as this track was where he used to race regularly before starting to race at SDRC.  But I quickly realized that I was much faster than the rest of the field, since I was cruising and driving at about 70% and easily gapping everyone. I was also faster than the TQ of the expert stock buggy class!  Next time I'll be racing in expert. 

This was the only race result I was able to see as they were having trouble with the printer and were not able to print out any race results :(

Before the mains the track was soaked as the dirt was drying out and becoming dusty in only a a few races due to the low humidity and high temps. Unfortunately for me, I was in the 2nd heat and the track still had a few big puddles on it!  I almost didn't race and didn't even have my car on the track during warm ups!  But my friend egged me on to jump in the race, since grip was the best it had been all day!  I would just need to drive around the puddles. I threw my car on the track as the grid was set, taking no warm up laps. I got away clean, but stuffed the pipe after the tripple, needing a marshal.  No worries though, as I was so much faster that I got the lead back by the next lap. I made no other mistakes until with about a minute to go, I shorted the front double, trying to downside it perfect and make the hairpin right on the pipe. But I ended up on my lid needing a marshal instead :-/  I won easily and scored some cool stickers which look like number plates. Not sure what I'll do with them yet. 

I had a good time for my first visit to this track.  I was kinda sandbagging though, but I'll run expert during my next visit :)

Stock Buggy, SDRC, Saturday 8/23/14

I went racing again Saturday night!  This time I would only be racing buggy though. I was hoping to have a good showing, but it wasn't meant to be. In each of my qualifiers I had one or 2 big wrecks requiring a marshal and was on my lid for a long time, resulting in a few really long laps, killing my overall race time. Which in a competitive field will drop you several spots on the starting grid.

I ended up qualifying 6th in the A out of 18 entries. I got tangled up near the end of the first lap and dropped to nearly last :(  I drive the wheels off my car trying to catch up, but driving at 105% caused me to crash or make a mistake a few times. Luckily others were doing the same so I was swapping positions every few laps, but still in the back of the pack.  With under a minute to go, a huge wreck along with a frozen marshal, allowed us guys in the back of the back to catch up, creating a 7 car battle for 2nd place!  With 2 laps to go, the 2nd-4th place cars tangled and us guys in the back passed them while they needed a marshal. I would end up finishing in the same place I started, 6th. Not was an exciting and crazy race!

Fill'em up Friday's, 8/22/14, SDRC

Normally I would just race stock buggy, but got talked into racing Truck also. I figured I might as well since a second class was free, but my truck needs a new diff and trans gears.

I did awesome in buggy, having one of my best nights in racing for awhile!  I won both my qualifying heats and went faster in the 2nd heat.  I would qualify 3rd out of 27 entries, but start 2nd, because the TQ went home.  I got a clean start and stayed behind the leader the entire race. I crashed on a last lap, last turn attempt to go for the win, and dropped to 3rd and almost 4th!  Oh well. 

In truck, the track was so slippery in the 1st race that it was a throwout. I. The 2nd round I got a decent run, but was still not happy with the trucks handling. In the main I get hit while tumbling over the center double and pop a ball cup, than spend about 90 seconds in the pit lane getting repaired. Lol!  After that I was just trying to turn the fastest laps possible in hopes I could beat my brothers hot lap. The race for me was already over. 

Wing buttons!

Tonight I installed my new Exotek blue wing buttons. These replace the small body clips that secure the wing to the mount.  Since I didn't get the matching aluminum wing mounts, I had to modify my plastic wing mount to accept the screws for the wing buttons. I used a cut off wheel to cut off the stock mount for the body clip then drilled a blind hole in its place of the correct diameter for an M3 screw to cut threads into the plastic.

The buttons are 1g heavier than the body clips but look 100% better!

Gold Compound Dirt Webs

Geez!  Gold compound Dirt Webs are about as hard to find as real gold! Tower isn't even currently taking orders for them!  Fortunately, I spotted some of the new softer clay compound, silver, in stock at Tower and proceeded to clean out their stock!  This compound debuted at the Reedy race in January, but just became recently available to the public.  I suspect these will break in faster, but also not last as long, so I'll probably use a less aggressive sauce on them. 

Painted wheel logos!

My bro and I often store all of our tires in the same box.  Sometimes I can't tell which tires belongs to who.  Sometimes I go by the date the tires were assembled, other times I've written our names on them, or they just get lost in the box  I happened to have some paint markers in the same main colors of our paint schemes, so I decided to color the wheel logos to match!  I think thy came out pretty good! I just wonder how long it will last.  At least it's easy to touch up when it fades. 

Stock Buggy, SDRC, Saturday 8/16/14

Today would be my first race day on the new layout from the JBRL last weekend. I struggled with tires and putting in a clean run during qualifying and ended up in the dreaded BQ position.  My bro put in his best run so far with his B5m, qualifying 4th in the A, but had to leave after round 1.  I was using clay typos which felt good during practice but loose during racing. For the B main I went with my broken in dirt webs which pushed a touch in practice but felt great in the main!  Go figure. Maybe it was nerves?  I also charged my battery for the main at 35A (the maximum my power supply could handle) and it was fast until about 4 minutes into the race. For about the last minute it felt a little flat but I still turned my fastest lap, top 5, and top 10!

My setup for the B main

Even though I bumped into the A by winning the B main, I decided to drive my brother's car in the A main instead, since he was qualified 4th, and I would need to start 9th. Lol!  I had to trim his car for my radio during warm up, so I only got in a few hot laps to get a feel for his car. Luckily our setups are almost identical. I got a clean start and maintained 4th for the first minute, but I spun out landing the center step up double and dropped down the order. A few cars got together coming onto the straight and I was able to take back 4th!  The 5th place car caught up to me, but I was able to keep my line tight and defended 4th, until he crashed and dropped back. I cruised for the rest of the race and finished in 4th :)

Stock Buggy, SDRC, Saturday 8/2/14

This would be the last race night on the layout from the Top Gun Shootout about a month ago. A new layout was going in for the JBRL race next weekend.

Tonight would also be the 1st race night using my new iCharger 4010 Duo and Orion 4500mah 100C shorty batteries.  The charger can charge packs at 35A with my current power supply and even higher with a new power supply I'm planning to get!  The Orion packs are capable of 5C (22.5A) charge rate, which should increase my punch. 

I raced with the Orion packs in round 2 of qualifying, which helped me qualify 4th in the A Main. I used my best Orion pack in the main where I turned my fastest lap in a race on this layout, a 20.4!  I only managed to finish 8th after a crash on the start of the main. And I only charged the packs at 4.5A, as I'm still working my way up to 22.5A.  Below are my race results. 

New Charger and Batteries!

This past week I picked up an iCharger 4010 Duo charger and 2 Orion 4500mah 100C shorty packs. The charger works great and has tons of programming settings so that you can achieve the highest voltage charge possible and accurate cell balancing. You can also discharge 2S lipo packs at about 17A and test the internal resistance of the cells and pack, the discharge capacity, and discharge time. Which is great for finding out which packs have better performance than others.