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. 

Stock Buggy, SDRC, 7/26/14

No official improvement on my fast lap or race time, even after all the testing last Sunday :(. I qualify 6th and finished 4th in the A main at least. Qualified with a 14:17 and fast lap of 21.660.