Ex Londoner

Top Rebel 12

2010-11-30T23:22:00.001Z

T.O.P. Racing’s new venture into the pan car market starts with the Rebel 12, which is a link car in common with the current lipo friendly cars, but it has some innnovative features that set it apart from the other offerings on the market.

Along with the features which are now common on cars in this class, such as adjustable front caster, toe, camber, battery placement and shock mounting position, the Rebel has the following:

- Open motor pod designed specifically for brushless motors.

The motor is mounted by the use of screws attaching to the bottom mounting holes of the motor. There is no top ‘brace’ on the motor pod, so this lowers the CG of the car. Modern brushless motors use the same pattern of mounting screws, so most, if not all should fit.

- Axle tube to ensure aligned pod bearings.

This goes together with the rear ride height clamps on each side and the axle through the centre of it to allow the whole rear axle to be removed from the car simply by removing 4 screws.

- Aluminium Eccentric Arm Spacers for easily adjustable front width

By adjusting which side these are offset to, you can change the track width of the front end of the car easily.

(note: this is for illustration only, when assembled, the inserts go the other way up to lock the front arms down)

- Finger Adjustable Tweak Screws

Allows for quick and easy setting of side spring tension

- Pivot-ball and link rear suspension that allows for independent adjustments of front to back and side to side movement.

The centre pivot tension can be adjusted through the use of a special screw that fits into the top of the pivot housing to control how much movement there is in the pivot.

Available soon through RC Racing UK, the sister distribution company to Much More UK. The car can be seen trackside at the 12th Scale nationals in the meantime, Chris O’Donoghue has one pre-production car, and Adam Howe has another one. If you see either of them, feel free to pop over and take a look at the car.

Having driven the car at the last national it performed well in the Modified class, ending the day in 16th place overall.

2010-01-13T16:18:00.000Z

"We are pleased to bring to you the first official confirmation of the production of the ALL NEW Schumacher Cougar SV, Competition 2WD Off Roader. You’ve heard the rumours……seen the chat………and scoured the internet, but now it’s finally here.

Schumacher have brought you a tradition of Performance technology, with a pedigree second to none, the Cougar SV is no exception! Engineered by some of the most respected design guru’s in the R/C industry, the Cougar SV retains the same Schumacher ethos, yet uses a fresh approach to modern technology.
More info to follow soon....."

2010-01-13T16:17:00.000Z

New Buggy from Schumacher !

Carpet Wars 7 Round 1

2009-11-08T22:40:00.001Z

We went to Carpet Wars this weekend for the first round of the winter championship for 2009. Back indoors, back on carpet… back to 12th scale :)

I ran the car in practise on Saturday and found a good setup and tyre combination to run with which made the car very consistent and very easy to drive.

I’m running a single cell lipo in the 12th now instead of 4-cell packs of nimh batteries, so I was very interested to see how far off the pace of some of the really quick guys I was going to be.

I found out in round 1 where I was 2 laps down (which is about right for me), but more importantly, I was simply charging it up between races and going out again. That’s the biggest change other than a softer centre spring as there’s at least 100g difference between running the car on cells vs running it on lipo.

This means that the car is quicker to accelerate, quicker to handle, but as you’ve not got the voltage anymore (4.2 vs 6 fully charged) there’s a compromise there as the Lipo cars are slower.

I qualified 5th on the grid for the A final and had a good run in the final until the penultimate lap where I made a HUGE mistake and got in the leaders way as he was lapping me. This cost him the win as the 2nd place runner was able to make his way through and take the win. I was running 3rd at the time as a couple of the other quicker guys had dropped out with problems during the run.

BRCA TC National Round 4 – Snetterton

2009-08-22T18:40:00.001+01:00

At this round of the national, there's a live feed available to watch on the net.

http://www.bbkRCLive.com

Tristan is currently 41st after three very consistent runs
20: 303
20: 304
20: 304

and I'm 26th after 3 consistent runs as well
22:313
21:301
21:301

I was hoping to be able to provide a bit more info during the day, but the 3 mobile dongle wasn’t happy with reception, so I couldn’t get going with it. I’ll try again tomorrow.

BRCA Young Guns 2009 – Eastbourne

2009-08-14T01:21:00.001+01:00

Last weekend was the 2009 BRCA Junior National championship held at the Eastbourne club

The weekend was fabulous, with us older racers being there in a support class to help out our junior members.

I managed to set a new Pb for my time around the track, but at the end of the day when packing up, I pulled a muscle in my back picking up the generator and have been off work all week :(

I’m hoping it’s better soon (it’s better than it was on monday) as there’s a pretty busy racing schedule coming up.

STCC Round 6 – Snetterton

2009-07-28T19:37:00.001+01:00

Last weekend was the 6th (round out of 8) for the STCC series and the track was Snetterton, where we’ll be in a couple of weeks for round 4 of the nationals.

I decided that I’d spend 1/2 of saturday setting the car up on national tyres and the other half for stcc tyres, giving me (hopefully) a head start for the meeting in a couple of weeks time. This seemed to work well and I was happy with the way the car handled on the track from the 2nd run after making a slight change to the shock angle on the rear of the car.

There was a big bunch of Sidcup racers there this weekend:

Myself
Charlie
Steve (making his racing return)
Chris H, who is now known as “Mr Chips”
Marlon
Jordan
Tristan (accompanied by his girlfriend Michelle)
Alex (accompanied by his girlfriend Natalie)
Phil

After everyone had finished practising, we walked over to a nearby restaurant for a well deserved bite to eat and some drinks. This turned out to be a great laugh, both at ourselves and the prices of the food. Chris H only eats Chips though, I still can’t get over that !!!

Sunday morning came and we got set up for the meeting only to find that Maaarrrrllloooonnnn was in the top heat along with myself and Chris H. He wasn’t happy but he did really well during his runs !

I couldn’t seem to get the car hooked up in the same way as I had done on the Saturday, but neither could anyone else from our little travelling race team. Alex and myself qualified within 4/10ths of a second of each other to be 1st and 2nd on the grid for the B final, a race that was to become one of the talking points of the weekend !

The first final came and after a few silly mistakes by me, I ended up third, with Alex in 2nd.

The second final was where it was at though, Alex leading me away from the chasing pack until about 4 laps to go when he clipped a kerb and “roofed it” (a technical term) This meant that I got the lead with a few laps left, but Alex was having none of it ! He came right back at me and we went into the last lap no more than a few centimetres apart ! On the very same corner where Alex had let me through, I crashed in the same exact way to let him back into the lead !!!

I ended up 2nd with Alex winning that leg of the final.

I was determined to take the win in the 3rd final for a split on the results, but this was not to be. I overdrove the car and ended up spinning out (coming 7th in that leg) with Alex taking another win for the overall win.

3rd overall for me. The worst result on paper, but one of the best (if not THE best) races I’ve ever had. It’s that sort of stuff that makes us spend all this time toiling over the cars, practising and racing as much as we do. The close race with a good mate, nothing beats it !

There’s now only two points between myself and Alex (taking dropped rounds into consideration) with two rounds left, so it’s right down to the wire !

BRCA National – Round 3 – Cotswolds

2009-07-28T19:24:00.001+01:00

This weekend saw the BRCA National series visit the excellent facility at Cotswolds.

Again, it would be myself and Tristan flying the Team Sidcup flag against the best in the country !

We headed up after a bit of a delay on the Friday due to a number of bad things happening to Tristan on the day, not a good start !

Saturday was a beautiful day and I’ve got to say the track is one of the best I’ve been to so far in the country. Excellent mix of grip, technicality and speed needed for a good run here.

I soldered in my replacement motor (after blowing one up at the STCC) and went out for practise, taking it easy. Disaster struck and it went up in smoke after about 2 minutes :(

This meant I had no more 6.5 motors to run other than the one from my wet car, so I ended up having to qualify using 5-cell packs and a 7t delta I had in the box.

After the end of the day I was 33rd overall and had a huge task of cycling all the cells that night in order to get some punch into them for the next day’s qualifying and finals.

I needn’t have bothered though as the weather on Sunday morning was WET WET WET. This meant that we ran the wet cars for qualifying. A lot of people chose not to run in the wet or had problems running, so I jumped up to 29th overall after qualifying, meaning that I’d made a C final for the year (I was over the moon)

I recorded two 5th place finishes in the first two finals which were both wet, and didn’t run in the 3rd as it was dry and the car was glitching a bit. It turns out that the car was fine, just a bit of moisture somewhere that was taken care of after I got home with a liberal squirting of wd-40

All in all a good result for the weekend !

An expensive weekend ! :(

2009-07-05T22:21:00.001+01:00

Round 5 of the STCC was this weekend at Bashley and as usual, headed to the track on Saturday afternoon.

I had the GM motor in and that blew on the first run of the day, but I think it was almost gone from the National Round at halifax.

I put a speed passion 6.5 in and went out for a few practice runs. I was happy enough with the car, so I settled on the setup I had for sunday morning’s qualifying.

Qualfying was another expensive session for me, with another motor gone (this time the speed passion) I was on for a new PB until the motor went up 3ft from the finish line on the last lap. I had a tekin left, but I’d never used it before, so it took a couple of runs to get used to it as I was EXTRA careful with gearing and timing on it.

It turned out that I needn’t have bothered as it was my initial run that ended up being my best qualfying run and put me 9th on the grid for the A final, with Alex in 7th and Charlie on the number 10 spot.

I had two bad finals, one of them with my shell catching and the second with a driveshaft pin coming loose that left me out of the running for a good placing overall. Third final came along and I had a good run, ending up in the middle of the pack somewhere. Oh, but to have that finish earlier in the day !

I’m sending the motors off the investigation to see what went wrong with them as I haven’t ever got close to having a motor blow before, so I must have done something seriously wrong, although the car was extremely quick !

I have some video footage of the racing, so I’ll post them up tomorrow on the usual youtube channel.(www.youtube.com/Aomircko)

Modified Racing (interesting results)

2009-06-23T20:35:00.001+01:00

The top 10 finalists at the last BRCA national at Halifax was a split between 5-cell and Lipo 6.5 even with the weight differential

Chris Grainger - 5 cell
Andy Moore - LiPo 6.5t
Elliott Harper - LiPo 6.5t
Jonathan Aird - 5 cell
Chris Ashton - 5 cell
Glenn Doman - 5 cell
Olly Jefferies - LiPo 6.5t
Alan Bickerstaff - LiPo 6.5t
Matt White - 5 cell
Colin Price - LiPo 6.5t

BRCA National – Round 2 – Halifax

2009-06-22T21:32:00.001+01:00

I went to Halifax this weekend for the 2nd round of the BRCA National series along with Tristan.

Controlled practise was on Saturday morning with qualifying starting in the afternoon.

The weather was a bit hit and miss with rain falling in between heats throughout the day.

1st practice was in the dry car, but the 2nd practise was with the wet car.

Qualifying started soon after and the weather stayed dry. I had a bit of a mixed bag of results. The first run was good but I didn’t finish the next two completely.

Tristan had a few good runs during the day and was on for making the D final in Pro stock.

We headed back for the hotel and had some food & drinks before heading back to the room and making a few changes that we hoped would help improve the runs the next day.

My car was was understeering slightly on corner entry but oversteering slightly on corner exit, so I went from 600cst oil in the front and 400cst oil in the back to 500cst all round in the hope that it would make the car a little more stable.

Sunday morning’s qualifying came round and I was happy that the changes did indeed stabilise the car the way I’d hoped.

I had better results in the last 3 rounds of qualifying and was on for a quick 17 lap run (avg 17.99, quickest was 17.5) when I had a weird issue with the car. I was at top speed on the straight about to enter the sweeper when I lost steering ! The car flew off the end of the track into the barrier and that was run over :( When the heat had finished, I checked the car over and luckily nothing was broken, so I switched it back on and the problem was gone…

My overall qualifying meant that I was starting 4th in the D final, which I was happy with as I had three good runs, although a little disappointed that I missed out on the quickest run I could do.

I ended up 4th overall in that final and Tristan ended up 7th overall in the E final of prostock. In my 2nd final I was leading with two laps to go, when a motor wire unsoldered, followed by another one. too much heat :)

I managed to get a few videos done of the racing, which are on my youtube channel at www.youtube.com/user/Aomircko

STCC Round 4 – West London

2009-06-08T09:31:00.001+01:00

This weekend saw the STCC heading for West London with a severe weather warning for the weekend !

Tristan and myself set out at about 6:15 on Sunday morning and it was pouring down with thunder and lightening !

We arrived at the track to see people brushing the water off the track and began setting up our pit area. A lot of people had decided not to race this weekend, but the british weather did us proud and the sun came out soon after arriving at the track.

Practice was in the wet, but by the time we came to start qualifying, the track was starting to dry out.

I have always struggled to get a good setup on the car for this track, and this time I was trying something different with heavier shock oil all round compared to normal. The car felt really good in the first qualifier, so I was surprised to see that I only managed 14 laps !

I decided that new tyres were worth it for the day as the rain had completely gone and the sun had dried the track out for round 2. I managed to put in a run of 17 laps on new tyres. For the third run I made a couple of small changes to the car and found that it was more stable. I ended up on 18 laps, which saw me qualify in 8th spot for the A final, so I was very happy.

The finals were a bit of a mixed bag, but another few small changes saw me getting and 8th place finish, followed by a 5th place finish with a great first final where Colin and myself had our own little race for position, very enjoyable !

The weather forecast came true for the last final, and it was wet so out came the wet car, which I’ve waterproofed by using Plastidip on the electronics, but also by mounting an underbody from Slipstream RC

Using the combination of the two, I had no water at all in the car and was able to run brushless gear in the rain !

I was going well in the last final, getting up to third and chasing the 2nd place guy down when I had a crash on the douglas d (where else !) which broke a steering arm and meant it was race over. I finished 4th in that run meaning that I got a 6th place overall finish for the day. Excellent result !

First runs with GM

2009-06-02T13:33:00.001+01:00

I ran the GM on Friday night with 10.5 and had it set on mode 6. Seemed to have plenty of legs around our little carpet track, even had to gear down from normal.

I took it to West London on Sunday and even though the car was handling terribly, the settings on mode 3 worked well. It turned out to be 1 tooth less than I’d been running with the Speed Passion, although I did manage to break into the 15 second lap times for the first time :)

PB of 18 305 on that track.

I’m back at West London this weekend coming for Round 4 of the STCC, so I’ve got a few more things to try for the setup, but hopefully it’ll not take too long before I get it handling better !

GM Speedo

2009-05-23T15:04:00.000+01:00

I have purchased a GM Genius 120 speedo to use for racing now, so I may be selling the Sphere soon.

It’s a whole different ball game compared to the Sphere.

8 different modes, but the key to it is the custom programming available. You can change up to 38 parameters in tiny increments for each mode, and even mix/match modes.

The software used is available from the Graupner website.

New Shell

2009-05-21T23:27:00.001+01:00

Got a message today to let me know that my new TC shell is on the way :)

www.rcshells.co.uk

Check it out, Jon’s a GREAT painter.

Blown speedo

2009-05-20T23:52:00.001+01:00

Update on the speedo, it’s been repaired and is on the way back to me as we speak. \0/

BRCA National – Round 1 – West London (pt 2)

2009-05-20T23:51:00.001+01:00

The weather gods decided that we’d have to run in the wet on Sunday so that pretty much ended any chances of qualfying better than I was overnight for me.

I did go out in the rain and run, but I managed about 3 minutes before the car packed up with water in the speedo. I’ve sent it off to be repaired now as it’s blown a row or two of fets inside it..

Round 4 ended up with me in 22nd position for the round, and due to round 5 being wet as well, I ended up qualifying in 32nd (2nd place in the Mod D final)

Finals: I came 2nd, 1st and 2nd in the three legs of the final, so ended up 2nd overall.

Not bad considering that I had two dry runs out of 8 where I didn’t have problems with the car :)

Let’s hope Round 2 is a better showing !

BRCA TC National – Round 1 – West London (pt 1)

2009-05-16T22:52:00.001+01:00

This weekend sees the beginning of the Touring Car national season and the weather (almost) held out for it :)

The format of the day is 2 rounds of practice and 3 round of qualifying on Saturday, with a further 2 round of qualifying and 3 finals on Sunday.

This year Lipo is allowed in the modified class, and I’ve entered this class, so I’m right in at the deep end !

We arrived at the track around 8am this morning and began to set up our pit area and equipment.

We had an EGM for the section where it was decided not to go ahead with the vote on reducing the Lipo modified weight limit to 1425 grams from 1500 as it currently is. This is due to the Executive committee having the option of making the meeting and results null and void if it’s decided that the vote wasn’t a valid one.

I went out for practice on old tyres and was surprised at the way the car felt, normally it’s quiet bad around west london, but it felt “ok”

After my rounds of practice were finished, I went out for my first qualifying run, and as the track was drying out from a brief shower during the previous heats, I found it quite difficult to drive. I managed to get some laps in, but failed scrutineering due to the height of the wing on the car.

Result: 38th (failed scrutineering)

For round 2, I made some changes and this made the car a lot more stable around the track. I went out but only managed 1 lap as I made a mistake on the final corner of the circuit and broke a wishbone as well as a top deck.

Result: 37th (1 lap)

For round 3, I decided to keep the car the way it was and it felt quite good. However, about 5 laps from the end, I noticed a drop in power. Unfortunately, this happened in the penultimate corner with a faster car approaching from behind. The car came into contact with mine. I finished my run after that, but only managed about half speed around the remaining laps due to an electrical problem.

I ended up 29th for the round on 17 laps (my pb is 18)

This leaves me in the unenviable position of having to make the 2 qualifying runs tomorrow both count, for a good 3 out of 5 runs. I hope I can get some good results in the morning session so that I can drop the two failed runs and improve my position in the finals later in the day.

Keep an eye out tomorrow as I hope to be able to post updates during the day !!

STCC Round 3 – Brooklands

2009-05-11T23:07:00.001+01:00

This weekend saw the third round of the popular STCC series make it’s way to the Brooklands circuit. The circuit is better known for 8th and 5th scale cars as it’s HUGE !

Myself and Charlie headed down on the Saturday for some much needed practice. We arrived to find we had plenty of room to pit and power was provided, so we needn’t have carried tables/chairs etc with us.

I hadn’t changed the car much from Southend so the setup was still the same other than droop and ride height, which i’d reset back to more standard settings.

We had a few practice runs trying out a few things and I settled on a setup fairly quickly, which meant I wouldn’t have to change too much the next day during the racing. I did try a couple of different shells though, and the Mazdaspeed 6 seemed to be more consistent than the LTC-R coming into and out of the corners.

We packed up and headed back to the tent to drop off our stuff, then headed off for some well earned grub ! If you’re ever near Rye, Kent then you should check out the Woolpack Inn. It is a great pub and the food is excellent !

Sunday morning saw the start of qualifying and I was hoping to do 19 lap this year as I only managed 18 last year.

After some tips from some of the other racers, I’d changed gearing and also some handling changes to the car. It was now flying along nicely :)

By the end of qualifying I had a run of 19 laps, just a few tenths away from being in the A final and a lap down on the quickest guys. I ended up winning the B final overall with a win and a 2nd place and the Chazzer score is now 4-0 to me.

Come on Chaz mate, step it up, I know you can !!

Possible Lipo 6.5 Weight limit change

2009-05-03T12:19:00.000+01:00

taken from Mtech CentralBooking System:

"At the 2008 AGM it was agreed that for 2009, an additional modified class spec would be included into the existing 5-cell Modified Class in the form of 2S LiPo with 6.5T Brushless.
The 1/10th Electric Circuit Section committee have received a lot of feedback about the weight limits in the modified class, and would like to put this to the vote before the Nationals start. The current rule = 5-cell NiMh cell cars with a minimum weight limit of 1425g, and 6.5 turn brushless LiPo cars with a minimum weight limit of 1500g. The proposal to be voted on is a common minimum weight limit across the two, dropping the LiPo/6.5 weight to 1425g. This follows the lead set by Mike Smith and the STCC series.
The primary factors for dropping the LiPo minimum weight limit are:
Modified entries are low at around 40 per meeting, and it is hoped this will encourage more to enter this top flight class
Easier scrutineering for all cars across the Modified class

The primary factors for leaving the weight limits as is are:

Limited time to test the reduced weight limit ahead of the first National
Modified competitors may have to invest in LiPo batteries and chargers for the season

The vote will remain open until 23:59 on Wednesday 6th May 2009. The votes will be reviewed and the Committee will annouce if the weight rule will change (or not) before the WLRC National warm up meeting on 10th April.
Please note this proposed change will not alter the minimum weight limit of the Pro Stock class which remains at 1500g for 2009."

STCC round 2 – Southend

2009-04-23T21:10:00.001+01:00

How time flies :)

We headed down to Southend for round two of the STCC championship last weekend on Saturday and spent some time practising and setting the car up for the racing on Sunday. This was a completely new track for me as I didn’t partake in this round last year so had to spend some time getting to know the circuit.

It’s a very difficult track to drive as it has elevation changes as well as bumps and hollows around the track. The ‘jump’ in front of the rostrum makes it a very interesting track to drive though, especially with a modified motor in the car :)

In my practice runs on Saturday i was getting 14 laps, but somehow i managed to get 16 in my first qualifying run on Sunday… not sure how or why :)

That turned out to be my only qualifying run as I had issues for the other two runs, which meant I was 2nd on the grid in the B final.

I ended up getting 16 in 301 in the first final and winning that leg closely followed by Chris Smith, who would go on to win the 2nd final by overtaking me on the last lap.

This meant we were both tied on 3 point for the final leg, but my car cut out after about 4 laps (found out after that this was down to motor timing) so I ended up 2nd overall in the B final.

Currently I’m 9th in the championship still, 2 point behind 8th place and 2 in front of 10th

STCC Round 1 – Eastbourne

2009-04-23T21:02:00.001+01:00

We headed down to nearly Sunny Eastbourne for the first round of the 2009 STCC championship on Saturday.

After completing a practice round there a couple of weeks prior, there wasn’t much that I had to change setup wise, so instead chose to make sure everything on the car was set up and in good working order.

On race day, I made one change to use 1 degree of outboard toe on the rear of the car, instead of inboard toe. This helped to settle the car and I managed 21 laps, which was 3 more than last year on the same track :)

I ended up 9th after the three legs of the finals, so am currently 9th overall in the Championship table

Carpet Wars Final results

2009-03-09T20:36:00.001Z

Well it’s all over for 2008 now.. it’s been a good championship and there have been up’s as well as a few downs along the way.

Round 1: Used the Xray 12th car and put in 30 laps. The car felt nice and easy to drive but didn’t feel quick at any point. I need to take a look at gearing though because I simply cannot fit a bigger pinion than a 36 on it.

Round 2: Used the bmi DB12R and ended up on 31 laps, not much in it overall, but a slower lap than the Xray (13.82 compared to 13.80)

Round 3: Had the Xray X11 again but did 2 laps as I one of the battery bars came unsoldered.

Round 4: Put the bmi back on the track, but made some setup changes (pink rears, and double pink fronts, and also 0.5 shim under the front of the flex plate). This was with the aim of making the car rotate more and boy did it work :) Thanks to Jason for the setup tips !!

A quick lap of 13.32 and overall 34 laps to put me in 5th place in the A final !

In the final, it was me in 5th, Terry in 7th (32 laps) and Phil in 8th (32 laps also)

I ended up 4th on 34 laps with Terry in 5th on 30 laps and Phil 9th after having problems with the car and pulling out after 16 laps.

This result meant I finished 4th overall for the championship behind:

Mark Green
Jason Butterfield
Luke Burley

considering the calibre of the guys who competed in the championship, I’m over the moon with where I finished up :)

This sort of finishes the winter racing (12th scale) for me, other than 1 more round at Sidcup, so the next racing will be touring cars outdoors, where I’m competing at the STCC and TC Nationals this year. No doubt I’ll be dead last after most rounds, but if last years STCC was anything to go by, I’ll be having a blast doing it !

Carpet Wars Round 4 - Sidcup Racers Results

2009-01-25T22:40:00.001Z

Big Day out for the Sidcup Crew with a mixed bag of results. Special mention to the Pro Stock guys who decided that they wanted a final all of their own... awww :)

12th Scale A Final

Terry finished 3rd, qualified 3rd
Myself: finished 7th, qualified 4th

Pro Stock:

A Final
Stewart: 5th, qualified 5th
Steve: 8th, qualified 9th

B Final
Allan: 3rd, qualified 2nd

C Final
Vince: 6th, qualified 10th

D Final
Charlie: 9th, qualified 6th
Chris: 8th, qualified 10th
Marlon: 7th, qualified 9th
Ben: 6th, qualified 4th
Jordan: 5th, qualified 8th
Alex: 2nd, qualified 7th

E Final
Tristan: Winner ! qualified 2nd

Stock

A Final
Daniel: 9th, qualified 7th

B Final
John: Winner ! qualified 1st
Jack: 9th, qualified 3rd

aaand I'm spent :)

2009-01-19T11:24:00.003Z

Got back from Plymouth late last night after having another great day racing.

Let me tell you... Modified motors and 12th scale cars are a match made in heaven :) My only aim for the Sunday was to improve over my best time from the Saturday, but I somehow managed that in round 1.. so I was then a bit lost for what to do !

I decided i'd have a play with gearing and tyres for the rest of the day:

Rnd 1: 38mm/rev Timing: 6 Tyres: Yellow Rear/Dbl Pink front 35 laps
Rnd 2: 44mm/rev Timing: 5 Tyres: Yellow Rear/Dbl Pink front 35 laps (quicker)
Rnd 3: 41mm/rev Timing: 5 Tyres: Pink Rear/Dbl Pink front 35 laps (quicker again)
Rnd 4: 42mm/rev Timing: 6 Tyres: Pink Rear/Magenta front 36 laps
Final: 43mm/rev Timing: 6 Tyres: Yellow Rear/Magenta front 36 laps (quicker)

The car was spot on for the final giving me the win from 3rd on the grid ! Steve put in another blinder on Sunday by qualifying 2nd on the grid in our final with a 10.5 (we were using 6.5's) and ended up 2nd at the end of the final. Terry qualified 5th in the final.

Another trophy for today's efforts :)

12th National

2009-01-17T22:44:00.001Z

Myself, Steve and Terry made our way down to Plymouth for this weekend's national race meeting.

After 4 rounds of qualifying and a lot of tyre voodoo from various people, Steve was on 35 laps, and Terry/Myself were on 34.

Guess what though ! I won a trophy !!!

Nationals Raced: 1
Silverware Gained: 1

Steve (assuming he'd checked his crystals) would have beaten me in the final easily though, the boy's got skills !
I heard the buzzer and hit the gas then realised i was stuck in the back of car 6 as he hadn't gone when the buzzer went off. Waited for him to get sorted and on his way out of courtesy, but by then I was almost a lap down
Managed to get all the way back to second when the time ran out, car felt good :cool:

I don't know how silly this next bit is, but I've just soldered in a 6.5 for the morning (and rebuilt the diff to be sure)
Roll on MOD !!!

Getting ready

2009-01-16T23:32:00.001Z

Steve, Terry and myself made the journey down to Plymouth for the national today leaving at about 2pm.

We arrived at around 7pm and checked out the track/ put towels down for the morning.

the three of us had a bit of dinner and Steve/myself are sitting here checking over his new 1/12th car over a nice bottle of Shiraz

Roll on the weekend !!!!

Carpet Wars Round 4

2009-01-13T22:00:00.000Z

I've not run my 12th for a little while now, what with Christmas and New Year etc so Sunday would be interesting at least :)

The flooring at Maritime Raceway has been re-laid and new carpet laid over it resulting in a MUCH MUCH flatter track surface. This is good news for 12th scale :)

The practice and first couple of qualifiers I found that I could drive the car on the throttle but the car didn't feel punchy at all, it felt like I was flat out everywhere with no real change in speed. My times didn't reflect this however as I was 4th overall in the qualifying behind Terry (albeit with a quicker lap)

I made a change in the 4th qualifier which was one step too far. The car felt quick finally, but I had traction roll issues, so I backed off a little for the rest of the run, therefore not improving. I knew the car had the speed though so was looking forward to the final.

For the final I applied additive a little later and used a softer spring on the shock. The car was as quick and I had made up a place by the first corner, passing Terry on the sweeper at the end of the straight on Lap 1.

I was comfortably in 3rd place for the rest of the race with no threat from anyone behind me, but also making no gains on the guys in front. The "guys in front" were Mark Green and Luke Burley, both excellent drivers, so there was no shame in me being behind them !

About halfway through the final, disaster struck and my motor shifted in the mount so I lost the mesh between the pinion and the spur. This was the end of my race :(

I have since found the problem with the mount was in fact a bent pod plate, so that has been replaced with a view to running at Plymouth this weekend in my first ever National. Terry and Steve Fuller are both attending on the weekend so it should be an experience in how to move out of people's way if nothing else :)

Rug Racers Round 4

2009-01-07T21:42:00.001Z

Sunday saw the Sidcup crew heading for Rug Racers again, for Round 4 of the Rug Racers series.

For those that do not know, this series is an indoor carpet racing series held near Ware, Hertfordshire.

It was a good day out and I'm starting to get the hang of setting the car up for modified lipo racing. Had some nice laps and managed to get a good results in the finals for once :)

Next up... 12th at Carpet Wars on the 11th Jan, then the big one... NATIONALS :D

12th Lipo a possibility ?

2008-12-12T23:30:00.002Z

I'm just come home after my "testing" night at my local club... the results are very interesting.

I have the following electronics installed in the car:
Speed Passion GT LPF Speedo
Speed Passion 10.5 Motor
Futaba 603FS Receiver (2.4Ghz version)
Futaba 9650 Servo
MRT PTx transponder

Run 1: without an rx pack to see if
A) it would work
B) there would be any problems.
I ran the car for 6 and a half minutes before pulling it off but everything worked fine. There was a noticable lack of kick from the car, but I didn't have to let off as much for the corners.

Run 2: with an rx pack to see the differenceI ran the car for a few minutes (3 or so) before it cut out completely and wouldn't respond to any input. I believe this was because the car was trying to take power from the rx pack instead of the battery. This was the last time I ran the rx pack for the evening.

Heat 1: Lipo (no rx)
Gearing and Setup on the car were as I normally would have it when running 4-cell nimh packs.
Result: 30 laps in 305.442 (quick lap: 9.475, avg: 10.181)
Used Capacity: 1358 mah
Battery voltage: 3.9v (0.3 loss from fully charged)

Heat 2: Lipo (no rx)
Same gearing and setup (~57mm/rev). I had two screws come loose in the rear pod so didn't finish this run, but quick lap was 9.671, avg: 10.338
Used Capacity: N/A

Heat 3: 4-cell Nimh
Same gearing and setup (~57mm/rev)Motor moved in the mount meaning I didn't finish the run, but quick lap was 9.040 avg: 10.187

Final: 4-cell Nimh
Same gearing and setup (~57mm/rev)Result: 31 laps in 309.958 (quick lap: 9.264, avg: 9.999)

Overall the car felt like it had a lot less of a kick when running the Lipo, but there was no dumping sensation and the car was actually EASIER to drive around the track for me.

I will do some more testing, including the possibility of an 8 minute run, but things look encouraging so far !

BMI Racing ‘Big Wheels’ 64P pinions » Red RC - RC Car News

2008-12-10T22:51:00.001Z

Good Spur/Pinion sizes for Lipo 12th !!

BMI Racing ‘Big Wheels’ 64P pinions » Red RC - RC Car News

Carpet Wars Round 3

2008-12-10T22:37:00.001Z

This was a round I was looking forward to as it would be the first round where I did 12th only, and I had gone down to Maritime on the Saturday for practice.

Terry and Phil were both no shows, but Adrian had booked in to come along, so I wouldn't be the only Sidcup racer doing 12th :)

We had a good run with some 17 or 18 drivers in total. Adrian qualified 8th and I was 10th.

In the final Adrian was again struck down with interference problems and I managed to keep the car on the track for the 8 minutes while a few others dropped out. This meant I finished 7th overall and am currently 4th in the Championship table.

Shocking result

2008-11-29T07:28:00.000Z

I raced at Sidcup tonight for the first time after stripping down the BMI and rebuilding it from the ground up.

Changes to the car:

Electronics moved
Wires re-routed
New Associated lower front arms
Suspension shimmed up
Servo moved further back
Front brace installed

I ran the car in practice just to make sure it was tracking straight and turning left/right, nothing more than that.

During qualifying I found that the car had a little too much steering so I tried dialling it out by turning down the dual rate on my transmitter. I also added some exp to steering in order to calm it down a bit. Both of these helped, but not by enough...

After the 2nd qualifying heat I was 3 or 4 laps off the pace and was running out of ideas...

I decided I'd try a shock spring change, so popped the shock off the car to change the spring over. It was at this point I found that the shock shaft newly installed before the last meeting, was bent AGAIN. This is the second one I've done personally, and Terry has also done a couple of them as well. As a result of bending shock pistons, I had ordered a Hot Bodies Cyclone 12 Shock as a replacement.

The original plan was to try it out at the next carpet wars meeting, but I installed it on the car quickly. Nothing special done to it, just built it up using the oil it came with in the packet.

I had moved the batteries slightly forward to help calm the car down for this round as well.

Result: 4 extra laps (33) and TQ for the evening !

For the final, I moved the batteries back again as I had a bit more confidence in the car after seeing it perform in qualifying.

I went on to win the Final on 34 laps after this, but the way the car handled was the best thing, it's given me the confidence back that I had been lacking with the car over the past few weeks.

Sunday Racing at it's best

2008-11-23T17:49:00.000Z

Popped along to the Clubman's meeting at www.maritimeraceway.co.uk today and had a blast, even though I'd been up late to watch the boxing the night before !! (no sleep for ~36 hours)

When I arrived, I was pleased to see a bunch of lads from Sidcup there, all ready to get going in Modified !

We had Terry turn up with his 12th as well though :)

Myself, Alex (putting in a wheel performance while his thumb is on holiday), Charlie, Jordan, Marlon, Vince all doing mod

Pete and Ben doing pro stock.

I was nowhere even close on setup in the first practice session, so had to work on it during the day, and almost got there after changing tyres to Sorex 28 instead of 32's Thanks to Phil and Des for the setup tips.

Charlie TQ'd mod with 23 laps (the only person to get 23). It was great to see him having a good result for a change ! Long may it continue !
Alex and myself and Jordan all on 22, so the final was going to be good.

Alex and Jordan tore away at the start and were never seen again, although I tried my damnest to catch them, even getting the car on two wheels round a few corners !

TC again

2008-11-22T10:31:00.001Z

I'm going to do the Clubman's Cup at Maritime Raceway instead of Carpet Wars for TC. I have a feeling the atmosphere will be a bit better and a little more relaxed

From the Ground Up

2008-11-22T08:52:00.001Z

I had a few handling issues with the 12th scale BMI over the past few weeks, so i ended up stripping it down and rebuilding it from the ground up.

New lower arms (Associated ones now instead of the IRS lowered ones) to try and combat the screws bending in the front end of the car.

Flex plates installed correctly now

Speedo moved and wiring redone using 16awg wire

Servo moved back

Front brace installed

Roll on Carpet Wars !

Winter Touring

2008-11-16T20:02:00.001Z

Back to Sevenoaks, and realised how much I enjoy it ! going to carry on there over the winter and use the 007 as a Slippery floor car, although I think it needs a new set of mini pins. The current ones are more like mini stubs :)

Sidcup Lives !

2008-11-16T19:57:00.001Z

Empty hall to Track ready to race on, 45 minutes

Time from full track to packed away: 15 minutes

Having a club to continue to race at: Priceless

What a joke

2008-11-09T21:36:00.001Z

What is it about people's attitude in a Touring Car final ?

Do they not see other cars on the track, or is it purpose when they drive straight into, and through a competitor ?

I was "taken out" by someone in my final today on 3 separate occasions with the third incident resulting in my car leaving the track. When it was returned to the track it was broken (no fault of the marshal, he could not see it was broken) and then the other 9 finalists either hit me at full throttle, or tried to avoid me and tapped me at lower speed (thanks if you were one of the ones that hit me slowly).

So all in all, after qualifying into 3rd spot on the grid, my race was over... and for what ? The drive who did this did not win the race (as far as I can remember), so he simply ruined mine. Thanks bud.

I've had enough of this crap, it's always the same in touring cars, take someone out in order to pass, don't move for faster cars, it spoils it for those who are more courteous towards fellow racers. Why should I back off when I'm overtaking and let someone move out of the way ? I'll just plough on through and see what happens...

It's not seen as a bad thing in touring car to hit another competitors car, whereas in any other class it simply does not happen that way.

You can't expect 10 cars going round a track in a race situation to never have a coming together, but the simple rules are:

If you hit someone, WAIT for them to regain their position on the track. If that means you lose some places, tough shit.
If you are lapping someone, do not drive through them just because you're lapping.
If, conversely, you are BEING lapped, move out of the way so the faster car can get through. It's also good practice to stay off full throttle for a little while after, so that there's a small gap created. Countless times I've seen someone get lapped and take out the car that's just overtaken them by being too aggressive afterwards.

I'm done with the TC championship at Carpet Wars this year, I'll be concentrating on 12th instead.

psyche !

2008-11-07T21:34:00.000Z

Sidcup closing down ? not just yet :D

We went there this evening and got about 20-30 names of people who are willing to help out with setting up and putting away the track of an evening.

Terry and Phil both seemed chuffed with the result.

Oh and we got trophies too :)

Touring Cars...

2008-11-02T14:24:00.001Z

I was planning on heading over to Eden Park this morning in order to run the new 2wd Academy buggy for the first time. However, the weather wasn't great this morning, so I went and raced touring cars instead (10.5 class)

Let's just say I wish I'd have done buggies now...

For a start... the weather is now sunny and it hasn't rained all day long...

The racing was at West Kent on carpet, running Sorex (compound is your own choice) as a control tyre. There were 4 heats of stock, one of Open (10.5 or above) and one Mini/Mardave heat as well.

Academy GV2

2008-11-01T08:11:00.000Z

I've been building an Academy GV2 for a little while now, and have decided to put a mamba max system into it.

It's almost ready now, so tomorrow (weather permitting) will be it's first run !

RC Pedia

2008-10-27T08:17:00.001Z

I've been working on this site/wiki for a little while and I thought to myself, "it's a wiki it'll never be finished, just open it up"

so here it is:

rcpedia

feel free to add/update it as you see fit

Carpet Battles

2008-10-27T08:13:00.002Z

As you may or may not know, this was a new championship planned for the winter season to be held at the Maritime Raceway in Kent. In addition to touring cars, 12th scale pan cars were to run here.
Due to a low number of entries, this has been cancelled, and entries from this can be transferred across.

This is a problem for me as I had booked in for Carpet Wars (another championship run by the club) to do Touring Car, and Battles to do 12th.

Now, as the classes have been moved across (as well as my entries) I'm doing both in the same day.

The organisers have been very accomodating and spaced me out in heats that mean I'm not rushing during the day.

I may drop out of one of them if it becomes too much however.

Coming soon

2008-10-17T07:36:00.001+01:00

I've not been able to update this for a little while, a mixture of racing too much and being ill has meant this has taken a back seat.

Rest assured I'll have some more info up over the weekend though.

BMI DB12R

2008-09-03T08:58:00.001+01:00

BMI DB12R - Side 2
Originally uploaded by chrisdono

Here's a picture of the 12th scale BMI DB12R complete with Speed Passion GT LPF ESC and Hacker 10.5

The first run for the car will be friday night and then a proper shakedown session at Maritime Raceway on Saturday.

12th Shell

2008-09-03T08:57:00.001+01:00

Raynard Shell
Originally uploaded by chrisdono

This is the shell my sis painted for me for the BMI car

KO Trophy

2008-08-26T21:39:00.001+01:00

26/08/2008
Originally uploaded by chrisdono

Here's the trophy I got for the overall race at the weekend :)

Me likey !

KO Grand Prix - Finals

2008-08-25T22:00:00.000+01:00

Monday was Finals day (although there was one qualifier left early in the morning)

The finals were to be run over 3 legs, with the best two results to count for you.

Final 1:
Charlie ended up 8th in his first final as he had radio problems and couldn't go out.
Tristan won his first final, and was in good shape for the next one.
Next up was Phil and myself. Phil had a problem with his car which became apparent at the buzzer to start the race when his car shot off the line and turned right into the wall along the straight. I ended up 3rd in the final.
Steve was up next and ended up last in his final as he got bashed about a lot.

Final 2:
Charlie: Clive sorted out Charlie's radio problems for him and he ended up 2nd in the final.
Tristan: Ended up 5th in the final, but had a win in the bag from the previous final.
Phil: Ended up 8th again with another problem in the car.
Steve: Ended up 7th after a good run spoiled by a broken motor shaft.
Myself: Having had a bad 2nd round qualifier and tracing the problem to a diff issue, I had rebuilt the diff. I didn't know that the screw holding the diff together was not quite the right size (I think it's worn slightly). Brian Eldridge from the Xray factory team helped me out with this and rebuilt the diff for me between final 1 and 2. I ended up winning this final :)

Final 3:
Charlie: Won this final to secure an overall result of 2nd.
Tristan: Lapped the field in this final for an overall 1st.
Phil: Had a complete run this time round and finished 7th in the final, giving him and overall 8th in this final.
Myself: I finished 6th in this one, having crashed out early on and being dead last after a couple of laps. This, along with the win by Mark, meant that I ended up 2nd overall in this one.
Steve: Got a proper run in, although he was still bashed about a lot. He ended up 4th for an overall 5th.

The top three in each final at the KO Grand Prix get a trophy, so mine is sitting pretty on the coffee table at the moment :)

KO Grand Prix - Qualifying

2008-08-25T10:00:00.000+01:00

Day 2 of the event and Qualifying was starting. This year the format would be round by round, so every round counts.

This is great if you can run in every round, but for those not lucky enough to be able to run a fully waterproofed second car (in the rain), it puts a downer on the results.

Myself, Steve and Phil were in the new STCC class (Lipo/6.5 modified brushless) along with the normal, run to BRCA rules, 5-cell modified class.

Myself and Phil qualified in the D final (Phil on 5th and myself in 9th) which was about as good as I could have done, considering the field of drivers that were in modified.

Steve qualified well up into the C final, and just barely missed out on the B Final. Good work Muller man !!

Charlie had qualified dead last in pro stock with the Brokomo, and Tristan had poled the H final (also in Pro Stock).

Clive was in 2nd in the A final for Stock 27t

KO Grand Prix - Practice Day

2008-08-24T17:00:00.001+01:00

This event come sround once a year and is regarded as the pinnacle of the racing calendar by many.

2008 would be my first KO GP, along with Charlie and Tristan. Phil, Steve and Clive are veterans to the event, and would be showing us the ropes (as it were).

Myself and Charlie arrived on Saturday and got set up in order to go out for practice in the afternoon.

Practice went well with me ending up on 17 laps, which would be not far off race pace for me at all.

In all, there were 5 rounds of timed practice where you were up with other drivers from your class, then some open practice at the end of the day.

Team Tragic

2008-08-24T08:33:00.000+01:00

August Bank Holiday can mean only one thing, the KO Grand Prix.

Team Tragic consisted of the following:

Chuggaboom Charlie and his Brokomo
Muller Fuller
F**k-up Phil ( Ooohhh Nnnooo !!! )
Carve-em-up Chris
Basher Bonner
Turbo Tristan
Canny Chris

A special mention to the missing members of the team:
Take-out Tel
Bullett Billy
Vicious Vince
Mauler Marlon
MC Jordan

West Kent August 3rd

2008-08-03T14:00:00.000+01:00

Went along to West Kent on Sunday for a bit of fun as Terry had said he had a 6.5 to race with. Arrived there and it was raining, so that meant we were going indoors to race on carpet. I thought about putting the 6.5 away and racing with the 008 and the 13.5, but ended up sticking with the 007 and 6.5.
Terry turned up with the other car and a 13.5 ready, so no 6.5 for him that day, but Phil borrowed my speed passion 6.5 to have a play with :)

I had quite a bad run through qualifying and only managed to do one heat in the end.

Round1: Transponder wasn't counting laps so it said I ended up on 16, with Phil on 17 even though he pulled out at about the 3 minute mark and I finished the race.... had a few laps ranging from 30-50 seconds (normal lap was about 10/11) so there were quite a few missed there. Also had a problem with the rear diff having a flat spot in it, so the rear end was sliding quite a lot... not what you want with a 6.5 in !!!

Round2: Changed the diff, but the spur gave up as the race started, so that was me out... When I went back to the pits, my power supply decided that it had had enough and wanted to go home. It showed this by letting out a puff of smoke and switching off :)

Round 3: Luckily I had a battery ready and a spare one charged, so no need for charging or the power supply. The car felt nice, and I ended up with 26 laps (6th on the grid for the finals)

Final: Got heavily bashed around (which is a big part of why I don't like racing indoors at West Kent), and finished 6th or something.

Good to see friends and spend a bit of time racing, but I think in future I'll be heading to Maritime on a Saturday unless there's racing elsewhere on a Sunday.

Winter

2008-07-31T05:39:00.002+01:00

Thinking about giving 1/12 Scale a go for the winter, so I've signed up for Carpet Battles at http://www.maritimeraceway.co.uk for some racing.

I've gone for a BMI DB12R kit from Action Model Centre. I've spoken to them on the phone and they've been fantastic so far for advice and help to get started !

The kit should arrive in the next few days, so watch out for a post on the build process with some pictures soon

STCC - Snetterton (Round 6)

2008-07-27T22:00:00.001+01:00

The sun was out (so much for heavy showers eh BBC Weather) and the people were out as well. Over 100 drivers descended on Snetterton Park for the meeting.

Charlie and myself were doing the TC1 Class (6.5 motor with Lipo battery) and Steve was booked in for Brushless Stock.
Charlie had gone to the track on Saturday for some practice and testing, but myself and Steve would make the journey early on Sunday morning (I got up at 04:00).
I got a call from Charlie on Saturday evening saying that we were in trouble because his car was working well. This worried me as we were level on points after 5 rounds of the championship.
Charlie is a much much better driver than me, but he has the WORST luck of anyone I know when it comes to RC, so his results don't reflect his ability to get the car round the track at all.

We arrived at the track at around 07:30 and began setting up. There were already a lot of people on the track practising at this time and the sun was quite hot.

Steve managed to get a few laps in before practise was over, but I didn't get any as I had to sort out a battery fitment issue in my car as Steve had forgotten a battery and I had to lend him the one I was planning on using.

When we checked the heat listings, Charlie had been put as number 1 in the first heat of TC1 and I was number 10 of the TQ heat. My prediction that I would spend most of my time pulling out of people's way was to come true :)

I went out and did 18 laps in the first qualifier, with the top guys on 21. Charlie had problems with his speedo overheating so he didn't manage to finish the heat, while Steve was on 18 as well.

When we checked the temp of the motor it was very hot (180 degrees f), so I geared it down for the next heat. I didn't want a brand new motor going up in smoke after 1 or 2 runs !

2nd heat, Managed to get 20 laps, but the motor came off at 192 !!! This really worried me, so I geared back up, thinking that it may have been undergeared rather than overgeared. Round 3, 19 laps but motor was still hot.

I had qualified 4th in the B final, with Charlie in 5th place.

The finals were a bit of an anti climax as Charlie couldn't stop his speedo from overheating and the thermal protection kicking in and stopping the car at about the 4 minute mark.

I finished all three finals and ended up 3rd overall, with Charlie in tied 4th by default.

Steve finished up in 3rd overall in the B final for Stock.

The track was fantastic and the Sunday market nearby was a great addition to our normal day at the track in the middle of nowhere :)

http://www.spmcc.org.uk/onrtrack.htm is the club website for Snetterton Model Car Club. It's really worth the trip for such a great venue.

Sidcup Round 7

2008-07-26T06:39:00.002+01:00

Tonight was quite a quiet night, with a lot of people taking advantage of the sunny weather so the turnout wasn't as high as normal.

Jordan, Charlie and Terry were all there though, so it wasn't going to be a 'night off' for any of us :)

Practice: Car was terrible, but I trust the setup on it to work when the grip comes up, so I pulled it off and left it.
Heat 1: Car wasn't great, but there was a big difference from practice (no changes to the car, just more grip available). Couldn't quite get the chicane right, and ended up tearing the wing off the back of the car. Ended up with 27 laps. Charlie broke a front belt, and didn't have a spare, so I lent him my 007 while I continued to use my 008. This would bite me in the arse later on...
Jordan was on 29, and was looking good. Terry was straight out of the blocks on 30 laps !

Heat 2: Ended up on 30 laps while Charlie had been putting his motor in the 007 and missed this heat. Jordan was also on 30 laps, whilst Terry (who made sure to tell me) was on 31 :)

Heat 3: Terry didn't improve this time, so his 31 laps in 305.330 would stand as his fastest time.
Jordan also couldn't improve this time round, so he was on 30 in 3:23.040

Myself and Charlie did improve however :)
Charlie had the borrowed car ready and set about his business on the track. I was going for it this time to try and qualify high enough to make the A final, but I realised Charlie was too !

Charlie: 31 laps in 303.000
Me: 31 laps in 304.230

This meant that Charlie, myself and Terry had made the A final (in that order), with Jordan starting 3rd in the B final.

In the final we ended up where we started, so points for the night
Charlie 100 <--- now you see why it bit me lending him that car !!!
Myself: 99
Terry: 98

Championship Rounds: Chris 3: Charlie 4
Championship Points: Chris 692: Charlie 686

Now that's 7 rounds done, so if we stopped here I'd win the title :)
However, there's 10 rounds and you drop the worst three scores for the season.
This means that looking at our best 5 rounds (Terry's done 5 rounds)
Charlie is 1 point ahead of myself and Terry who are tied on 496

Sidcup Round 6

2008-07-12T06:31:00.005+01:00

Every once in a while there's one of those nights where you realise why we are involved in this hobby, and tonight was one of them :)

After the last few weeks, where myself and Jordan have been making it into the B final and having a great race during qualifying, we were moved up into a higher heat for qualifying. This meant that Jordan was 1st in the third heat, and Terry, Charlie and myself were in the 4th heat (I was off the line in 6th place).

Rnd 1: ended up 2nd behind Phil but the car seemed to be diving into each corner.
Rnd 2: I put a roll bar on the front of the car to try and help with the diving problem and also changed the gear ratio from 5.29 to 5.1 Now that may seem like a small change but it meant that I had a little more top speed, and combined with the car rolling through the corners a bit better, meant that I got into 1st place after Phil had an issue with his bodyshell and let me through.
Rnd 3: Started from 1st this time, and Terry had the bit between his teeth and was chasing me down from the first few laps !!!
At one point the tannoy said that he was leading, but both of us were confused by that as he hadn't overtaken me so far in the race. I'm guessing it was becasue he was lapping faster than me during that part of the race. By the end of the 5 minutes there was 2-3 seconds between us with me slightly in front of Terry. Our qualifying runs meant that we had qualified in the A final, so we must have been doing something right !

Out of the F1 people who seem to be competing for the championship, Terry and I could get 100 or 99 points depending on who won, and Jordan and Charlie (who were in the B final) had a battle for 98 or 97 points)

Final:
Pole: Peter
2nd: Stewart
3rd: Billy
4th: Me :)
5th: Steve
6th: Terry

After the first corner where Billy clipped the apex and i nipped through, I was running behind Stewart and Peter in 3rd place. I thought to myself "WHAT???" but carried on anyway :)

This was one of those races that comes along every now and again where it's just pure fun, but at the same time the quality of driving was great. I tried to keep ahead of Billy, but inevitably he was going to get past me. The problem was I couldn't tell if it was him of Terry as they both had their shells painted black.

Terry was my main competitor in this race though.
He got by me and got about 1/2 a lap up about a third of the way into the race. I got back into a rhythm and started to catch him up during the 2nd third of the race, eventually got past and managed to pull out a little bit of a gap from him. That didn't last long though as he started catching me up pretty soon !!!

I could see him and Billy coming up behind me as the race was coming to an end, but couldn't make out who was who. I came into the last chicane thinking "oh no that's Terry" and before i realised what happened, I'd overshot the corner and hit Billy (sorry mate). We got going again and I let him past at the end of the straight. Now it was the last lap and Terry was right behind me, but I'd managed to squeeze under the timing loop just before the buzzer, with Terry just after which meant I got the extra lap in and ended up 4th, with Terry 5th.

I got a 100 points for it, but my word it was hard-earned ! My hands were shaking for about 10 minutes after the final had finished and the grin on mine and Terry's faces lasted even longer !

Well done Terry for making it one of the most fun races I've ever been involved in.

Special mention to Peter: you need to calm down on the rostrum and most definitely don't shout at people to "MOVE" especially when the thing you're shouting at is actually a barrier you've hit because you turned in too early. That just makes you look silly :p

Once in a blue moon

2008-07-11T06:21:00.002+01:00

I don't normally get to race at Maritime normally as it's a bit too far to get to after work on a Thursday evening, but I had a day off this week so I headed down there for the evening.

The facility that the guys have puts together down there is one of the best in the south east (if not the whole of the UK).

The usual race director is on holiday at the moment, so there were a few glitches in getting the meeting underway, but once that was done everything seemed to run smoothly.

I was placed in the third heat for qualifying and managed to squeeze into the B final on the 7th grid position after three rounds.

In the final however, there were a few more incidents than I'd like and I ended up going from third all the way back to 8th by the time it was all said and done. I had half a rear wing (it's amazing how much difference that makes) and one of the driveshafts had come apart so whenever I hit the brakes the car would spin 180 degrees. I was lucky nobody had a really bad crash with me towards the end of the race as the car was all over the place, pulling left then snatching to the right.

STCC Round 5 (Bashley)

2008-07-01T07:54:00.001+01:00

WHAT A WEEKEND !

This track is truly awesome, technical, tight, difficult to drive, rewarding. It's got everything you could ask for.

I was very worried however, when I checked out the club website the week before I went and saw that there were climbs and dips in the track.. I mean WTF ???

When I got there, I realised just how much elevation change there was and then it hit me... This was going to be a hard track to actually get round !

This was compounded by the fact that I had a modified motor in the car, let me tell you, the way those things shift, you can really scare yourself as the track is quite bumpy.

I ended up missing out on the A final by about a second, so almost a repeat of Friday night's racing at Sidcup "Close, but no cigar"

In the B final, as there were only 12 entries for Mod, Charlie and myself had the track to ourselves for our 3 finals. If you remember the last time we had the track to ourselves (Off-road regional) we certainly put on a show :)

This time round however, we decided that we'd race using our cars for a change.

1st leg: Charlie wins by a lap
2nd leg: I win by a few seconds
3rd leg: All to play for, and Charlie got his arse handed to him (sorry mate)

Championship rounds: Chris 3: Charlie 1
Championship point: All square

Special Mention to Billy (you know why) and Alex, for showing us how to drive it properly round that track.

Next up: SNETTERTON !!! COME ON !!!

Sidcup Round 5

2008-06-28T10:00:00.002+01:00

This was the first night with the 008 after having to get a new 13.5 motor (sensor failed).

I set the car up using a bit of guess work, and tried it out on the track during practice with the new motor.

It was really REALLY good in practice, but I just wanted to calm it down a little so I changed the gear ratio slightly.

During the qualifying runs myself and Jordan were in the same heat and we had our usual close racing, but this week we managed to really push it :) We were lapping around the track no more than 1-2cm from each others cars. We were swapping the lead between us for a good few laps and I could hear a few ooh's and ahhh's coming from the pit area from Charlie and Marlon who were watching our races.

At the end of the qualifiers, I had ended up 7th and despite repeated begging/blackmailing/backhanders etc I couldn't get a 7 car A Final to be allowed. I wanted this as Terry and Charlie were both in the A final and I wanted to race against them.

The three of us were no more than .200 apart in the qualifying list, so it would have been a great final for the three of us :)

In the final, I ended up winning but was shaking like a leaf by the end of it. It felt great :)

All in all, a good showing for the '008 first time out, Roll on the next round !

Championship Rounds: Chris 2: Charlie 3
Championship Points: Chris 493: Charlie 488

New bling

2008-06-07T12:06:00.003+01:00

We're well into the Summer Racing season now, and I've treated myself to a new car. I chose an Xray T2'008 as I have a 007 model, so I know how they work, and a lot of the spares that I have will fit the newer model.
Here's some pictures of the build process, I'm hoping to run it tomorrow at the STCC meeting at West London.

The Box :)

Box Contents

Notice that the chassis comes with the bulkheads already fitted. These have to be removed and the chassis prepared by sanding the edges, then sealing with CA (glue).

A closer shot of the chassis as it comes in the box.

Here's the parts bags in order, ready to begin.

After building bag 1, the suspension arms are fitted.

Bag 2 contains the drivetrain items, such as the Spur gear, pulleys, spool and a Differential. The kit comes with 38 & 16 tooth pulleys, but also 34/20 for lower ratio gearing (2.375 versus 1.77 internal)

After fitting the top deck, shock towers, and camber links.

Close up of the rear hub and camber link.

Close up of the front steering arms and camber links.

Anti roll bar for the rear.

Anti roll bar for the front.

Here's something that's not in the kit, but saves and absolute AGE when building shocks. It's a vacuum pump. Simply fill the shocks with oil, put the lid on, then use the plunger that comes with it to remove the air from the shocks.

Completed front and rear (air-free) shocks :)

Completed bar electronics.

I have built a couple of xray cars, and been working on them for about 18 months now, and I have to say, this kit is really top notch ! It went together very easily, with all the parts fitting first time, and no fettling needed (other than the edges of the chassis).

Let's hope it doesn't fall apart on the track !

Summer Season

2008-03-30T16:21:00.002+01:00

The weather is beginning to pick up (no laughing at the back !) and that means outdoor racing instead of carpet for the Summer.

A few of us have decided to run in a couple of championships this year and try our hand at modified properly.

The calendar is as follows:

28/03/2008 Sidcup
30/03/2008 West Kent
04/04/2008 Sidcup
06/04/2008 West London (Outdoor)
11/04/2008 Sidcup
20/04/2008 West London (Outdoor)
25/04/2008 Sidcup
27/04/2008 Eastbourne (STCC)
09/05/2008 Sidcup
11/05/2008 West London (Outdoor)
18/05/2008 Brookland (STCC)
23/05/2008 Sidcup
06/06/2008 Sidcup
07/06/2008 West London (STCC)
08/06/2008 West London (STCC)
20/06/2008 Sidcup
29/06/2008 Bashley (STCC)
04/07/2008 Sidcup
18/07/2008 Sidcup
27/07/2008 Snetterton (STCC)
23/08/2008 West London (KO GP)
24/08/2008 West London (KO GP)
25/08/2008 West London (KO GP)
21/09/2008 Colchester (STCC)
28/09/2008 West London (Outdoor)
05/10/2008 Ipswich (STCC)
12/10/2008 West London (Outdoor)
23/11/2008 West London (Outdoor)
14/12/2008 West London (Outdoor)
11/01/2009 West London (Outdoor)
08/02/2009 West London (Outdoor)
08/03/2009 West London (Outdoor)

A full calendar (with more to be added). This year is going to be fun !!!

All over

2008-03-30T16:10:00.002+01:00

I ran a brushless motor for the first time today in anger (well not so much anger, but for a full meeting rather than messing or getting snowed on)

I was a little concerned about running it as I normally race the 19turn brushed class at West Kent on Sundays, but asked and as there was a free spot, jumped on the chance to run.

I was out in the first heat, and had a decent run first time out, but the back of the car felt a little slippery so after I finished I came back to the pits and tightened the rear diff slightly based on a suggestion from Terry (thanks mate !). I had finished with 20 laps in 310 at the end of this one narrowly missing out to Daniel who was a few tenths quicker.

Round 2 was an improvement with the rear diff being tightened, and I ended up getting 21 laps this time round.

After Rounds 1 & 2 my cars' ride height was apparently too low, so I stood by the scrutineering desk and raised the ride height until it was acceptable. I went out for round 3 and had a good run other than one or two mistakes, and improved again. Still 21 laps, but it was faster this time, as I'd changed the gearing slightly for a little more top speed.

This put me in 9th for the stock placings, and 2nd in the B final, which I ended up third in when all was said and done.

My observations about Brushless Motors... they don't seem powerful and they sound a little bit strange when you spin them up, but BOY DO THEY FLY !

The big thing about them is that there's minimal "spin-up" time when you're coming out of a corner, so you have full power every time as soon as you need it. The braking on the Speed Passion motor I have is at least as good as any brushed motor I've tried, if not better !

The weird thing though, and something I'll have to get used to fairly quickly, is that they do not slow down like a brushed motor, they simply keep on rolling... as I found out when I let off for the end of the straight and ploughed into a wall that was nicely positioned. Once I started using the brakes again, I got a bit more used to it and once I got more comfortable it was fantastic.

F2 Champ !

2008-03-29T16:07:00.000Z

Friday night was the final race night at Sidcup in the Winter Season (Round 10).

I had sort of worked out points and was sitting in first place in the F2 table.
I ran the car and got close to making the A final, but missed out due to some very very good driving by the guys who got in there, well done lads !

I ended up in the B final and finished it this time, which is always a bonus. I ended up on 99 points for the evening, which means that my overall points don't change, but I stayed in 1st for the championship, so will be moving up to F1 for next season

Special Mentions:
Vince: Good going mate, and a good showing in your first A final !
Daniel: Great season mate, let's do it all over again next time round !
Charlie: Unluckiest guy I know, missed out on moving up to TQ by one point !

Ready to Race

2008-02-24T16:20:00.006Z

The buggy is now built and although I had some issues with wiring (that thing is a tight fit), it's all quite neat and tidy now.
I painted the shell this morning and mounted it this afternoon

Next Sunday is the first race opportunity that I'll have with it, but for now running it around the back garden will have to do.

Lesson for the day: Overtaking

2008-01-20T22:21:00.001Z

Well well well... Sunday comes round and that means it's a day for racing ! :)

Final result ? 3rd in the B final on 21 laps with .015 seconds between 3rd and 4th place today...positions changed on the last lap so that I moved from 4th to 3rd. I'm most happy about the way I overtook people today as I was bashed and bumped into last place on the 1st lap.

After the trip to Sevenoaks last weekend I spent a couple of hours on Saturday setting the car up and noticed a possible reason for the belt flipping over in the front of the car. The screws that hold the top deck in place had come loose at the layshaft end and worked themselves completely loose, nowhere to be seen !

This meant that the spur gear had come loose and was twisted at an angle, causing the belt to flip over.... or so I thought. More on this later :)

I left a little earlier than normal with the plan being to pick Charlie up and grab some McD's breakfast along the way. This was going well until I was parked up outside the McD's waiting for Charlie to get the food. The radio switched off and all sorts of lights came on in the dash cluster, not good !

I managed to get the car home (idling along as there was nothing when I pressed the accelerator) and transferred the gear to another car.

We still arrived on time though as we'd left about 1/2 hour earlier.

Setup for today:
Camber link/Quick roll centre position: 3 all round
Front shocks: Hole 3 (middle)
Rear shocks: Hole 4 (standing up)
Motor: Checkpoint Money
Gearing: 82 spur, 20 pinion, then changed to a 21 pinion after the 1st run as the car felt slow.

Charlie's car had a problem in practice in that he had steering issues, with the car turning more one way than the other, so we took it all apart, reset the EPA, DR and Trim settings on the radio, then set it up from scratch. He was pleased with it, and from what I saw of his races, he had plenty of steering, the car looked fast and stable !

My own day wasn't so great... started with 19 laps and felt very slow, but I think it was more me than the car. I was going too deep into the corners, so decided that I'd try to get a little closer to the apexes for the 2nd run as well as some changes to setup.

Changes: Turned the speedo power up, went up a pinion from 20 to 21 as this seems to be the sweet spot for the West Kent track with the Checkpoint motor for me.

2nd run came and went with an improvement for me after the 5 minutes were up. Up to 21 laps (almost 22). I had noticed that the belt had flipped over yet again, so although the spur from last week had something to do with it, it wasn't everything !
After fixing it (flip it back over) and tightening it, I had a closer look at the belt and the drivetrain and noticed that the power capacitor was rubbing on the belt at the bottom and might have been pushing it out. I moved the cap up away from where it was and cable tied it to some wires that were routed.
I decided that I'd leave other things as they were for the final qualifying session and just try to be a little closer again on the apexes.

I had terrible inteference in the 3rd session with the car going through a "dead spot" on the track, which I think may have been to do with the power cap being next to the wires, but I can't be sure. I didn't have a problem with the belt flipping over this time though, so that's a good thing :)

In the final I started in 5th and was knocked about during the first half of the lap, so that I was in last place coming down the straight. The car felt quick, but I felt like I was fighting against the lack of grip (maybe the tires have had enough now... 11 runs on them so far) I managed to get myself back into 3rd place and then clipped the apex of one of the corners to let the guy from 4th through...
I was about 1/2 a lap down by the time I got going again and had to really push it to get back close enough to have a go at passing him. By the end of the straight I was close enough to him that I could pass if I got a good run into a corner, but was too close at the first corner, so went through the first two into the 3rd corner behind him. Coming out of the 3rd corner I gave it some throttle and instead of letting off going through the high speed chicane, I went on a line which would have been the inside for the 6th corner, and outbraked him into the apex. I pulled away ever so slightly coming out of it, and was over the line in 0.15 seconds less than him :) 3rd place means that extra point and I need every one of them with Vince flying away in 2nd at the moment !

There is a video of the final, which I'm processing at the moment. I'll add a link when it's done

After Friday must come the weekend

2008-01-13T21:38:00.000Z

On the weekend that Sidcup races, there's also a race meet at Sevenoaks. This is done on polished wooden floor using mini pin tyres, so is much more like drifting.

The idea for this type of racing is to set the car up as softly as possible and keep on the throttle to help you get around the corners.

Changes to the car from friday night:

Laid the shock towers all the way over from the positions of 1 in at the back and 2 in at the front.

Set the quick roll centres to their lowest setting (1) from their original setting (3)
Remove rear bulkhead screws in the chassis for a little more flex.

I was placed in heat 2 (of 4) and the first run went very well indeed with me getting 18 laps. There was lots of bashing and bouncing off the barriers though, which didn't really help. Note: This was me bashing and bouncing, no fault of anyone else.

2nd Run: Steve, Charlie and Vince were having a word with me before the heat and said that I could do a lot better in the race, and I DID :) Squeezed out 20 laps by using charlie's advice and blipping the throttle to throw the back end of the car around coming into the corners rather than my usual brake, accelerate technique.

3rd Run: Went out with the intention of trying to do a little better, but noticed that the car slowed a lot compared to the other runs. I thought it may have been the motors that had gone off (needed a cut/brushes etc) but it turned out that I had flipped the front drive belt over. I got 19 laps on 300.something (that meant I almost had 20 laps as 300 is the cut off) so I was happy enough other than the belt flipping over.

Final: my 20 laps qualifying had put me into the B final with Vince, Charlie etc so I knew that i had my work cut out for me. Steve had noticed that the change i made had the camber on the front at a very weird angle... it was positive 4 or 5 degrees. He brought Terry over to laugh at me :) We fixed this and I set it roughly to 2 degrees negative before going out. I had the same "belt flipping over" problem in the final, which meant I only had 2 wheel drive, so I ended up dead last :( I was happy for Charlie though as he had damaged his hand playing Lacrosse the day before and didn't think he'd be able to race. He had also broken his car during qualifying and had to use a club car for the finals. He beat me :) Well done mate, good run !

I must find a way to shim the spool up at the front as I think that's what's causing the belt to flip over...watch this space

Note: Steve's serpent is still for sale, if anyone is interested, contact me and I'll give you details on how to get in touch with him. It's in good condition and nearly new.

Pic of the 3rd Heat about to start (note the interested looks)

Pic from the A Final grid:

Seconds out, Round 5

2008-01-11T23:47:00.000Z

It's Friday and it's race night, that means one thing: Sidcup !
My folks are visiting at the moment and I dragged my dad along to see what it's all about. He seemed to be surprised that so many people of all ages were involved, both male and female (more male than female though, I guess that's how it goes with car stuff).

The prep:
After last sunday's good run I felt the car was running well enough not to make any changes to it, but I knew I needed to swap the motor out and decided to give it a rebuild while I was at it. I decided that for a change I'd use some new brushes as well, so cut the comm, cleaned the motor out, replaced the brushes and then broke it in using a trusted technique (8 mins at 1.5v) I could see that the motor was pulling 3.5 - 4 amps which was quite good. After the break-in procedure was done, I put the motor on the dyno that I've got an spun it up for a test run. It peaked at about 8 amps, but the more important number for me was the revs, all 38,000 of them :)

Remember, this is 27 turn brushed motors we're talking about. Somehow I've managed to get myself a freak motor because a "good" stock motor revs somewhere between 28,000rpm and 30,000rpm. I have three 19 turn motors (which are supposed to be quicker) that rev to 32/33k rpm.

As the rebuild was officially "complete", I put the motor in the car and headed off for the club. Once there, I spent a little time chatting with a few of the lads and introducing my dad to them before we got started for practice laps and heats. Before I had run the car, I had come up with a crazy idea that I'd put a ratio on the car that was lower than normal. This didn't really work as the car felt sluggish out of the corners and couldn't really get up to top speed on the straight. After a few laps, the car seemed to be handling well so I simply changed back to my standard ratio for this club (8.2) and left it at that.

Heat 1:
Had a nice little battle with Gary and we both ended up on 23 laps. We took each other out, but as is always the case between the two of us, we waited for each other to be back in the running before moving on.

Heat 2: This heat was very very good indeed :) Gary had out qualified me in the heat previous, so he was starting 1st and I started 2nd. The difference between 1st and 2nd off the grid is about a second or two. I followed him for 22 laps no more than 5 or 6 inches from his rear bumper and as I had closed the gap to less than a second the announcements were coming "in the lead car 3 (myself), then car 2 (Gary)" we were both confused as we'd lapped everyone else a couple of times at this stage and we both knew Gary was in front, not me. In the final couple of laps, Gary pulled away and finished on 24 laps, as did I 0.95 seconds behind him !

Heat 3: Gary and I had a chat in the time between our heats and had decided that as we were 1 second away from getting that magical 25th lap that we'd go for it this time. No more letting each other go, no more waiting :)
Steve, (who is selling his Serpent if anyone's interested) came and gave me a pep talk as well and said "Go for it, just push it as much as you can"
The heat started in the same order, Gary 1st and me 2nd but this time Gary overshot the first corner and got caught up in the barrier. I had a clear track to run on ! About halfway into the heat I felt like I had a REALLY quick lap as it was one where I felt i got everything right, but of course I had no idea until the end. I managed not to crash and not have any tussles with the other cars, and when the buzzer finished I listened for the announcement.
I had finished first in the heat, and then i heard the magical words "Improvement for car 3" I had got my 25 laps !!! :)

One of the next heats up was one that Charlie was in and tonight (as with sunday) his car seemed to be going REALLY REALLY well. As he was racing I looked over at the computer to see how he was doing. "Predicted 26 laps" I thought to myself "Come on Charlie, you deserve this one mate, it's been too long"
I don't know if he's being punished by the racing gods or not, but by some bizarre sequence of events his shell became lodged (yes lodged) in the track barrier. The marshall who was nearest simply could not free the car from the track. He eventually got it out and Charlie went on his way though, but the damage was already done :( Sorry Charlie, it's not fair mate !!!
The result ? a FIFTY TWO second lap (this is on a track where the quick guys are doing 8/9 second laps)

Finals:
No change for the finals, except that I completely blew it and ended up last with some problem in the drivetrain. I've not checked it yet, and to be fair I really don't care, qualifying on 25 laps made my night !

Back into the routine

2008-01-06T22:45:00.000Z

Today was a busy day !
Racing at West Kent
Charlie's birthday
My Dad's birthday

I overslept this morning and was woken up by my phone telling me Charlie was calling me at about 10 past seven... I was supposed to pick him up at 7, so apologies Charlie, my bad mate !

I got ready and stuck the kettle on while I loaded my gear into the car, then came in and filled up a flask with coffee ready to go.
I was at Charlie's house for about 7:30 and we headed off to the track. Along the way we saw Vince and drove along with him for the rest of the journey.

When we arrived the playground was frosted over so very slippery ! Not the best thing for carrying a shedload of equipment about but we managed in the end :)

We set up in our usual place and got everything plugged in and ready to race for about 8:30 so at least we weren't rushing any more...
I had decided to use some new tyres for this meeting so I put them on the car and went out to practice for a bit, which is something I don't usually do as I tend not to make setup changes unless there's a problem with the car. Not today though ! As soon as i gave it some throttle it shot off at and angle and slid around the track.... note to self: New tyres need to be scrubbed in first !

It was the usual fare in the first heat, couldn't drive for toss but made it round. Got 20 laps in the first heat and Steve (who wasn't driving today as he wanted a day off) was watching. I asked him what he thought afterwards as I was having trouble with it steering too quickly. The car felt good, and had the right amount of steering, but it was changing direction too quickly for me. I'm used to a nice, easy to drive, slightly understeering car that's predictable.
Steve has an immense amount of knowledge and talent for both driving and setup. He's still the only person I know that can set a car up without gauges !
His suggestion was to soften the front end by laying the shocks down by one or two holes and see how it felt. The theory behind car setup can be found here. It's pretty much all about weight transfer in an rc car, and his idea was that laying the shocks down would make the car pitch a bit more coming into the corners and soften the response of the steering a little.
It certainly worked as it got me an extra 2 laps !

I was geared at 82/19 for the first two heats, so went up to 82/20 for the 3rd qualyfier with the intention of keeping the power down for a bit longer around the track... It worked well as I had the fastest lap in my heat (12.29 from a 12.68 previously), but didn't quite squeeze the 23 laps I wanted. When all the results were in I found that I was in 4th place on the grid for the B final, which is not bad for me at all.

The final went well except for a few mistakes and crashes (some of which were my fault and some which weren't). 1st place finished with 22 laps in 301 seconds, I was in 3rd on 22/309 or something, so as you can imagine it was very close all the way round :D

Slight change for 2008

2008-01-02T23:04:00.000Z

Three of us are going to try off-road racing in 2008 and we've got together and order three kits so that we're all using the same one (sharing spares etc)

We've gone for an Academy SB V2 Pro Carbon, which is a bit of a mouthful I know. I'm going to call my one "Ernie" for short I think.

The spec is as follows:

Battery may be mounted as a standard stick pack, side-by-side pack, 3 x 3, 4 x 2, or 5 x 1 saddle pack. This capability will allow drivers to balance the buggy depending on specific track conditions and driving style

Aluminum center brace can be moved to 3 different positions changing the way the chassis flexes, a second brace can be added for ULTIMATE rigidity

Motor can be mounted on either the left or right side of the chassis

Main chassis, upper deck and battery strap are made out of thick black woven carbon fiber

Machined purple anodized aluminum motor mount with traditional 2 screw mounting for more adjustability with pinion and included spur gears. Six spur gears included: 70,72,74,76,78,80

Adjustable slipper clutch is easy to tune by simply using the included wrench to tighten or loosen the dual slipper pads and plates without disassembling any part of the car

Ball differentials with out-drive saver rings front and rear

Academy's famous Teflon coated aluminum oil filled shocks

Modular bulkhead with built-in 10o kick-up

Adjustable polished aluminum T6 Grade tie-rods all round

One way bearing on center shaft for superb steering upon corner entrance

Universal drive-shafts on all four corners

Full ball bearings throughout, no plastic or oil-ite bushings in this car!

NEW Hard suspension material, with additional hole in rear arm for short or long arm suspension geometry

Lexan Body, Wing and Under-tray.

(Motor and other electronics not included)

And a nice picture of the beast :)

West London 30th December 2007 (addendum)

2008-01-02T22:41:00.001Z

Charlie wanted a mention, so here goes..
He crashed... lots :) (only kidding, he didn't)

To be fair, he ran really well until the fan he was borrowing was taken back and he couldn't race anymore.

Unlucky mate, but a good day for a change !!

West London 30th December 2007

2008-01-01T23:06:00.001Z

The meet was a "Bonus" which meant that the normal rules were relaxed and we could run Modified motors along with Lipo batteries. Let me tell you, this was SCARY FAST !!!

A good day was had by everyone especially when I shredded a tyre and ended up driving the second half of the final on three wheels !

Race Report:
The track was "greasy" so tyre choice was critical, you needed something that would be soft enough to heat up quickly, but also would last the race and not get ruined by the end. Most people went with CS 22's (CS = Manufacturer) but as I had none and also the usual trackside shops weren't there, I went with an old set of VTEC 24's for the first heat.
There was 7 heats and 3 rounds of qualifying per heat.

In the 1st heat I did 15 laps, but the car was all over the place, when on the brakes all the weight shifted to the front and made the back very skittish, so after that run, i softened the suspension slightly. I didn't really like the tyres as they had seen better days... so i went up to a set of VTEC 27's as well.

2nd run I had a better 4 minutes or so, but then the car seemed to get very very skittish. I found out later that I had popped a driveshaft pin out (minor fix, just put it back in) this meant I had 3-wheel drive and only managed 15 laps again (top guys were doing 19) so I was well off the pace.

3rd run I softened the car even more and used tyre additive as the track had dried somewhat by now. This one went much better and I managed to almost get 17 laps out of it (missed it by a couple of seconds). This meant that I had qualified 9th in the modified class for the day, not too bad for me as I'd only driven "mod" once before :)

There was a a 2-leg final that weren't very eventful, although I had a good battle with one of the lads that went with us. We were very close all the way through until the last lap where he slipped on the last corner and i nipped through to take 2nd place.

The 2nd leg of the final though was a much more eventful affair :)

I was in 3rd on the grid and Stevie (one of the lads who came with me) was on pole. He was using a 4 turn brushless motor and I had a 10 turn brushed (equiv roughly to a 5 turn brushless) so we had very similar levels of power available. We both run the same speed controller so we both had launch control to play with on the start line :)

The countdown began and we both activated it ready for the off. The buzzer went and we both hit full throttle but he got a little out of shape into the first sweeper and I had caught him by the 2nd corner !

We raced like this for a couple of minutes until I heard a nasty noise from my car... I had no idea what it was as I couldn't see anything bulging out of the body, but it sounded like something had come off... I carried on as it was the last race of the day, but by now everyone could see and hear what was happening... even race control said something, then he realised what it was and said "Looks like someone's lost a tyre" I struggled round on three wheels and the car once again got very very skittish, wanted to do a 180 when i turned left and was more like drifting than racing.. That's fine if it's what you're going for, but on a wet track at ~50mph ? no thanks :)

I managed to get to the last lap and was fishtailing down the straight until just before the start/finish line when the car completely died, no power !!!
Thankfully a marshall nearby picked it up and waved it over the finish line so that I could at least finish the race :) I think he felt sorry for me as I'd done 10+ laps on three wheel at that point hehehe

I ended up 2nd again in that final, but only god knows how.
I found out later what the lack of power problem was, the brushes in the motor were worn completely and needed to be replaced. They are said to last 6-8 runs, but I had used them for 11 before that final :)

These are a few images of the day at West London Racing Centre

This is a little idea of what goes on at a race meet...

One of the lads here is hard at work making lots of changes to the car setup, while the other is... uhm.... unimpressed

The Garage !!!

Can I help you !?!??

New shell for racing with

2007-12-29T21:00:00.000Z

This is the latest shell that I've painted for racing with. It came out really well except for the failed attempt at drop shadowing.... I'll have to work on that I think.

What a weekend !!!

2007-07-28T08:57:00.000+01:00

I went to Scotland to watch the Open last weekend with 3 friends.
Here's the Itinerary:

Thu: Head to a friends place where we're all meeting up

Fri (the longest day):
1:30am Leave his place and head for the airport.
6:50am flight leaves.
8:00am Drive from the airport to the 1st golf course of the trip (We have booked to play two rounds)

Sat: Go to Carnoustie to watch the open

Sun: Go to Carnoustie to watch the open

Mon: Play one round at another course before making a mad dash for the airport to come home.

A pretty tight schedule you'll agree, but couple it with the fact I had no sleep from Thursday 3:30am and you begin to get the picture :)

All in all though, it was a memorable Open this year and even more so for the four of us as we were right there in the thick of it !

Pain in the ...

2007-07-17T21:24:00.000+01:00

I've been having chronic back pain for a few months now and it progressed to the point where it was causing me pain in my legs. This is the beginning of Sciatica, so I figured it's about time I went to see an expert about it.

I've now been to three therapists (physio and osteopaths)

The first one was at my local GP and the woman relieved the pain and gave me some exercises to do to carry on.
The second one was an Osteopath that was recommended to me by a friend. I went to see him and he showed me that my spine is tilted and twisted to one side, causing it to compress the Sciatic nerve, causing the pain in my leg.
The third one I found by chance and had already booked it by the time I had gone to see Therapist No. 2. I went to see Therapist No. 1 this evening and he was the most thorough so far, looking at my posture, my golf swing and testing my movements. He is also convinced that it is to do with my posture at work sitting in the chair. He did one test that really worried me though. This was to measure the angle of the curvature of my lower back. He explained that the normal amount of curvature is 35-45 degrees, so 17 either side of the mid point. Mine was 10 above that point and 3 below it, so almost straight ! That's obviously not good, so he's asked me to stop training and playing golf until we work through it. I've been assured that it is reversible, although it will take some time for it to fully heal.

Up and Down

2007-07-14T16:02:00.000+01:00

Had a strange night at the last RC Car race meet...
During the 1st qualifying round I broke a diff blade, so was effectively racing on 3 wheels.
No problem, replace that diff you say, well yes, but as the replacements are brand new and have never been run before it took me another two qualifying rounds to adjust the tightness correctly.

For the final I decided that I'd change the motor and the gearing and just give it some beans. Normally you'd expect a small indoor carpet track like this to warrant a gear ratio of 8.6 or something around that area. I went for 7.3 which is leaning more towards a higher top speed.

My madness paid off though as I won the final I made it into (admittedly, it was the D-Final but still a win is a win)

Disappointment

2007-07-14T16:00:00.000+01:00

I decided I'd give the Nintendo Wii a shot after seeing some cool stuff at E3. So along I went to my local Game store and picked one up.
Very easy to setup and get going with, but then...
The damn thing won't connect to the internet !
I've replaced the console and also replaced my internet router and still it refuses to connect. I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth keeping now.
Times have changed when it comes to gaming... if you can't play online with voice comms, then you're somewhat dead in the water.

The time has come

2007-07-13T19:00:00.000+01:00

With the smoking ban in full swing and the way I feel most mornings when I wake up, it's time to quit ...
I've signed up for a big bike ride in September which is 140kms around Kent, so hopefully this will give me the motivation to kick the habit and do some good training between now and then.

Interesting times

2007-07-08T21:33:00.000+01:00

Got a text from and old ex-work colleague saying he'd changed his number, so we decided to meet up for a beer... I remember now what it used to be like ! Ended up rolling in at 5am after missing the last train out of the city.

All was not lost though, I met a really nice girl who came along and we got on really well (at least I think we did) so who knows :)

oh dear

2007-07-07T16:00:00.000+01:00

Don't try to play golf after a night out with only 3 hours of sleep, it won't work !

Back into the swing of things

2007-06-29T21:31:00.000+01:00

Got back from holiday on thursday after sitting in a cab from the airport (30 minute drive) for 2 and a half hours ! What a muppet driver....

I'm inspired now to do a lot better in the Triathlon for next year, but at least I finished it this time around !

Almost there

2007-06-18T20:14:00.000+01:00

I went to Sevenoaks yesterday to try out the new 19 Turn motor and the thing FLEW !!! It was keeping up with a 7 Turn modified motor for acceleration, I'm not anywhere near as good a driver as the guy with the Mod motor (Vince) so he was 1/2 lap ahead of me at least by the end, but I was happy that our two cars were the only one making that growling noise down the back straight

When I got home I set about packing up my bike. I couldn't get the wheels in the new dhb box I bought, no matter which way I had the damn things.

I left it at that for Sunday and came home from work on Monday night determined to get the wheels in the box. After a few attempts I decided to take the water bottle out of the cage (although this was advised by most of the articles I'd read). Lo and behold, the wheels now both fit !

I'm chuffed to bits :)

Turning point ?

2007-06-17T07:41:00.001+01:00

Decided that if I'm gonna do this RC stuff, then I'd better do it properly ! It's the summer season now, so that means lots of places are going to be running outdoors.
Haven't been to the local place in a while, but I plan to go back after I come back from Lanza.
New purchases:

Team Magic Hauler bag
Picnic table
Parts/Tyre box
Team Checkpoint "Money" 19T Motor
Boca Bearings full set

Will head down to Sevenoaks today and see how I get on. I've rebuilt the Team Almighty stock motor and it runs like a rocket in it. Last time I was at Sevenoaks, I was keeping up with a 19 Turn !

New Track

2007-06-17T07:40:00.000+01:00

9th Feb: Went to sidcup with the new T2R.
Was going well, was setup as per the kit with an 8.2 ratio.
Qualified well through round1 and 2 from the heats, but then crashed in heat 3. Broke the Steering Arm, Diff Blade and C-Hub from the right hand side.Ordered Alu parts as replacements, but also have composite ones just in case.

Found I had a faulty transmitter which caused the crash. spoke to Biggin hill about it (where I got it from) and they weren't much help. Guy on the phone had an attitude and said"well there's a reason you didn't come back to us isn't there"Got a feeling he's gonna close down and he's pissed about it.Certainly won't be getting any more of my hard-earned.Fuck him if he thinks he can treat customers like that. The radio was 2 weeks old ! to the day !!!Will order faskolor paints online if I can't get them anywhere else close by.

16th Feb: Went down to spec racing and took the car with me. Ian looked over it and gave me a list of changes to make:

Shock Pistons (3 hole, drilled to 1.2mm)
Shocks more upright, front and back.
Change oil to 40wt from 30Remove two screws from top deck at front.
Remove two screws from top deck at back .

25th Feb: Took the car back to Sidcup.Went out to practice and found that the body pin was stuck in the motor. This burned the motor quite badly. Still ran it for the rest of the meet, but the car felt really slow at some points. No breakages this time, and I'm starting to learn how to "drive rather than point" with some nice smooth cornering and braking.I got into the 'F' final and ended up winning it by a lap or two.

26th Feb: Took the motor out and went through it, it's really badly burned Ended up getting a Team Almighty one from Spec racing instead. Have put it in the car, we'll see how we get on.

2007 Holiday season

2007-06-17T06:35:00.000+01:00

I'm off on the first holiday of the year soon. I'm very excited about it, but also disappointed a little at the same time. I'm going to a sports resort with 9 friends. It may sounds like there's 10 guys going, but oh no ! It would never be that simple. I'll explain...

There are two distinct groups of us

Under 30's (which is where I am until further notice)
Over 35's

These groups are loosely based on two brothers and their circle of friends, but it goes further than that. We (almost) all lead very active lives with regards to Sport, tennis, cricket, badminton, running, cycling, track & field, weights, yoga, you name it we've played/tried/failed at it.

The two team captains (brothers) have come up with the idea that we should have a challenge to see who the fittest team is, with the losing team having to perform a forfeit chosen by the winning team. This challenge was made roughly 9 months ago which is plenty of time for everyone to train and prepare.
The thing is.. there's 8 of the 10 people who are now injured as a result !!!

I'm one of the lucky ones who isn't injured, but the ailments range from bad backs to twisted ankles. It's a real shame that the guys have injuries as everyone was really looking forward to the challenge and avoiding the forfeits along the way.

Hobbies

2007-06-17T06:32:00.000+01:00

Why is it that people take up hobbies ?
Is it enjoy their spare time, or fill it up ? I never figured this out, but still...here's a few of mine.

Golf Club making/Club fitting
Racing Radio Controlled Cars
Video games
Playing Golf
Swimming, Cycling, Running (usually known as Triathlon, but not when I huff and puff round the course...)

Skills upgrade

2007-06-17T06:26:00.000+01:00

I'm a programmer and have been for almost ten years now. My skills are somewhat out of date now. I mean sure, I've picked things up along the way, but the core set of languages I use hasn't changed.

I recently picked up a few books on C Sharp, with a view to finally bringing my skills into the 21st Century.

I can't believe how easy it's been so far, I must be missing something ! I'm glad I finally got my butt in gear and decided to do this.

Finally took the leap

2007-06-17T06:19:00.000+01:00

I joined a local club this year and I have to say....
I'd never liked the idea of the stuffiness of some people in these places, as I'd previously heard, but it's nowhere near as bad as I thought.

The club and the course itself are awesome on the whole, now to work on getting my handicap down !

Handicap currently: 18