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 !?!??
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment