Thurs June 25, 2009
Well very shortly I will be on my way to the Land of Oz! I'm looking forward to seeing some Kangaroos, Wallaby's, Great White Sharks, Sydney, Great Barrier Reef, and of Course....Doing some RACING!!!
It's set to be a very nice race with a handful of top drivers from America making the journey along with the majority of Australia's racing scene!! The weather as of now looks to be perfect with temps in the mid 70's and sunshine aplenty! (Don't we all wish we had winters like that!) haha.
If I have access to a computer when I am down there I will be sure to update everyone on how it's going. Otherwise I will have a nice long blog to write out when I return! I'll be back on July 7th so everyone here in the states have a wonderful 4th of July! I'll miss the fireworks for sure! It is possible that by the time I get back I will be a few inches shorter due to the 14 hour flights and the fact that I don't really fit in an airline seat! haha Guess time will tell!
Off we go...........
Wednesday July 1, 2009
As my Fiance likes to celebrate as many holidays as possible she has deemed the first of every month 'calandar flipping day'. So from the land of Oz I'd like to wish you all a very happy Calandar flipping day!
Things have been going great on my trip to the Land Down Under! I came down with Carlton Epps of R/C Pro on a 14 hour Journey down and across the Pacific Ocean! I got lucky and got the best economy seat on the plane, Exit row Isle! (2 rows of seats missing in front of me giving me legroom to spare!) So thusfar I am still the same height! :-P
We arrived nice and early, around 6:30 am on Saturday morning and our gracious host Paul Cornwell was there to greet us at the airport and begin our week and a half trip together. On Saturday we did a lot of running around getting needed supplies for the event to be able to run without a hitch. But before we did that we went searching for Kangaroos and lo-and-behold we found 2 of them along with a little Joey in mamma's pouch only a block away from Paul's house! I snapped up a couple of quick picks before they sprung away, but that moment alone made the whole trip worth while!
On Sunday morning we got up bright and early and headed for the airport once again. This time our destination was a short 1hr 15mn to the face of Australia...Sydney. Once we landed we headed strait for a club race meeting and had a little fun. Paul and I both brought one vehicle, one starter box, and a set of tools. We said if we broke, oh well, we were there to just have a good time! The track was fun with an approx 125 x 200 dimension and a semi-slick surface that made drifting a lot of fun! ;-)
By the end of the day I was allowing a handful of people to drive my 801X buggy and as has been a common theme they all had nothing but rave reviews about it to me. Comments from "it's as stable as a truggy" to "it's got a great amount of steering". I had a great time at the venue and the 801X was a great hit for a country who had never seen the buggy yet.
Monday morning we awoke with sightseeing on the agenda. We headed off to downtown Sydney and took a stroll over to Darling Harbor where we borded a ferry to take us around the harbor for great views of the Harbor Bridge and the World acclaimed Opera House. Carlton and I, with our Cameras at the ready flashed off picture after picture, enjoying the sights and taking in what we had only seen before in travel guides and on TV. We have named ourselves TT's on this trip. ... . Tacky Tourists!. . Everywhere we go our camera's are out and clickin!
We got a special treat in Downtown Sydney as a friend of Pauls works in a high-rise building right on the edge of the harbor. He took us up to the roof (approx 50 stories) to get breathtaking areal shots of the Opera House, Harbor Bridge, and the splendid nearby topography! It was awesome.After our trip downtown we made our way to Bondi beach where we grabed some Kebabs for lunch and sat on the grassy knoll overlooking this famous beach! It was very relaxing and a great view to boot. No sharks to report yet though....shortly thereafter, back to the airport we went for our return trip to Brisbane and 3rd flight in 3 days!
Tuesday morning we headed up the Gold Coast and visited another local track and got about 45 min of runtime on it. It was just open practice and a chance for the locals to meet a couple of us Americans. It was a very fun track and I'm really liking the surfaces down here. They are a bit slick but there is no tire wear and the tracks seem to stay consistent and don't blow out. Guess we will see if that holds true this upcoming weekend as 195 entries lay rubber down for 5 days on the track for the R/C Pro event. After that we headed for Surfers Paradice and while the waves were not out in force that day the ocean was beautiful and it had a Miami type feel to the surroundings.
That's where we stand. I'll be getting up in 5.5 hours and heading over to the track to begin our day of practice. I'm looking forward to running my 801Xt as I haven't yet run it on this trip and I'm just looking forward to getting to run on the 3rd track of this trip. I'm also hoping to allow some more people to run my vehicles and receive there feedback!
Well, I'm off to bed, way past my bedtime! I'd just like to quickly thank Paul Cornwell for all he's done for us so far this trip. For those that don't know how hard it is to put on an event of this magnatude never before seen on this continent, it's a ton of work, and I can't thank him enough for his hospitality and help in making it all happen!
.....Off to the Races.....................
Tuesday July 7, 2009
Wow, what a great trip! I just got back and although the flight was a draining 14 hours, I lucked out again getting an exit row seat! .....Let's recap the racing!
This event had 6, count them 6 (10min) qualifiers! There was a ton of track time! I started out great in Buggy with a TQ in the first round! I wasn't able to TQ again but I managed to qualify second in Buggy behind Adam Drake whom also made the treck. Other Americans making the journey were Jeremy Kortz and Richard Saxton. Adam was on it this past weekend and he just drove brilliantly. I was able to pretty consistently set the fastest lap times in each round but I just wasn't able to put in the consistent runs as I occassionally had trouble over the rhythm section. In truck I managed to qualify 3rd behind Adam and Richard.
I received comments from many people all weekend about how good the cars looked and how they hoped that they would be brought into Australia. They were all so very impressed by the build quality and how durable the vehicles seemed on the track!
This event no-one qualified into the A-mains so we all had to run a 30min Semi-final first. All the Semi's and A-finals were held on Sunday which meant 3 hours of racing in less than a 5 hour period! The Semi's went smoothly as I just wanted to keep my cars intact as I knew there wouldn't be much if any rebuild time for the A-Finals. I just cruised and finished 2nd in both of my Semi's easily making the hour long A-finals.
In the Truck A-Final I didn't have a fast start as I fell back a bit in 4th place. About 5 minutes in I started to find a groove and began to catch up and caught up to Saxton who was running 2nd. I ran in that position until about the 30 min mark when trouble struck. My engine, which had gave me tuning trouble between rounds 5 and 6 in which we had to all of a sudden lean it out over a full turn decided to go the other way and it richened up and killed itself. I must of had something caught in the carburator that caused this erratic tune change and unfortunately it cost me a good finish in Truggy.
In the Buggy A-Final I started out a bit slow as well. I felt a bit tight and had a small battle for 3rd with a local Aussie. Eventually I pulled away from him and set my sights on Kortz in 2nd. I ran a pretty clean race and was only behind Kortz by about 3 seconds on the last lap. I found out after the race that in my rush to prepare my cars and the last minute tires that I found I had fogotten to put holed in my tires and they were thus swollen with air! I'm sure this led to the car feeling a little uneasy. So overall getting on the podium I was pretty pleased!
The event was awesome and there are so many cool Aussies and Kiwi's that atteneded the event and about 10 of which helped me pit at one point or another throughout the week. I'm very greatful to all of them!
On Monday after the event we went to a local Zoo and got to feel Kangaroos and get up and close to a bunch of Koala's! It was an awesome experience, one I won't soon forget!
Next up, i'm off to the ROAR Nationals! I feel it's time to win a title! ;-)
-Lutzinator
