Ah.  Reedy.  A great week this year in SoCal. 

This year I took the week off of work to head over to SoCal for the Reedy Race.  Lee Martin contacted me earlier this winter with his plan to practice at Orange County RC Raceway (OCRC) for the week before to get accustomed to the American clay tracks. 

We arrived at OCRC on Monday morning ready to hit the track once we mounted up tires.  We mounted up the same handout tires we would be running at West Coast RC (WCRC) which were JConcepts gold Bar Codes in front with Pro-line MC Suburbs in the rear, all with Pro-line Closed-Cell inserts.  These tires require a little break-in and start getting good after the 3rd run.  Lee was out with his TRF201 learning the track while I was doing some shock modifications for the larger big bore springs.

Lee and I both started with Jake Thayer’s WCRC setup except I was running the stock 201 body (#54210) and Lee had on the Sand Viper DT-02 body (#1825429.)  Lee liked the setup better than his standard European setup and kept running to break in tires.

Monday was only 2wd.  Tires came in and our cars were very good.  Lee was definitely on the same pace as the other pros practicing. 

Tuesday we got to the track right when they opened.  I had tires for the 4wd mounted and partially broken in from last Reedy.  Lee went out right away on his standard setup, and I had the same setup from the Spektrum Race six weeks earlier.  The cars were stable but lacked steering exiting the corner.  Lee played with his weight in the rear end by moving his batteries and removing weight between the two cells.  He also was playing around with the top deck flex.  Stiffer front then stiffer rear.  The car looked similar on the track but he said feel was different.   I moved my rear lower shocks to the inside whole and limited the shocks 3mm.   I also removed the 1.5mm spacers I had for more ackermann to make the car a little more aggressive.  We both liked our progress. 

Wednesday we made our way to WCRC.  Track was to open at 3pm when we will be allowed to practice and get our race tires.  Lee wasn’t allowed to practice until Thursday and I stayed in the pits mounting those new race tires.  We modified the front PL Closed-Cell foams to make them a little softer to gain some steering.  This was very common for all teams.  Every driver had their own special way of doing it, but our way really worked for us.  We cut the inside of the foam along the wheel across the foam, very similar to the AKA Closed-Cell foams.  I never hit the track Wednesday.

Thursday is when controlled practice started.  We got to WCRC right when the doors opened.  Practice was controlled by heats with the fasted three laps used to seed qualifying.  The downside to this is that practice was very chaotic as drivers used this as qualifying for qualifying.  Anyways, my car felt drivable as I was learning the layout.  The layout was fun but had minimal places to pass.  I liked the flow and the jumps were very consistent.  Big motors were not needed to make any jump.  Slower motors were definitely an advantage for some.  A good friend of mine switched to a 13.5 and went much faster as I still only had a 10.5.  Lee was starting to get his controlled practice as well.  His cars both looked good with a little on power push.  He was working on shock locations and dampening.  He was running in his tires to get them broken in.  One set for each car and the invite drivers had to turn in their tires every night.

Friday was the first day of qualifying.  It was only 2wd for the Invite guys while the open class had three rounds of each class.  The only change that I made to my 201 was running a PL B4 Bulldog body that was modified to fit.  After my first run, the car felt great.  The down force over the front wheels was very noticeable and my little push was gone.  Lee was watching my car and noticed the same thing.  He mounted one up for his second round won his race!  Lots of bad racing luck the rest of the day left Lee with a couple 8^th place finishes but eager to race on Saturday with only 2 rounds of 2wd left and all 4wd!  My qualifying went as well as I expected.  The cars felt great but I lacked concentration with a few mistakes at bad times.  I had one final round on Saturday and then my mains.

Not much changed for Saturday.  I removed the sway bar on my 502 for the last qualifier which helps the car tremendously rotating but made it a little inconsistent through the middle section of the track.  I made too many mistakes which didn’t help in my qualifying efforts.  Mains were 10 minutes with the top two racers bumping to the next main.  I raised my rear ride height and added a little more rear camber on my 201 and went out for my main.  I had some bad luck at the start but kept going.  10 minutes is a long time in an off-road race, and anything can happen.  I was moving my way up slowly but getting caught up in a few wrecks.  The bump positions were long gone so I just ran around the track and had some fun with it.  I ended up 6^th in the L main with a fun race to the finish.  After the race, we noticed that my front upper chassis was completely stripped out and the bulkhead was just flopping in the breeze.  Then it was my 4wd main.  I was in it with a local friend and after another first lap blowout we just raced around.  Lots of accidents caused another broken part but I was able to finish5^th in the J main.

Lee referred to the rest of his race luck as his “Worlds Luck.”  His cars were both very competitive and he was able to pull out victories with both cars.  Racing will always be racing.  A lot was learned, new people were met and good times were had.

Pro-line was nice enough to borrow my 502x to design a new Bulldog body for it.  Hopefully it is available before Cactus but at least we will have a vehicle specific option.  Keep your eyes out as it should be out soon!

Cactus is the next big race.  Anyone that is attending, please get in contact with me.  We will have pit spaces available.  Official practice starts on Wednesday, March 21 with international racers heading to Tucson the days before.  It should be a great weekend of racing in the sun.

Thanks again to Tamiya USA, Speed Passion, LMR, LiveRC and WCRC to make this event happen for me.

BK

I had an unexpected night of racing last night. I stopped by Bashers to check things out, not planning on racing.  Long story short, I ended up borrowing a battery and running my 17.5 Blinky buggy in the mod buggy class. The track was medium to high traction as normal, and by staying out of trouble; I was able to put myself in 2^nd spot for the first round of qualifier’s

I added a 1mm shim to the inner camber link on the front, needing a touch more steering. The car was better in the 2^nd qualifier, but had some issues with traffic.  Not having that rip out of the power system really hurt me, but I had an overall good qualifying all things considered.

I had to pack up and go , so I was not able to run the main, but it was a good night for the TRF 201. I let another racer drive my buggy between rounds, and we have another covert. I am looking forward to building my new kit myself. Best of all..  my son Niko had a great time too, starting him on TRF early.

Who Is Going To Nitro Challenge??

Rounds 1-2 TLR Winter Series @ OCRC

The 2nd annual Grass Roots series kicked off this past weekend at Palm Desert Raceway. This would be my first race running the Tamiya 801x and 801xt. Having minimal track time with the vehicles I knew I would have a lot of work to do.

The buggy was basically the same set-up from my practice session the prior week with the exception of higher diff. fluids in the front and center, 8-6-3 from 7-5-3. The morning of the race I spent most of the time practicing getting use to the track lay-out. The buggy was handling very well and I knew it would be competitive with my current set-up. There must have been a gremlin in the buggy that day because there were several mishaps. First qualifier I didn't get to run because during pre-race warm-up the clutchbell seized. Apparently the flywheel nut backed off. Second qualifier went well, landing me in the middle of the pack of the A-main. The main started off well working up to 4th in the early part of the race. I flat-landed a very large triple jump that caused the motor to flame out. During the race I noticed the motor leaning out and was running a little erratic. I discovered that the exhaust pressure line had torn off at the exhaust pipe nipple. Overall, I was pretty happy with the performance of the buggy. Next time, I will take more precaution to prevent any more gremlins.

Truggy was a handful at best. To set things straight, the truggy was a rent-a-ride that I put together the day before the race. Just from installing my electronics and motor I could tell the truggy needed a lot of TLC. Shock set-up was a shot in the dark but ended up up working very well around the track. It jumped and landed well, but I couldn't get the steering I needed to lay down some good lap times. I went thru all this diffs throughout the day putting 5-5-3 as a baseline and would work from there. Things got better but steering was still lacking. It seemed as I wasn't getting 100% steering throw. I will be going over the truggy this week hopefully getting the steering I need. From the little run time I have with the truck I could tell it has a lot of potential. I am looking forward to getting the truck dialed in.

Hello Everyone,

I'm a former TRF driver from many years back.  I haven't pulled the trigger in a long time, about 5 years.  After getting married and having kids racing was put on hold.  Now I'm returning but in a different way.  I'm no longer traveling or doing this as a job.  It's now just for fun, and it's good to be back with a great company

I borrowed a 417 from a friend for the time being.  I went to our local track (seattlercracers.com) Wednesday to figure things out and shake the rust off.  The car was good in practice but towards the end the car began to tip.  As traction kept picking up the car continued to traction roll.  I still managed to qualify for the main but sat out the main due to something being wrong with the car and being brutally tired (10:30pm main is tough when you get up at 4am).  I tore the car down Friday night to find some binding issues with the car.  

Next race should go much better.  I found Jilles 2011 snowbirds setup and will probably start with that next time.  One thing I need to learn better is traction compound. We use Jack the gripper, SXT 3.0 or sticky fingers.  I was using SXT but if I have time I wanna test Jack.  

AC

Feb 4th 2012,  TQ R/C Raceway, Chino California

      Round 6 of the Ultimate Formula 1 winter series is in the books and proving again to be one of THE funnest events R/C has to offer. Today the top podium spot goes to now series Champion; Mike Kennedy. Running his nearly bone stock F104-X1. Mike has been a tough competitor in UF1. His F104 looks perfect running around TQ's very well kept carpet track. Not only in the terms of handling looks, but this  (as well as team mate Tony Phalen's) F104 are painted in the black and gold of the 1:1 F1 Lotus / Renault team.

     For my F104 which is a standard edition that I put a few hop-ups on has been a very good handling car until today. Not having too much time to sort through trying to make my car get better front end grip I did manage a third place on the podium right behind Steven Jackson who is also running an F104. I arrived at the track with my McLaren body/wing set up as I have been running but wanted to try the Ferrari F60 set up. I switched everything over only to have forgotten about pushing the "start" button on my charger and missed final practice. Having only one run on the car anyway that morning really didn't tell me if my handling woes of the day were the Ferrari body change or if my car was just not getting grip. I threw different set ups on it during qualifying but was unable to match the speed of Mike or Steven all day thus ending up 3rd.

After the event I stayed and practiced, testing all that I could until Sean (TQ's track owner) kindly pointed out that Jeff, James and I were the only ones left. Meaning "Can we go home now?" :)  Even with a few more packs run with a bunch of changes I wasn't 100% happy with my set up and thus this next week we will make the trek back to TQ to get some much needed track time in before the final round.

With nitro season coming right around the corner, it was time to get the 801x together and take it out for a test drive. I am very pleased with the way the buggy goes together. The plastics and metals are pretty beefy in most areas which will help in preventing those nasty DNF's. The buggy is a little heavier than most buggies but I am sure once I get the light weight options installed it will bring the weight down to the ballpark of most other race buggies.

I used a set-up from TRF driver, Brian Givens, as a base. I heard from several people that his buggy has been looking really good on the track. The days prior to hitting the track there was a lot of bench tuning of the suspension. As Brian's set-up calls for 1.2 pistons up front, I felt the front was a little too soft (he does use an after market spring, while I was on the stiffest Tamiya). I switched to the 1.1 pistons and 35 wt. Losi  oil and got the feel I was looking for. 1.1 pistons and 30 wt. oil in the rear felt pretty good on the bench; again with Tamiya's stiffest buggy spring.

Finally, track day! It was a hard choice between watching the Super Bowl or going to Thunder Alley for some test runs. Obviously, we see which is more important to me. Track was dry, dusty, and a little rutted. Medium to large size jumps, mostly small kickers that give you a little hang time. First couple tanks I took it pretty easy to get everything broken in, tune the motor, etc. First things I noticed was the gobs of steering this buggy has. Second was the brakes felt fa nominal.  The front was still a little soft, I installed HB front blue spring and took the buggy out for another run. This was much better! I can hit the single jumps harder and not have to worry about the front end doing a nose plant. It also calmed down the steering just a tad, not loosing much. From here, I pretty much ran the buggy the way it was all day just to get more feel for the buggy.

There were some issues I had, the shock tops and bottoms were coming loose, and one of my pistons actually came off the shaft. Gobbed on the loctite and it was good for the rest of the day. Judging from the tire wear, it looked like I might be able to go up in the diff oils in the front and center. Plans for the week is to change the diff oils to 8-6-3 and get the 801 ready for Round 1 of the Grass Roots Series in Palm Desert this coming weekend.

Well another year has passed as well as another Snowbird nationals.  I can say my performance in 1/12th scale was good, but my driving could have been better.  I can tell that from mot have a high grip track to practice on was definitely a factor for me at this race.  I defiantly learned some things and I have some ideas to go home with.  The race is always a great race with great people! The race was run smooth and the track was killer.  I'm already anticipating my next year's trip!

Now......what is next? Not sure, but I'll keep y'all posted!