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.