Fernando and I arrived Wednesday to check in at the track, find out pit spaces and get some rest before practice on Thursday. The Horsham club/crew did an awesome job with the track so it looked like everything was set to be a great event. Pitting area was really, super tight but really that was the only problem for the weekend.
Thursday, we got down to practice with just testing the set-ups and looking for ways to improve. Fernando's set-up had loads of rear grip but struggled to rotate in the hairpin corners. My set-up rotated easier in those corners but was very loose in some of the more high speed ones on the right side of the track. Over the course of the practice, we really used different parts of each other's set-ups to make the cars better and more to our own liking. We mainly worked with the camber links, camber, suspension mount height including running the pins flat or with anti-dive (front) or pro-squat (rear). I think Fernando tested with some springs. At the end of practice, we were quite competitive with Fernando in the top 10 in both and myself in the top 4 in both.
Friday began qualifying and with the schedule being tight for me to run 3 classes, I lost track of what Fernando was doing so you'll have to check with him on his changes. I had some good runs and ended the day in 2nd in 13.5 and TQ in Modified. Both cars were improving as I continued to make some small adjustments to them. The main adjustments for me was a change from the 1.4mm front roll bar to the 1.3mm and going from Green to Yellow front springs. This seemed to settle the front in the high speed corners but improve the steering in the hairpins where I felt I was a little off pace.
Saturday was more of the same with small adjustments to camber, droop and my motor/gearing set-up. I changed from a 100 spur to a 96 spur that Fernando had for 13.5. I also reduced my timing on the Mod motor and went up 2 teeth to try and smooth out the bottom end a bit more. The Mod car was getting really good but I still wasn't happy with the 13.5 car and I was a little confused so I just copied the front of the Mod car onto the 13.5 one. Also, in checking the shocks I noticed that I had drilled the shock caps on the Modified car. So, I left the shocks alone and built my spare set with the harder shock bladder that you gave me in Thailand but with the shock cap drilled. I built them with only 3mm rebound and put them on the car for Sunday AM practice.
Sunday the 13.5 car was awesome in practice. All the small adjustments made a huge difference and now I had a car good enough to win so I put it aside with the Mod car and practiced with 1/12th. The mains went perfectly with only a little trouble at the start of the first modified main with some nerves and getting used to a brake adjustment I made in the Orca speed control. Other than that, the cars were awesome and I just had to keep it off the dots and out of trouble!!
Thank you so much for the work and effort over the past few months. It was really awesome to have good cars again and a chance to win another ROAR National title!!
