Had a fun race day today, it's great watching some of the best in the world battle it out.

My car was pretty good, I put it fourth on the grid, but had quite a few problems throughout the day. First, I ran a normal servo horn for the first time today, instead of a servo saver. This turned out to be a really bad idea. Reality is that the steering rack simply cannot be run without a servo saver. Upon nearly ANY impact, no matter how small, the servo rack can tweak and push the screw that holds the rear bearing tight pushing it away from the rack and causing the rack to be so loose that it slips out of the bearings, ending your race. In the end, I think the steering rack is in need of a design change, as a servo saver simply shouldn't be a requirement for durability. I like the concept, and it certainly looks cool, but simply isn't as durable as it needs to be.

I've once again popped apart P01/P02. I had just replaced all of them on my car, as they were starting to pop apart more easily. I believe this is yet another place that needs some design work, as I think it's certainly a weak point on the car. The need for a zip tie or shrink wrap (my method of making them more durable) is just not worthy of the quality shown by the rest of the car. See here for the solution.

Finally, the noise out of the car, when running transverse, is really distracting. Especially when I'm practicing and there are fewer cars on the track, a plastic replacement for G01 or G02 is desperately needed.

This may sound like a gripe post, and probably is in some ways, but I'm mainly trying to bring pain points to the forefront, and give Oleg and team feedback on the car.

Finally #2, made some pretty decent sized setup changes today. Much of the changes revolved around shock dampening changes, trying to keep the same or similar spring rates but going higher dampening up front in comparison to the rear. It really helped the be more aggressive going into a corner, rotate more coming out of the corner, and teamed up with more front caster high speed steering was better. I always wanted to try more caster up front, but I couldn't justify the initial steering loss, the dampening change allowed it and it's given me more of the on power steering I was looking for.

Ethan

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