The outdoor season is upon us! And with it, a new class for me to learn (13.5t Open) and a chance to get back to enjoying the outside elements and all the warmth that comes with it… yeah, right.

Instead of doing the sensible and heading up to Stafford for the Saturday pre-race practise session. Myself and Mark Bruton-Young (of Schumacher RC) headed to Cotswolds club for a more chilled out day. As we’re both members of this facility, it would be a nice chilled out way of learning a bit more about boosted racing, and had a better chance of getting some clean runs in, without traffic. The other appeal of going to Cotswolds, was the 1/8th and 1/5th scale bikes would be there. Having never seen these in action, I was keen to have a good nosy around at them, and even got a chance to have a go! Not as easy as those guys make out, for sure, but great fun if you can string some corners together. Managed to get some good runs throughout the day, not really tweaking much on the base setup, but more slowly turning up the power of the ESC and starting to learn what does what with the Boost and Turbo settings. I’ll admit, the first few runs I was only at half throttle on the straights, but by the end of the day I was more than happy with running flat-out and really going for it. The track was surprisingly grippy despite the cold, so the XQ1 was feeling really good to drive.

Pitting area at the Cotswolds circuit

Sunday morning approached (far too early) and myself and MBY loaded up his Seat and made the journey up the M5 and M6 and arrived at Stafford track. From 7:30 until 8, it was open practise for those not there on the Saturday, and we both headed out. First impressions, there was NO grip! Whether it was just a case of the cold but there was zero grip anywhere and the back-end of the XQ1 really wanted to swap places with the front numerous times. I wanted to believe this was purely due to the cold, so I hung fire on making any major changes to the car until my round of dedicated practise had finished. I had good pace in the chassis when out on track with others, and even had the chance to really push and get to follow some of the quicker guys in my heat through various parts. I was also using a new bodyshell this weekend, a Protoform Type S. No where had stock of the Zooracing DBX, which I wanted, so settled for the Protoform and I was very impressed with it!

Ready for the day, the pit area did NOT stay this tidy...

Round One

This was it, my first round of qualifying and my first chance to really stretch the legs of the XQ1 in 13.5t Open! Off the line, round the sweeper, through the hairpin, into the next sweeper, hard on the brakes for the next hairpin and… nothing. The car died. A quick look over by the marshal at that corner and suddenly the car was back on track and ready to run again. With zero idea what had caused the cutout, I continued round in a average quick fashion, just trying to string some laps together and stay out of trouble. Zero grip again on the back of the car meant I was really fighting to get a clean lap in. Ended the round in a pitiful position, 26th of 28 runners. Not the start I had hoped for!

Round Two

After having to double stint with marshaling, I had some changes to make on the XQ1 ahead of round two. Made the rear damping a touch softer, with 350wt Core RC oil, instead of the 400wt I already had in there (front stayed on 400wt). And I did some re-shimming of my camber links to try and get some more on power grip. Didn’t touch the boost, or the turbo as I was fairly confident they were in the ball park for now. Headed out for round two and a marked improvement in the car saw me jump up to a 16 lap run, still down on pace and still with a few issues of the car seeming to lose power on certain corners. Almost like I was getting interference issues(?!) something I haven’t experience since the late 90s and 27mhz systems. I was happy with the run, and after a quick chat to Loz Shaw (3racing) I had a good idea to try ahead of the next round. Ended up with a 23rd spot overall that time out, so clearly everyone else did the improvement game to!

Round Three

No pressure, but, in my head I’d already used up my two bogey rounds of qualifying (thank you round by round format). So I had a lot of work to do in this round! Off the line, round the sweeper and the car felt really good. I’d changed down to 1000k diff oil in the back and fitted hard front springs to bring some grip back to the rear and help the car rotate a little more through the corners. It seemed to be working, for all of the 3 corners I managed to do before the XQ1 once again just stopped. No steering, no throttle, nothing. I stepped back and let the others run the 5 minutes without me, which is a very lonely place to be! But, gives a good chance to watch your competitors through the corners and see where you can gain some time. Bottom of the time sheets and lots of head scratching. I was fairly sure my issues were related to the electrics of the car. Something was tripping, somewhere!

Round Four

Do or die time! I’d swapped some of my electrics round. Moved my transponder to a lower position on the chassis, plugged it into the BEC out on the ESC and made sure it was all re-calibrated to my transmitter. I’d also taken a bit of the turbo down as well as some of the brake power, to see whether I’d get the same issues. I made sure I was very early for getting to the rostrum as I wanted to bag a good spot! The car was much improved and probably felt the best it had all day. Plus, I was able to work out what the “power” issues were! Under braking, the car would lose power, then regain it. That was the issue! Now for the solution, spend the entire race, off the brakes. Or at least, use as little as possible. It worked, I managed to set my FTD for the day, with 17 laps and a more consistent set of lap times. I now knew exactly what I needed to change on the ESC ahead of the finals. But which final would I wind up in!?

As it turned out, I hadn’t quite done enough to make the B, so had to settle with near the back of the grid for the C final. Starting 5th, I knew the first few laps would crucial to a good result.

Leg 1 – C Final

So, what did I change ahead of the first leg in the C final? Many things, but mostly all related to my Muchmore Fleta speed controller. Put some drag brake on at 5%, turned the MAX brakes down to 70%. Changed the turbo to its fastest setting for ramp and just prayed it would all work. New, scrubbed, tyres also went on the XQ1, with a 20min additive and heat soak for the rears, with a 10min heat soak at the front. I started on 30’c and raised to 50’c for final 5 mins of warmer time. On the line, and the number 4 car was having issues so he decided to start from the back of the pack, so as not to cause any first corner incident. As it was, cars 1 and 3 had a coming together leaving me and the number 2 car of Jack Day to clear off a little. I had the quicker car out of me and Jack and I was reeling him in, slowly but surely for the next 3 minutes, until I had a spin and was joined by a hard charging Adam Downing who’d started in 7th on the grid. Managed to defend a lot ahead of a quicker car, but eventually Adam got past and I settled in for a third place as the buzzer sounded. The car felt the best it had done all day, even gaining me a whole lap and a half on my FTD time, and I knew what changes to make to really get it going for the final leg.

Leg 2 – C Final

Car 4 (Peter Covell) had sorted his issues and would take his proper grid spot this time round, which meant I would have a lot of work to do if I wanted to convert my good pace in leg one to a higher position than where I started. Cars 2 and 4 had the coming together on the first lap this time, meaning I was able to sneak by and get into third. Some tidy driving from Kieran Adamson, who’d finally got his Capricorn to work meant it was me and Jack fighting it out for the second spot. A spin from Jack meant I was able to take second place at the mid-point, but he clearly had the quicker car. I defended and defended and defended all I could to keep him behind, but eventually, he pulled a brilliant (and bloody brave) move on the main straight and stuck it passed me on the outside into the first right hand sweeper. I was impressed! I had overworked my rear tyres though through all the defending I was having to do and could really feel the car sliding about through the slower corners. However, the settings on the ESC were working faultlessly and I was able to drive the car nice and smooth and get the rears to cool down a touch. Kieran was a class above us all, and it was a real pleasure to let him past to lap, even though I did have to ask if he actually was lapping and not fighting for position given his previous rounds! At the tone, I was pleased to hear I had done enough to hold onto another third place and with it, my first EVER BRCA clubmans trophy.

Protoform Type S, BRCA Trophy and a top chassis, together at home!

Summary

So, my first foray into 13.5t Open spec racing… What an experience. Initially, on the saturday, I was bloody terrified of the thought of going flat-out. Come the end of the day on Sunday, I just wanted to go faster! Maybe I was a bit foolish to not step up to Mod this year like Rich has done?! Overall, I was pleased to come away with a result. It wasn’t quite the result I had hoped for, but it was still a good solid day of learning with the chassis. Being only the second time I have raced the XQ1 outside, I’m still learning it. Still learning the little tweaks and performance peaks that I can use to my advantage as time goes on. Maybe I should have geared up? Maybe I should have turned turbo down and my motor timing up? All these things I can try out at Cotswolds at some point, with no pressure of a race meeting. Just solid practise.

Big shout out to the two people I pitted with today, Steve Dye and Mark Bruton-Young who both qualified 1st and 3rd respectively in the D final for 17.5t. Both also had a cracking day coming away with trophies. Mark missing out on the top spot by a mere 0.19s, wow.