The main preparation that Andy did before going to the Worlds was to build up two completely new car kits. This allowed him to concentrate fully on careful assembly of each car and not worry if anything was bent, worn out, etc. As a racing season progresses, even the most careful driver will experience small failures of various possible wear-and-tear items, so rather than replace many different plastic bits, check individual bearings and other items, for a race event as important as the Worlds it's more effective to build up new kits.

While both cars were brand new Cyclone Hara Edition kits, with updated upper bulkheads and 39-tooth pulleys, during assembly Andy installed new parts that the team had been testing in the months before the Worlds. The new parts were a newly designed aluminium spool, thicker shock towers with extra mounting holes and thick aluminium front driveshafts.

The spool is different to the one standard with the Hara/Surikarn Edition kits, beefed up to withstand the immense power of a low-wind motor as well as high-traction surfaces. It features a solid aluminium centre section which is thinner and lighter than the standard spool. The outdrives are machined Delrin, with Delrin sleeves fitted over the outdrives to prevent them spreading.

Combined with the spool, new front driveshafts were made by MIP that are much thicker than previous driveshafts. While still very light and providing all the range of movement required for the front suspension, the thicker material prevents bending in all but the hardest full-speed crashes.

Here are more of Andy's tips:

• a smooth and super-tight rear diff is very important to the handling of the car: rebuild the diff as often as necessary between race runs
• make sure shocks don't bind at all, have the same amount of rebound left/right, and are extremely smooth
• ride height must be equal left/right
• check that steering end points are similar left and right
• nothing should bind - check hinge pin holes, ball cups, ball ends for scratches, bearings for smoothness, etc.
• de-tweak car after each run

One of the two cars Andy prepared for the Worlds had his setup from the World's Warm-Up race and the other car had a setup that Andy had worked out on some British tarmac tracks. Andy ended up using a setup derived from the warm-up race, and the rest of the team used his setup on their cars. Click here to get Andy's original hand-written setup sheet for his Cyclone!

This is the car exactly as it came off the track, it has only been cleaned slightly so you can see the impressive attention to detail Andy puts into all of his cars

With lead weights wrapped in heatshrink tubing and carbon effect tape on his personal transponder and speedo capacitor, Andy's car looks very stealthy!

Another view of the simple, efficient layout Andy uses

Thick shock towers with extra mounting holes allowed the HB team more tuning options and helped prevent damage on the track

The motor cooling fan is mounted on scrap plastic leftover from Andy's bodyshell, and an optional fan mount can be seen here next to his Hara Twister 2.1 speedo

New thicker MIP aluminium CVDs helped prevent any bending of the front driveshafts

The servo case is ground down to allow easy adjustment of the steering turnbuckle

Andy used the new heatsink bulkhead brace (#HB61392) to help dissipate energy-robbing heat

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