Wow, is all I can say, what a brutal weekend at race #4 of the WCIC series in Airdrie, Alberta. I had to work Friday and was hoping to hoop on a plane for a short hoop to Calgary, a short drive to Airdrie and get a couple of hours of practice. Unfortunately the Airline had other planes for me and all I got to do was setup my pit and see the track, in total about 15 minutes total time. Saturday I could already tell that I was behind in not only chassis setup but also very out to lunch on the stock motor settings. After the first qualifier I was 10th overall, but I had to drive for my life just to get that in, and I was seriously behind in fast lap times, not competitive at all.

My mod car wasn't as bad, as I had put the setup you had sent me and I started with that, but on a aluminum chassis. After talking to you I had a rough idea what direction I was going to try and go with as far as chassis setup goes, and the mod motor has so much power that part wasn't lacking.

So between the two cars I had a lot of catching up to do, and boy did I do some wrenching. I don't think I talked to anyone for 5 hours. Just had my head down trying a variety of setup changes, springs, diffs, diff fluid, shock oil, top decks, anything and everything that I had available I ended up changing. I remember Cody mentioning that he was thinking of trying the chassis stiffner. Just so happens I had on of those, so I stuck it into the stock chassis, raised the roll centers and the car was considerably better. Some very strange motor timing and FDR and the car was right back there. The difficult part was having a last chance qualifier in a lower heat is always a crap shoot. I got one heck of a run in and bumped up 13 places and now was 11th, just missing out on the A. The last 2 groups ran and I ended up 13th overall, but boy the car was really good now.

In the B main, I got a great start and got into 2nd, with Al in first, me 2nd, Cal 3rd and Jim in 4th. Al had a really good run, and Cal and I had a heck of race exchanging passes several times, Jim gaining all the time. With about 1 minute left with me in 2nd and Cal in third we where starting to chase Al down. Cal brushed a board and dropped back a bit. I drove as hard and clean as I could but couldn't catch Al. But it was one heck of a race. Talked to Al after the race only to find out he was on a Serpent 2.0, lol, so the loss didn't feel as bad as first. The 4 of us managed to run some really good lap tiimes and total lap count would have been in the same grouping as the A main, so we had the speed, just not the luck.

My mod car was another project. I used the V2 mount with the long leg so I was able to use the long screws all the way thru the back of the car, so screws in the bottom and screws in the idler bearing uprights. The car felt pretty good but flet ilke it needed a little more stiffening. I ended up running the full hinge pin suspension bridge (both cars) in the rear front position. It also just so happened that at one point I had made a chassis stiffner that I could run with the V2 motor mount and leg, so I stuck that in as well. Changed out the top deck from the 1.75 to the 2.0 and the car was feeling pretty good. I did struggle to get that real positive feel of the car through the infield, and I honestly don't know where thats lacking, if its speed control settings, transmitter setting or just not used to driving a mod car, but onward to the B main, missing the A by 2 positions. In the main I had a pretty rough start and about 4 laps in, after getting punted into 8th from 2nd on the grid I was working my way back up to the 3 and 4th place cars. I managed to get around them both and was now in 3rd. Going down the back straight and into the hairpin I had the car setup for the next corner when the 4th place car nailed me really hard in the back of the car. After that the cars handling went very bad, dropping to 8th, there where a couple of times I thought the car was broke, and then it would be okay for a bit, but the rear suspension looked like the rear of the car was locking in the down position every once in a while and this was taking all the weight off the front of the car, so it had a very bad push sometimes and other times it would just spin out. After the race I looked at the car and it looks like the hinge pins are bent causing the weird feel with the car. which was too bad because I think I was coming around as well. (I didn't post a Mod setup sheet as its still a work in progress)

So no Cinderalla story this weekend, but wow what a weekend.

Gary Lanzer
NOVAK RC
Serpent USA