The annual MRCZ Open International race 2017 took place over the weekend of 25 and 26 November in Zwevegem. The event took place in a nice heated hall on which the organisers laid out a track of 20 x 30 meters with brand new ETS carpet. In order to provide maximum grip, the carpet was stuck on the floor with double sided tape.
Saturday saw two rounds of free practice followed by 3 rounds of qualifications.
On Sunday, two more qualifications (best two out of five would count) and 3 finals were scheduled.
Touring Stock
This would be the first time Florian would race for RC-Connect, the Benelux Xray importer. Florian was entered in Stock (open 13,5 blinky) and modified.
As we had already done a test session with the modified car we felt confident with it, but his stock car was only finished on the Friday before the race, so it hadn't yet turned a wheel.
The setup I used was a mix from the box setup , Jan Ratheisky's ETS setup that I found on the Xray setup pages and my experiences with the T4 modified and previous cars.
The options I installed were:
- High performance Kevlar belts
- T4 18 brass motor mount plate
- Alu adjustment ball bearing hub x 2 (I think it makes the drivetrain a bit smoother)
- Alu dual servo saver arm set
- Graphite steering plate set
- Direct servo saver arm
- Orange drive shaft replacement caps
- -0,75mm alu wheel hubs
From the first practice onwards, his car was on rails. Every time he ran he was minimum one lap in front of the second placed driver.
When the grip levels came up for Q1, I adjusted the droop to 5,8mm in the front and 4,6mm in the back.
The biggest improvement came in Q2, when I mounted the 1,6mm top deck. His best laptime improved by over .2 seconds.
Florian drove well in the the 3 finals and claimed the overall victory. In the third final, I used the 2.0 top deck again to see what difference it made. His car was still very good to drive but just missed that extra bit. His lap time was also marginally slower.
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1/10 Modified
In this class, we started running our race tyres (Volante 28) from the first practice onward. Most of the other drivers opted only to use them in the first qualifier.
In the first qualifier, Thomas Stockman was the fastest with his Xray and Florian was about 5 seconds behind. In the 2nd and 3rd qualifier the gap increased to almost a lap, despite the fact that the other drivers were using newer tyres.
I should have grinded the tyres to make the car more competitive from the beginning, but as this normally isn't allowed, I didn't do it.
His car suffered from under-steer corner entry, but it was easy to drive. I made a lot of changes in order to get more steering, like shorter wheelbase, stiffer rear spring, more droop in the back, roll centre change. It helped a bit and in Q5 his car was more competitive.
In the final qualifier, John Ermen, a former ENS winner, also had refined his set-up and grabbed the fastest time of the day. This meant Florian would start P4, behind Mitchell Van Es, John Ermen and Thomas Stockman.
With the final set-up refined, the car was great in the race. Florian won A1 and finished P2 in A2, behind Thomas Stockman. For A3 I reverted to a more conventional setup (the one you see attached) and also installed the 1.6mm upper deck. This made the car faster and better to drive. Unfortunately Florian was wiped out at the start, so he couldn't fight for the overall victory. That went to Thomas Stockman. |
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