April and May saw the first and second
rounds of the BRCA 1:10 Off-Road Nationals take place at Talywain and
Robin Hood Raceway respectively. These two tracks are both Astroturf and
whilst Talywain is a fairly unused venue and quite neutral, RHR is very
popular and there are some very fast guys around there. Last year I made
the B final at Talywain and a C final at RHR, but felt that I didn’t
perform to my best.
Since the indoor season finished with the
Petit RC race and the British Winter Open Championship, I thought long
and hard about my 2WD set-up and ways of making it better. I focussed on
the new 4WD in the winter of 2008-9 and my 2WD results and set-up
suffered. LiPo caused me all sorts of problems so I was keen to get a
better base set-up for the established Associated RC10B4 chassis.
For Talywain, the 7.5T motor had to come
out and was replaced with a 6.5T one from the same range, The Speed
Passion speed controllers are very smooth so the increase in performance
was not too much of a concern. The gearing was dropped to suit as we had
been going up and up over the winter to try and achieve the greatest top
speed. One of the other key changes was to remove the RudeBits 72g under
servo brass weight for one of the 36g versions. From the outset, I
always thought that the original brass weight was too much compared to
the brass front block that was being removed, although its effect being
further centralised would be less. After much deliberation, it seemed
that Tony at RudeBits had made the same decision and in fact to test the
theory, had cut a 72g one in half. So he kindly sent me down a thin
plate and we replaced the thick one. I left the 125g lead plate under
the battery along with a 12g brass weight in each side of the rear
triangles. So with new gearing and revised we headed to Wales. From the
outset, it was clear that this was a good base setting and I enjoyed a
good day at Talywain. Making the B final was as fast as I could go and
this was reflected in my qualifying results with an 11th, 12th, 10th and
13th. That meant qualifying third in the B final and finishing 14th so a
strong start for me.
Round two took place at RHR and to be
honest, I wasn’t looking forward to it but I was determined to have a
better mental approach. The in-board motored chassis’ are certainly
going very well at the moment, but Lee Martin has proven with the Tamiya
that they are not unbeatable even on tracks that perfectly suit them.
After having enjoyed the first round the set-up was left the same for
RHR although the high-grip and nature of the track meant that making the
car easy to drive would be paramount. I started the day out on Ballistic
Buggy tyres as it was a little damp and although these tyres were fitted
for round one, they were not right and 14th in round was all that could
be achieved. Round two saw the move to Schumacher Yellow Mini Spikes and
the car was better, but still hard to drive and I was only 15th in
round. Last year, Tom Cockerill won on Schumacher Stagger Ribs and so
these were fitted for round three. I found that these were more
forgiving and were better when crossing over from one type of Astroturf
to another, which is a challenging feature of the track. Fourteenth in
round three then with the same set-up I was only 20th in round four
after too many errors on my part. That said, I qualified 7th in the B
final and the best result for me to date at the venue.
During the day, I learnt that some of the
Associated team drivers had been playing around with moving the motor
closer to the rear axle by fitting a smaller spur gear. Darren Boyle of
X Factory UK was present at RHR and offered me a choice of spurs that
they are selling so I found that a 75-tooth item was the smallest I
could mesh with the 24-tooth pinion. Some others have been using even
smaller gears, but this means modifying some gearbox parts and I
didn’t fancy this so I kept it simple. At the same time, I also
replaced the slipper pads and plates as this is well worth it as they
can quickly become glazed over. The smaller spur certainly aided top-end
although it was hard to distinguish the weight change in the final,
especially as I continued driving badly…
The next stop on the National
Championship is Eden Park Raceway and one track that I know quite
well…
Thanks to everyone who assists me with my
racing including:
* CML Distribution
* Horizon Hobby UK
* JConcepts
* LRP
* Much More UK
* RudeBits
* Schumacher
* Speed Passion
* Trishbits
* Upgrade
