British Winter Indoor National – Worksop

So this weekend we decided to attend Worksop for some 1/10th racing, to test some new setups.

Saturday 7th: 2WD

It was an early start for everyone being at the venue for 7:00. We setup pits, and discussed between the team what we would do you tyres. It seemed that everyone was cutting all the tread off the tyres, so we follows suit and copied as we hadn’t raced here before.

Round 1 of practice and the track was very loose with next to no traction, meaning it was just a case of seeing where the track went.

Round 2 of practice and grip started to come up a little, giving us a little bit of an idea as to what direction we needed to head with setup.

Q1: We were out in Heat 10 (with two heats after us), putting a good run in, but the track getting faster all the time leaving us with 16th in round.

Q2: The traction was getting better with each run we hit the track, putting a good clean run in this round would give us 9th in round placing us 9th overall at this point.

Q3: Once again there was more traction and the car was better each run, putting a 5th in Round. Moving us up to 7th overall.

Q4: Putting in another great run, we managed to move up another position to take 6th Overall ready for the finals.

Finals:

For the finals we continued as we had been all day testing some different setups to see what result they had learning more about the car in these much lower traction conditions to how we have ever ran the car before.

The finals did not go our way, due to testing some ideas that made the car harder to drive and working the tyres too hard. Looking back we should have tried newer tyres as they seemed to go off during the finals compared with qualifying.

A good day with the car, learning a lot about the way it reacts and more on this style of track and traction. Just an unfortunate result in the end.

Sunday 8th: 4WD

Once again we were all trackside for 7:00. We had changed the car slightly from our standard setup ready for the day ahead, going softer on the shock oil and springs. We also went thinner on the diff oil. This would give us a good start point to work from.

Tyres it was a case on making the Minispikes as slick as you could with a pair of snips (no power tools allowed under the rules).

Practice: Onto the track for the first round of practice and the car looked good on track but a little soft, so for the second practice we thickened the shock oils up and gave that a try. The car was better and allowed to be able to push and drive into and through the corner, deciding to go up in the spring rate front and back for qualifying would be the only other change we would make.

Q1: The change to the springs made the car even better. Wanting to put a solid run in for the round it was a case of keeping it clean and smooth. Struggling a little with traffic as we had the previous day due to being in a lower heat we still go a great run in. 3rd Overall for the first round.

Q2: This was to be a repeat of the previous round, and another 3rd overall was the result.

Q3: This round we had issues with traffic which did not want to move, and would than make contact with us after having been passed, meaning it would be a round to forget.

Q4: Beginning the warm up and the car was looking and feeling great, however an over aggressive driver made contact with us during the warm up causing a breakage. So onto the finals it was. We would line up 4th on the grid.

Finals:

Leg 1: We set off to a good start and were holding well in position putting pressure onto 3rd to try and force a mistake. However we had the driver behind make contact at one of the fastest points on the track resulting in us having a roll over and needing a Marshall. The driver waited knowing he shouldn’t have done it, but the battle for positions was over due to the amount of time the incident lost us. A shame as the car was great.

Leg 2: The final started as the last one, and we kept it clean and managed to finish in 4th as we had started.

Leg 3: This would be a final to forget with some very aggressive driving by some others, resulting in us suffering a breakage.

Finishing 7th overall, a shame that we suffered from other people but that’s racing sometimes.

We learned a lot of good information about both cars during the weekend, although the result didn’t reflect this.

Onto the next races, Montpellier this weekend coming then Dirt Nitro Challenge straight after.

As always a big Thanks to all sponsors who make it possible:

Kyosho, Proline, Tekin, Reds, Byron, Sanwa, BittyDesign, Maugraphix, LRP Batteries, SMD, Inside Line Racing, Ghea, Racer, Rudebits, RDRP, Racers Design Products.

Thanks all, hopefully see you trackside soon.

Team Boots