Jim O’Halloran’s Weblog

Published April 7th, 2003 by Jim O'Halloran

Hobby Habit Racing - Round 4

I’d spent quite a bit of time on my car during the weeks leading up to this meeting, cleaning and regreasing/oiling pretty much everything (motor, diffs, drive shafts, and shocks). I’d also had the comm trued, and bought a new set of Take Off CS27’s. After three pretty ordinary rounds, expectations were high for a good nights racing.

During practice the tyres seemed to bed in well, and scrub up nicely. The car was slightly taily at the end of the main straight, but it was still workable. I put two packs through in practice, and didn’t seem to get the full run time before the packs dumped, but didn’t time the practice, so I wasn’t sure.

In the first qualifier I had a shocking start, and dropped almost a full lap in the opening lap of the race, before clawing my way back to third. The pack dumped before the time was up, and I just managed to limp home for a 12 lap race. I’d pretty much confirmed a problem with my charger, and started to repeak all of my packs on Bryan’s charger to make sure I had the required run time.

In the second qualifier, I got off to a better start and started to close in on the back of second place. At the same time my mate Bryan was closing in on me. Just as I was about to ask him to hold off on me until we got past the guy in second he made a slight mistake and tapped me on the way through turn 4. I came out of it ok, but Bryan ended up on the grass and had to be marshalled out. With my concentration broken, I made a mistake of my own later on the same lap and needed marshalling. In the end I finished third in a 14 lapper, and Bryan 5th with 13 laps. I’m reckon there was a timing mistake though, because I’m pretty sure Bryan should have been in front of me at the end.

The third qualifier saw me off the grid in third again. Although the start was clean I dropped a couple of positions, and was being lapped at about the half way mark of the race. By this time the oversteer through turn 1 had become a major problem with the car quite often spinning at the apex of the corner. This became my undoing when I was lapped, my car spun in front of the leader who had nowhere to go and hit me. It was just one of those unavoidable racing incidents, but it broke the C hub on the front left of my car. The front upright was damaged (screw thread was stripped as the king pin pulled out), and a king ping and drive shft were lost. I was unable to obtain a replacement C hub on the night, and didn’t have a spare, so that put me out for the night.

My time in the second qualifier saw me placed 6th in the B’s, but with the car broken I wasn’t able to do anything about it. The A grade field all qualified in 15 laps, with 18 second seperating first from last, and a coupld of good drivers missing out and ending up in the B grade. Bryan’s second qualifying time was his best, and earnt him a 4th place in the C’s, which after some close racing he went on to win. Even the C grade field was pretty tough this week!

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