Racing - Hobby Habit
I haven’t written about RC car racing much lately, and I can’t promise to start doing so again regularly, but I will try to write whenever something itneresting happens.
Round 3 of the new season (Summer 2003/4) was run on Saturday night, and was the first round that I’ve really competed in so far. I missed the first one, and weather conditions weren’t suitable for me during the second round (blowing dust and contact lenses don’t mix). In addition to all that, two other race meetings have been cancelled due to rain!
Anyway, after giving my car a major rebuild a couple of months back it was great to finally get out and give it a good run. During practice and qualifying I made a few changes to my car setup. The new track layout has quite a few high speed corners, and my car a bit oversteery on the way into a corner. Firstly, I lent the front shocks inwards on the shock tower which gave the car dramatically more steering but made the problem worse. Then leaving the shocks lent in I sent a spring softer in the rear end and dropped the body shell down a couple of notches all around.
I generally run my body shell very high to avoid problems with it scraping on the ground, but decided to see if I could gain any aero advantage by lowering it. The end result was a car that by the end of the half time break handled like it was on rails.
The new track layout is quite different in character than the last one. Its quite fast, and you’re hard on the throttle for most of the lap, backing off slightly for only 3 or 4 corners. Its virtually identical to a couple of layouts we’ve raced before so it didn’t take long to find the groove again.
Qualifying started out reasonably well, with onloy a few mistakes. My first qualifying time was a 14/316 (14 laps in 316 seconds), followed by 14/314 and 14/312 as I refined may car setup. 14/312 was only good enough for last (eigth) in the B grade though, so I had a bit of work ahead of me. Bryan managed to qualify 8th in the A grade with a 15 lap qualifier.
Run time was an issue in all of the qualifiers, and in addition to the handling changes I decided to drop a pinion size during the break to make sure I made the finish. As the sun went down, the tire warmers came out, and when the racing got underway the car handled MUCH better. The first race started well, as I worked my way through the pack into the lead while the others were caught up in first lap incidents, however a coming together with another car on the final turn put us both off in the grass. When we rejoined we were both last by a clear margin. I worked my way back to fourth (14/302), the other guy managed second.
The second race was a bit cleaner, again I worked my way through into a comfortable position by avoiding first lap incidents, but a couple of small mistakes saw me finish in 6th just shy of 15 laps (14/301). I was determined to crack the 15 lap barrier in the third race, having missed out by a second the previous race.
The third race was a similar story, a hard and fast race all the way, two tiny mistakes though cost me my 15 laps. At the finish I was chasing another car to the line with about a matre between us, he made it though for another lap, while I was buzzed home. Ripped off!
I think everyone who competed in helfire B’s on Saturday night thoroughly enjoyed it. There was some excellent, clean, fast racing. Races 2 and 3 were frantic, if you weren’t attacking the guy in front, you were defending from behind (sometimes both at the same time). Simply sensational stuff, and my car finally seems to be sorted now. Its never been so good in its life.
Bring on the next race meeting in two weeks!
Still not much to report with Hobby Habit Racing. Round 6 was run two weeks ago, but due to other commitments (i.e. the small matter of my wedding) I was unable to make it. Looking at the results list though and there was a reasonable turnout (about 25 drivers) despite the fairly ordinary weather on the day.
After missing one meeting, and having the proevious one rained out I was al hyped up for a good nights racing on Saturday night, but it was raining all day so racing was cancelled.
Not much to report from Hobby Habit Racing lately. We’re at the half way mark of the season, but comming up on the time of year when we loose a few race days because of rain. That was certainly the case 3 weeks ago, when intermittent rain all day meant that the racing was called off. Of course, Hobby Habit is scheduled to race again this comming weekend, but I’ve got other commitments… That is, my wife (to be) would kill me if I went racing instead of showing up to our wedding! Good luck guys!
Well, after a long break, it was time to line up again for Round 5 of Hobby Habit Racing. I’d replaced a pile of parts on the car after the accident last round, and things were almost as good as new. After some pretty disappointing results in the previous weeks I was hoping for a good run this week, and a decent finish. A small change to the front suspension (went to extra hard springs), and I was good to go. I put three packs through during practice, and got back into the groove again pretty quickly. The car felt good, and seemed to have plenty of speed, with no signs of the oversteer which had plagued the car in the previous weeks.
The first qualifier got off to a messy start. I came off of position 6, and got a good run down the straight catching Ryan (starting 5th) very quckly on the enterance to turn 1. Not wanting to push the car too hard on cold tyres, I elected to hang back and try and go around the outside rather than dive inside and risk an incident. Things didn’t quite go to plan, and there was contact. A second incident on turn 2 dropped me to last in the opening seconds of the race, but I clawed my way back from there, for a reasonable time on 13 laps, 307 seconds.
I was hoping to improve on my times in the second qualifier, but as soon as the buzzer went I knew something was wrong. The car just didn’t launch off the line like it should have, and the battery pack was fading badly by turn 1. After almost making it around for 1 lap, I had to give it away and go out and retreive the car from a marshal. When I returned to the pits, it looked like I’d changed packs after the last race, so the pack in my car must have been fresh off the discharger from the last meeting. No wonder it didn’t go a single lap!
The third qualifier was my last shot to improve on times, and looked set to be a good one, as Bryan, Scott, another guy and myself followed each other closely for the first couple of laps to open out a lead. However on lap three a slight touch against a barrier upset my race, and while I improved upon my time slightly, my final qualifying time was an average 13 laps, 305 seconds.
When it all sorted out, Bryan and Scott qualified for the B grade with times in the mid 14 lap region, and I was 4th on the C grade. With another stong turn out of drivers, even a time in the 15’s was no guarentee of an A grade place, which left Bryan and Scott facing a very strong B grade field.
The first final was a much better race for me. I was starting off 4, but the guy in third retired, so there were two cars in front of me at the start. I got off to a good start, and when 1 and 2 came together on turn 3, slotted through and took the lead. I was challenged strongly by a much faster car who couldn’t match me through the corners, but eventally got past him once and for all. Towards the end of the race another car was chasing me down, but ran out of time, and I held on for the win.
I geared up a little for the second final, and had to be careful while the tires were cold to begin with. Again I had to withstand a challenge from a faster car, but was able to get by him, and move up to second. Towards the end of the race I was closing in on the lead, but it looked like I might run out of time before I could get past. That was of course until the leader made a slight mistake on the final lap and I was able to slip by while the marshall retreived him from the barrier.
Two wins ensured an overall C grade win, which was just as well, because I stuffed the start in race three, then clipped a barrier later in the race, popping out a driveshaft. I was able to get the car going while the race was underway, but by then it was too late, and I finished well back in the field.
All in all, a bit inconsistent, but not a bad result considering the long break leading up to this race. Looking forward to the next one, which will probably be the last for the old Tamiya. The new Yokomo arrived last week, but I need to spend a bit of time setting it up before I go racing with it.
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!
Once again, I spent race night trying to learn “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” the hard way. When I first ran the car it handled ok, but my tyres were badly grooved on the inside. This is usually caused by running a lot of camber, which I’d planned to address in a car rebuild this week. However one of the other guys insisted on putting my car on an alignment board there and then, which lead to a whole new batch of problems. After playing with springs a bit, I concluded the car had way too much toe out, and changed that to a slight toe in. Then changed springs until the back end stuck again. As always seems to be the way, I ended up with a spring setup very much like what I originally started with, but the car was a little more stable and still turned well.
I ran out of time during practice to figure all of this out, and used the first two qualifiers as test sessions, where I’d do a few laps to warm up the tyres, asses the handling, pull in for a quick spring change, and try afor a couple more laps before the 5 minutes was up. At some stage though I tore one of the end plates completely off of my wing, so between qualifiers two and three I pulled the wing off of my old Honda shell and put it onto the new shell. In the process I lost track of the races and completely missed the start of qualifier three.
With no decent qualifying time, and enough people for three heats it looked sure that I’d be starting from the back of the grid in the “C” grade. I tested the car again during the half time break and nailed down the setup. I was ready to teach the “C” graders a lesson in driving cars, and wouldn’t be happy with anything other than a win. When the grid was posted, there’d been a few retirements, and Hellfire was to be run in two heats with 10 cars in each. Starting from the 10th spot on the “B” grade grid I wasn’t hopeful of a result, but I was determined to climb through the pack as far as I could.
Race 1 was a good fight, working my way seadily though the pack up to a respectable 5th outright. Bryan took the win with Scott in second. There were a couple of retirements, leaving a couple of empty spots on the grid for race 2. Starting off the back of the grid I worked my way through the pack again, and had a good battle with Andrew before eventually passing him in a great move on turn 4 and pulling clear. I placed third in race 2, with Scott second and Bryan taking another win. Scott and Bryan had now sewn up the first and second spots, but my third in race 2 blew third overall wide open.
More retirements after race 2 meant that only 5 cars lined up for the final race of the night. Despite this, I still started from th 10th spot, giving Scott and Bryan a full straight head start. Off the start and there were the usual first lap dramas. I picked up two spots, and lost one again very quickly, and from lap two forced myself to settle down and drive. This paid off and I started to close in on then pass the guy in third after anoher lap or two. If I could hold this spot for another few minutes I’d pick up third overall! Bryan soon started to drop back very quickly (and eventually went a lap down) due to battery problems, pushing me up to second. Scott then slowed up a bit to allow me to catch up, and we had a real fight over the last 5 or 6 laps. It was nose to tail racing most of the time, and any minor mistake was taken advantage of. I dived through the inside coming off of the straight, then lost the lead a couple of corners later. The lead changed hands a couple of times, but when the race was over Scott took the win, by a couple of metres.
Second in race three gave me a third outright, and Scott’s win sealed his second overall. Despite a disappointing last race Bryan’s two wins guarenteed him a B grade win, and one of the most exciting nights of racing I’ve ever had. I’m hoping that I can turn my good form into a solid performance next time around. So far this season I either qualify well, or race well, but I can’t seem to put the two together into a good night.
Saturday night saw the running of Round 2 of the new Hobby Habit season. I’d done a bit of work on the rear wing on my new body shell to try and resolve the aero problems I had last meeting. In practice, this worked almost too well, and lead to a slight understeer. A slightly softer set of front springs helped that, but allowed the car to roll enough to scrape the chassis on the ground. An extra spacer all round raised the car about 1mm, which was enough to stop the scraping.
I drove a pretty ordinary first race, but still managed to set a time 13 laps. I had one pretty bad roll over, which broke off the new plastic part I’d glued to one end of the wing. Strangely enough I didn’t notice that this was missing until the end of the second race. It would appear that one end cap improves the efficiency of the wing enough to make the car work well. The other two qualifiers were pretty ordinary, and my qualifying time was a pretty ordinary 14/320s time. This was good enough to qualify 3rd for the B Grade.
During the half time break I made up a slightly smaller end plate for the wing and glued that on the car. Hopefully being a bit smaller it’ll be less likely to be torn off.
In the first race the car ran well for 4 or 5 laps until I had a major accident. After that, the car handled very poorly for the remainder of the lap, but seemed to come good towards the end of the lap. Although it still wasn’t right (understeer turning one way, chronic oversteer the other), I decided to press on, and eventually finished 6th. Upon examination of the car I found that I had a broken front shock absorber (the bottom had pulled off of the shaft). Its a miricle the car handled half as well as it did. I repaired the break, and checked the other front shock as well, an get ready for race 2.
In race 2 the car handled poorly from the start, showing very similar understeer/oversteer problems to race 1. I gave up after 3 laps, and pulled the car in for a look. The wheel on the front left wasn’t drooping as much as it should have, and the right shock (not the one I broke last race) felt a lot stiffer than the left. When I pulled it off the car, and had a look previously, I’d put the botom spring retainer on upside down, meaning I had massive preload on one side of the car, but not the other. The droop was just some small rocks caught between chassis and wishbone.
In race 3 the car started out well (second at the end of the third lap), and I finally seemed set to have a good race. About 3 or 4 laps in the car developed the same handling problem again (grrrrr), so I decided to retire, as there was no hope of even a placing by this time. Again, looking at the car it looks like I’ve rolled one of the rear tyres off the rim. A bit of glue should fix that, and I’m almost due for new tyres anyway.
The car is over two years old now, and its starting to get worn out, but hopefully next fortnight will be better.
Saturday night saw the start of the new Hobby Habit Racing season, which of course means a new track, presentations and concourse. I’d painted up a new body shell for concourse. Some excellent designs were entered, but the clear winner was the guy who entered a Lambourgini with a Scooby Doo motif done entirely with an airbrush. Not a sticker in sight.
Presentations were uneventful, but it was good so see Matthew win F! last season ahead of Darren. Matthew won the season in the last race of the last season, where he had to beat Drarren for the season win. Matthew also took away the perpetual trophy for season champion. Good to see!
The usual debates were had about the new track layout. Originally a very fast curcuit was proposed, but that had to be scrapped because cars were lapping in about 10 seconds which was way too fast for the lap counters. The track was then lengthened, into what is now a very technical curcuit which should provide some good racing for the season ahead.
In practice my car was a bit taily, so a change was made to stiffen the front suspension. I still wasn’t entirely happy with the car but it seemed good enough. I set a reasonable time in the first qualifier, but my car felt like it was struggling to gain speed in some parts of the curciuit, so I dropped back on tooth on the pinion to get some more accelleration. In qual 2 all hell broke loose, my car suddenly was very oversteery to the point of being almost undrivable. More front end tuning only made the problem worse for qual. 3. My qual 1 performance was good enough for 5th in te B grade, but more tuning was needed.
In the half time break I pulled everything off the car and went back to the suspension setup I had at the very beginning of the night to start tuning again, and without touching anything the car was great. Mistake No. 1 If I had left it alone in the first place I would’ve been fine!
Everything went well in race 1 until about 5 laps before the end I clipped a corner marker and ended up in the bushes. It took over 20 seconds for the marshals to find me and put me back on the track, during which time I almost dropped an entire lap. After timing problem were sorted I eventiually finished third. Race 2 was almost a repeat, a smooth race throughout before clipping the same corner merker, but this time I got away without needing assistance from a mershal and finished the race first.
After two good runs, a first or a second should see me win the B grade, so I decided to break out the new body shell for race 3. Mistake No. 2!, despite both body shells being Frewer Honda Accords, they have different rear wings. Unfortunately the wing on the new shell is considerably less efficient then the old one. This I found out the hard way when the back end broke loose on turn 1 and put me into the barrier almost flat out (ouch!). After a few laps I found that by keeping my speed up (to get more downforce) and taking a much wider line through some corners (to keep the speed up), I was able to sort of drive around the problem. I eventually finished 5th in the last race.
My 1st and 3rd, led to a three way tie in results between myself, Ryan (also with a 1st and a 3rd) and Reese (two 2nd places). Reese qualified better, and took away the B grade win, while I finished second and Ryan picked up third.
