Good Afternoon / morning / evening depending on when you’re reading
this blog. I said to myself after last
years TMSC blog that I would give this season a miss, but after looking at the
viewing numbers I have deceived to give it another go. I have decided to make a few changes to the
blog this year, mainly due to me also racing 1/10 4WD electric off road. This blog will throughout the year
incorporate both 1/8th nitro (Xray xb9’13) and 1/10th
electric (Xray Xb4) events.
This first blog of the series is going to incorporate 3 events, these
being Oople Series Round 1 at Stotfold (1/10th), 1st
round of East Mids Regional 1/10th and the 2nd Round of
TMSC at Frankly
Oople Series Round 1 – Racing electric 1/10th is a fairly
new thing to me especially outdoors (although we race indoors through the
winter); we decided as our little team that we would race this all year round
in a bid to improve our driving ability to achieve better results. The first outing with the Xray Xb4 would be
at the Brand New Series the Oople Team had started. This took place over the weekend of the 20th
and 21st April, and what a weekend we had, sunshine (which we all
got burnt), relaxed atmosphere and some cracking racing especially watching 1
of the A Final 4wd legs to which I will explain later.
The itinerary for the weekend was open practice in the morning until
12pm, 5 rounds of qualifying on the Saturday; open practice Sunday morning for
an hour followed by the final qualifying round and then onto 3 legged finals
for everyone. Saturday morning was a
little problem for us travelling some 110miles down to Stotfold track; we
couldn’t leave Derby until 9am due to me dropping my boy off at my sisters
meaning we would only get 10mins of open practice track time if we were
lucky. On arriving at the track with 20
minutes to spare we quickly kit the track for some much needed practice and
track learning, the cars were very good straight out, although throughout the
day we made various changes to these.
Photo of track
This weekend was also a first for me; I decided to bring Oscar (beagle)
our dog with us to enjoy a weekend in the countryside, to which he dually
enjoyed.
Photo of Oscar on way home
Once we had cleaned the cars down and charged all our batteries we
decided to take a trip into the picturesque town of Letchworth Garden City for
some tea, if you are ever in the area it is a must visit.
With the event being a 2 dayer it was decided rather boldly to camp
instead of staying in one of the close by hotels, it turned out to be a little
mistake, for the first time ever experienced after a hot day we had frost on
our tents in the morning. It was bloody cold, good job I had 2 sleeping bags.
Sunday morning came and we all managed to get on the track for some
good practice, testing tyres and small setup changes which had been suggested
on the track walk Saturday night. I
decided to go with ballistic white mini spike tyres as there were safer to
drive consistently on a track which was made up of half new astro and half old
astro, my lap times certainly improved.
Photo of final qualifying positions
Nathan Ralls Xb4 – tq’d the
event
I came 23rd, James 26th
and Abi (after a few problems with ESC) 32nd
Finals certainly opened my eyes up to the world of 1/10th
racing with legs 1 and 2 suffering 3rd corner take outs leaving me
dead last after the first laps. After
this the problems kept coming, leg 1 I managed to get my self back into
contention with the top 3 only to make a silly boy school error on the last
corner causing me to finish well down the pack.
Leg 2, I never stood a chance of regaining any position in the race and
ended up fighting at the back of the pile.
Leg 3 I managed to keep out of the way of all the trouble finishing 4th,
but for some reason lacked a little power.
Any way overall I was pleased with the outcome of the day, finishing 7th
overall in the C final. James after a
similar start to his C finals managed to finish 4th Overall. Just to note we Simon Moss (an A national
finalist driver) in our finals who missed Saturdays qualifying. In the D final Abi showed everyone a clean
set of wheels winning her final overall after a 2nd position and 2 1st
positions.
We managed to watch the A finals on Sunday and never before have I seen
a final where both the 1st and 2nd placed drivers fail to
complete there last laps. There was some
amazing driving in the top finals, “if only……….”
On to the BRCA Mid East Regional
4wd Round 1 at West Bridgeford
This event was on the same weekend as the first round of the TMSC
series and because there are fewer regional’s to undertake the decision was
taken to drop this round and head to West Bridgeford for the 1st
round of the BRCA Mid-East Regional’s for 1/10 4wd.
This was another eye opener for us racing on a rugby grass training pitch,
something we had not done before. The
order of the day was open practice in heat order followed by 4 rounds of qualifying
and finals. The key to running on grass
was to find the right tyres on the ever evolving track and to be fair something
I struggled with all day, but as they say a good racing experience for future
races. The cars all seemed to work well
but with tyres being the key it was hard to find a rhythm. I ended up qualifying in 30th
place with Abi 28th and James 24th, placing us all in the
same final. Colin managed a very
impressive 4th place but I think this has something to do with his
super thumbs (Lol).
In the final me and James struggled with the car, we seemed to have
chosen the wrong tyres which caused some woeful driving. I finished 8th, James 6th
and Abi 5th miles down the road completing an extra lap. Colin didn’t fare much better in the A final,
constantly being taken out by slower cars.
TMSC Round 2 - Frankly
For the first time since I can remember, I have not been able to go to
the track on the Saturday for practice before racing on the Sunday due to
family commitments. This hasn’t helped
at all to be fair, I have not raced or practiced with the Xb9 for a good few
weeks and after the last outing with it I could have done with some track
time.
Sunday morning bright and early, out of bed at 5am, need to be on the
road for 5.45 at the latest so that we reach the track by 7am. Really looking forward to tomorrows racing!
Photo of track
Once camp was all setup, we all decided to make a few changes to the
cars, stiffening up the shocks as the cars were setup for wet to damp
conditions and not the dry sunny conditions which we had. Summer has well and truly turned up.
Round 1 –Frankley track had under gone a transformation since we was
last here, new astro laid, new features put in and some taken out, overall a
certain improvement undertaken by its members “Well done”. I wasn’t expecting alot from the first round,
get some laps under the belt whilst learning the track, but I didn’t expect to
do so badly, the car was not suited to my driving style but what made things
worst was the engine cutting out after only managing 5 laps with a best lap of
45.05 some 3 seconds off the pace with an average of 51.03 compared to the
leader 45.42.
Round 2 – I had made a few more changes to the car to help, which still
didn’t help but again an engine glow plug failure cut short any chance of
learning the track or getting a decent qualifying position. I completed 6 laps again with an average of
50.27 compared to the leader in my heat of 44.38 and a fast lap of 45.15
compared to 40.70. Major improvements
required!!
Round 3 – I was all set for this round, a new glow plug in, and changes
to take some of the grip away but guess what; I never even got round the first
corner before the changes I had made caused the rear drive shafts to pop
out. I could have easily packed up and
gone home if my car wasn’t blocked in.
What an unbelievably poor start to the day/season, one certainly to forget. I ended up qualifying in my worst ever
position of 80th out of 95 and 9th on the grid in the G
Final.
On to the finals (G Final), I decided to make some major changes to my
car with the help of James, having not really benefitted from any track time. These changes helped me alot, the car seemed
a lot more easier to drive although the first couple of corners where you can
carry some speed the car seemed to squat down a litte (maybe stiffer suspension
would have sorted this out) grip rolling.
I settled down into the final fairly quickly, picking my way through the
traffic on the first couple of laps to assume 1st place after just 4
laps, a position I would keep for the rest of the race. I ended up with an average of 49.59 and a
fast lap of 42.73 some 2.5 seconds faster than everyone else, a big improvement
on the day.
F Final, I would start 12 on the grid after bumping up, again I managed
to get a fairly clean get away, but unable to catch 1st position due
to some driving hiccups within the race.
The car seemed to be grip rolling more causing me to take it easy on
some parts of the track. I finished 2nd
this time with an average of 49.18 which was an improvement on my first final
and a fast lap of 42.73.
E Final, again I would bump up and would start in the 13th
position on the grid. This race was
certainly more of a struggle to catch the leads, it wasn’t until half way
through the race that I managed to get into the top half of the field and then
on the final lap land the 3rd and final bump up position of the
race. I finished with a slower average
due to the scrappiness of the final of 50.09 and a slightly slower fastest lap
of 43.21.
D Final, it had to end somewhere, although I did manage to get up into
the number 3 spot after 3 laps a position which I managed to hold until my
steering servo horn screw came lose ending my day. I managed only 7 minutes of this final but
with an average of 45.17 which would have been good enough for 2nd
position, some 4 seconds faster than my best without taking into account a pit
stop.
Overall at the end of the day I’m disappointed with my qualifying,
struggling with engine issues (maybe I
need to think about a change here, it is 1 season old) and then making
silly setup changes which caused a car malfunction. I suppose some of the setup problems
throughout the day could have been sorted had I attended the practice day
yesterday and my engine did manage over 60minutes of racing without a problem. My finals pace was consistent
and pretty please with it, I just wonder where I would have finished had I
qualified better.
At the next round at the end of June I will start with the setup I
finished with on the practice day and hopefully get to a point where I am happy
with the car.
Photos of car in the finals
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