Oople Series Round 2 - RHR

Morning/afternoon or evening depending on when your reading this.  We decided on getting to the track early on the Saturday morning as there was 2 hours of open practice which was required due to last weeks poor performance.  We were promised glorous sunshine all weekend but we were met with cloudy skys which to be fair wouldnt clear all day.

The cars weren't too bad straight out without any changes, but throughout practice after trying different combinations of tyres we were all set.

The format of the weekend was to be 4 rounds of qualifying on the Saturday followed by 1 round on Sunday and 3 legged finals for everyone.

Rounds 1 - 3

All three of us (mark, abi and James) were fairly consistent James had a few problems with his car kept cutting. Abi decided to try mini pins (not as bad as we thought) and me and James stuck to yellow mini spikes front and back. 

Round 4

Due to us driving consistently the decision was taken to try different things, I went with 2wd front spikes and new rear yellow spikes, new jc wing and jc body shell, abi and James went with new tyres as well.  This transformed the cars we all managed to improve our times to the delight of all of us. 

So at the end of Saturday we were all lined up together abi 29th, James 30th and me 31st.

After the BBQ and car cleaning, diff changing on the Saturday night it was decided an early night was needed, all this fresh air kills you. 

Our pitting corner of the field 

Sunday morning again like Saturday was open practice for an hour and half. I decided to bed my car in after a diff oil change on practice 1 (10k front 5k rear) but then decided to change in my spare diffs which contained 3k front and 2k rear, the car was alot more direct on the track and would probably be quicker in the reminding qualifier but it fealt too edgy for me so i decided to go back to the original diffs.

Final round

On to the final round of qualifying we all improved our final times after the changes before round 4.  The cars were very settled through the fast parts of the track.

On to the finals we go, I would line up 8th on the c final grid very happy with this, abi 7th and James 2nd.  I thought at best before the finals I would be able to gain a couple of positions.  

1st final, again there would be the first corner drama in front, James getting rammed from behind would be an unstatement, abi got caught up as well, I managed to slip through without any trouble where I would contest 3rd position for most of the race to which I would duly finish (my best times of the day as well), abi would finish 5th but James would fail to recover and only managed 8th. 

On to the second final, again James got caught up on the first corner and had to wait for passing cars before marshalling, I managed to drive alright for a couple of laps but a few silly mistakes soon put pay to any decent finish in this round of finals.   Abi drove like a diamond pushing for a win but just lost out by 1.4 seconds. Me and James had a drag race to the line see photo enactment below of what happened

 

3rd and final round of the c final, James finally managed to turn his 2nd on the grid to a good finish of 3rd. I managed to get up to 4th with 2 laps to go, but a silly mistake with no pressure dropped me down the field and ended up 7th. Abi had a decent race and finished 6th. Overall Abi finished 4th on the same points as 3rd with a 0.13 slower average, I finished 7th and James finished 8th.

Overall I am presently pleased with my performance especially after the previous weekend at this venue, qualifying in the c final and managing to finish 3rd in the first of the finals.  I was a little disappointed with the other 2 finals but mistakes will happen, but with less frequencys hopefully.

Our cars

Track photo of a final 4wd

 

This was the second round of the Oople Series which is in its first year of being run and we have throughly enjoyed ourselvers at it, its just unfortante we are unable to complete the whole of the series.  We are defintely looking foward to next years series.

 

My set up from RHR http://forum.teamxray.com/xform/index.php?act=view&ID=98&setup=xb4

 

Link to series results so far http://www.oopleracing.com/2013/index.htm

 

 

Mid East BRCA Regional Round 2 RHR

I have been looking forward to visiting RHR for a long time, I have heard very good things about the venue but a little disappointed I haven't visited sooner and the fact that my right hand man and left hand woman are missing in action today.

Photo of track

 

What a glorious way to the start I the day, sunshine, something which you don't associate with UK in the summertime. 

Practice

With my car being all set for practice with little changes needed at the start of the day, I have decided to test the jconcepts bodyshell back to back.

 Photo of body shells 

First practice decided to go with standard bodyshell and white ballistic tyres, car felt kind of alright, it was a little loose on the rear.  

Second practice went with jc shell and Schumacher mini spikes, car wasundriveable, rear end spinning at every corner

On to round 1, not a good way to get the regional underway, popped a ball joint on steering cost me a over a minute.  Very disappointed overall, didnt have the time to tell if my setup on the car was anygood or not.

Round 2 saw a big improvement, car still doesn't feel 100%, maybe I'm expecting too much from electric racing who knows. For this round I went to cut mini spikes on the front with ballastic whites on the rear with the standard shell. 

Round 3 didn't start too good when I forgot to tighten a wheel nut to which i lost a wheel on practice. A quick trip back to the pits gave me just enough time to make the start.  On this round i went to 2wd mini spikes on the front and the jc shell. The xb4 was not at its best to put it nicely, it felt very loose at the rear, dont know whether this was the tyre change or bodyshell who knows, 4th round I will have to go back to what I know best.

Round 4, I made a few changes to the car, back came the standard shell, some aka red insert mini spikes to the front and rear and a change of the rear chamber arm length.  The car and I drove much better in the final round, but still not quite there yet a basis to start at next weekend at the Oople Off Road Series.

Final qualifying postions saw me line up 7th in the c final. Lee bunker lined up 8th in b and Colin Jackson 4th in the b final.

On to the finals then, this time I decided to take a punt on the rear tyres by going for green ballastic spikes which are normally used for wet conditions, it seemed to make my car safer to drive although it wasn't any faster.  I had an half decent final,just wish I could have pushed the car that little bit hard, after the first couple of mayhem laps I settled down into a decent pace finishing 2 places higher than starting and only 3 seconds off 2nd and a further 10 seconds to 1st place.

Colin and lee both had eventful finals in the b, Colin getting taken out whilst chasing down 1st place and lee running out of time whilst chasing down the pack.

Hopefully next week at the Oople series at RHR will provide a better result after today's experience.

I couldn't finish this instalment without posting a picture of The Dirt track at RHR, the only true 1/10th off road dirt track in the UK