It's a new track layout this week, and it's a nice one!
 This week's track layout |
The first qualifier was decent, however I did find myself stuck against the inside corner twice - thanks to the new Futaba BLS451 I installed just prior to racing, and I only had about 4 laps of practice time to get used to how the car worked with this incredible servo! When you're so used to something, sometimes switching to something much nicer takes some getting used to! Anyway, I lost roughly seven seconds in each incident, and lap times were between 13.8 & 14.0. I finished the first qualifier with a 20/5:09 or so. Removing the mistakes, I was on a mid 21 lap pace, and figured I needed to find almost another whole lap. I could tell I was undergeared, and my motor came off at about 120F, confirming what I felt.
I geared up two teeth to a 100/46. John was also so eager to find out if his battery fit in the car, that he loaned it to me to run for the rest of the night. It was a 5000 mah 35c Reedy - it fit wonderfully, and worked great, but it was hard to tell if my improvements were due to gearing changes or the battery.
The second qualifier was outstanding. I kept it clean, and towards the end of the race, I pulled up on Jeff's bumper, and am running nose to tail with him for a bit, and he's telling me "Just let me know when you want by" and I told him I didn't and was just going to run behind him for a bit. While I wasn't turning my best laps of the night, I was running very consistently and cleanly, and squeaked out a 22/5:15. 5:15? Yeaaahh... I just made 22 laps and then hit like four boards on that last lap. Regardless, it was still good enough for third - James was on 23 laps, Kevin was on a 22/5:07. Jeff and Bob were behind me - Remember how I said some things don't change?
I geared down to a 100/45 for the main as I felt I wanted just a bit more punch - the motor had come off at 162F, which was right about the max I would go, but I just didn't feel it was winding out the way I wanted.
For the main, we're doing out sideways starts, and Marc gives us the extra space we had asked for (5 feet). The tone goes off and everyone gets away cleanly until Marc announces that it's a clean start, whereupon Kevin and James wreck in front of me in turn three. They're being marshaled, and I manage to squeak by right up against the board, slowly, but that puts me out front on lap one for the third straight week. Kevin is right behind me, and Bob behind him. My car is a bit loose, and I stumble a little going into turn 9 where Kevin gets under me and tags me, getting me sideways. I was getting back up to speed in the short distance between turn 10 and 11, when gung-ho Bob drives through my car, wrecking it and leaving it upside down in the corner at the beginning of the main straight. When I get marshaled, I'm in last place.... again.
Okay, What's up with this? Do I have to adjust my strategy to where my car is absolutely perfect on lap one and slowly gets worse instead of better as the race progresses? I'm seriously tired of being Bob's punching bag on lap one! If I could do that, I would be able to get away from the slower cars/worse drivers when they are closest to me - from there, as long as I can turn slightly faster laps times than them, they would never become a problem.
But I digress... Luckily, everyone ahead of me is playing bumper cars, and I set off to reel in Jeff. Within a couple laps, I notice he's looking off at a marshal holding his car in one hand, and the right front suspension in his other! Two minutes into the race, and I'm running up on Bob's car - he takes a wide line going into turn two at the end of the sweeper and I'm under him and he comes back across to set up for turn three and we get together, with him rolling a few times. I roll around turn three and park it waiting for him to get marshaled and let him by into turn seven. I run behind him for a lap looking to see where I can pass him, and I don't even need to try as he makes an error on the very next lap, and I sail by. The rest of the race was uneventful as far as being marshaled, but I still hit nearly everything out there. I finished in third behind James and Kevin who were duking it out pretty fiercely for the first four minutes of the race, but James prevailed in the end. Bob couldn't keep his car on all four wheels, and was over a lap behind me. I finished with only 20 laps, but I improved my fast lap time from a 13.8 in qualifier #1 to 13.7 in qualifier #2 to 13.5 in the main. The higher gearing doesn't give me the best lap times, but it calms the car down and I hit less things - it might be a trade-off I'll be willing to make more frequently.
After the race, I talked to Jeff, and the suspension pieces on his car had been cracked previously. He glued them to keep them intact, and he knew it wasn't a matter of if they would break, it was simply a matter of when.
Now that I've got two weeks of racing on the car, I'm considering what changes to make to the car to improve it, and will be racing on Friday and practicing on Saturday, so I forsee some changes in my future.
