THEQuagraine

I’m slipping back to nitro wiring. I need to figure this out for the Reedy race! That servo lead though…:-D

Well if yesterday was a disaster, today was a lot better. Got my act together, slept well, worked on both cars, and improved my driving. 4wd pace is acceptable, still slightly off the top, I would say I need to find 0.3seconds per lap on average in order to be really competitive. In 2wd I’m further off, more like 0.6 seconds that I need to find. On AKA’s I am quite good in 2wd and more competitive, but I just can’t do the same on the JConcepts, they are too loose for me. I will be trying my stand up gearbox car tomorrow just to see if that is easier to drive, and faster for me.

So for 2wd I’m still searching, but for 4wd I just need to drive better. That car is already good enough. Yest it can be improved, but mainly I just need to improve my driving, I need to maintain my corner speed better, and hit my lines better, that’s what I learned driving behind Maifield. When I did everything right we were going the same speed, any small mistake and he would pull a way a bit, then back to hitting my lines and I was fine again. And by mistake I mean braking too late, messing up a corner, going too wide etc. So need to focus on driving better tomorrow.

I think it’s really funny how some of these top drivers are such delicate flowers when it comes to their confidence and egos. Pull in behind them and they pull off. Can’t risk having me go faster than them in practice I guess. Or practice with no transponder until you are fast. Too funny. At least Cavalieri, Rivkin, Evans and Hara club raced yesterday. Hopefully more will tomorrow. Maifield didn’t give a shit also when I was trying to hang with him in 4wd, he didn’t pull off.

Did a podcast with Bobby Moore today. What the hell was it called, it slipped my mind now, but it will be out tomorrow. Hopefully it won’t make people hate me more!

Above you see a few laps from today’s race. Nothing special, but there is something to learn there. How to not do what I did, and fly off the track. It has to do with roll centres.

Lowering the roll centre of the car, by raising the link on the inside, has the effect of making the car feel more “in” the track. It feels less “tippy” and softer, more stable, and less aggressive. I did this on my 2WD today to try and make it easier to drive, and it worked, I went faster than before. Sounds great right?

Well one of the downsides of running low roll centers is what happened to me here with my 4WD. In fast corners the car will roll and stay low, but if you don’t keep the throttle on, and the car stuck to the track, BOOM, it may or may not snap up and fly off the track. If I hadn’t let off the throttle there I would have made the corner nicely, but I wasn’t concentrating and I ended up in the wall.

To conclude: When running low roll centres the car is easy to drive, and less likely to flip over, but at high speed, you need to remember to keep that throttle on!

Below you see the PR Racing V3 front end. I only raised the links 1mm front and back.

Andy Smolnick of HobbyPro USA gave me these parts that bold on the front tower, that makes it possible to fine tune the front roll centre of the 2wd V3 buggy.