Friday 27 June 2014

V-Design CR5 for sale.

For Sale

V-Design Carpet Ripper 5
1 excellent condition CR5 rolling chassis
6pr brand new Contact Magenta fronts
6pr brand new Contact Magenta rears
6pr brand new Contact Pink rears
1 protoform AMR body
very well maintained, BRCA national podium car 13/14 season
 many spare parts
whole 2nd car as spares

£180 posted in UK
























Monday 11 November 2013

Club race, South Yorkshire Raceway

Ok, so it had been a little while since I raced last; about a month.

So I decided, quite late Saturday evening. To go and visit my parents and then on the Sunday go race at a club meet.
Kills two birds with one stone, happy days.

I got a Carter's for 7am, where we met Big Rob who would drive us to to Sheffield for the race.

The track is much tighter than EWS where I reported from previously. But still decent bite.
Set up wise I started in exactly the same set up that I ended EWS on, all I changed was the gearing, going down from a 43 to a 40 pinion. And gave it a try from there. 

First round was alright, traction still coming up. But the car felt over geared and/or over timed. 
So for round 2 I backed the timing off 10 degrees to 40 rather than 50, this was an immediate improvement.
Round 3 I added 0.5mm under my front inner lines, this gave me much more corner speed and a very nice balance to the car.
Round 4 I went further with that change and added another 0.5mm under the front (1.0mm compared to EWS setting) and a 0.5mm to the rear inner links.
Again the car was really good, maybe a little too safe for the very tight nature of the circuit. 

Lap time wise there was an improvement in every round with every change. 

Plenty of things learnt with the car yesterday, and pleased with how reactive it was to adjustments :)

Until next time!
Ciao 

Tuesday 22 October 2013

On the grid.


EWS rd1 set up


EWS Round 1

So then, the first race with the new car.
Let's start from the beggining.

I was working Saturday morning so after that (about 3pm) I set off to meet up with Jordan, (who is be travelling down with) he lives about 1 hour north of me, which means it's 2hours 30 to the track rather than 1 hour 30 from mine. Because of this we'd decided to travel down on the Saturday rather than a Sunday morning purely because it would make it a very long day.



So we made it to Essex for about 7pm. Got checked into the hotel, did a little car prep (for me it was just getting it set up) then headed off for some tea at the restaurant.
After filling up we headed over to the track to see how the build was going with the track. By the time we got there the track was all set up and a few locals were getting some laps in. Initially I had wished that I'd brought my equipment to give the car a quick shake down to ensure all was ok, I changed my mind after seeing how green the track was and noting that it was purely a track sweeping excersice rather than real testing.
We got our pit table put up though so at least we had pitting sorted :)

At about 10:45 we retreated back to the hotel to finish any remaining prep and get some sleep ready for what would no doubt be a long day.

Rise and shine at 7am, washed and at the track for 7:45.
Pit set up and booked in, just motors and wings to Tech before qualifying.
There was 1x 4minute practice before qualifying, this was going to prove very crucial to how the rest of the day was going to go.
I was still running on last years tires, knowing how much of a difference new tires can make at this venue, I figured I'd play things conservative.
With this practice being the first running I got to do, I took things very easy for the first few laps, checking trims, temps (as this was first time running 17.5 blinky.

All I can say is wow, the Awesomatix worked really well, general lack of grip due to the track, but also I could feel straight away that the balance wasn't right, the rear felt very soft and as if I had little confidence on power with the rear of the car.
Despite this, I still manged to top the time sheets during practice, based on the best 3 consecutive laps. For sure I was very surprised about that!

So back on the table, I gave the car a once over, all seemed fine, nothing loosened or suspect. All good!

I was reluctant to make too many changes as I knew the traction would come up a lot and improve the track. In the end, after a bit if deliberating I decided to go slightly harder in the rear spring setting, aswell as going up on the diff oil in the rear.

Round 1 of qualifying went well, still loose but better balanced so again came away pleased, also gaining the win for the round by a little over 2 seconds.

Round 2 was much of the same except the only change being a slight reduction in the rear spring rate. Again a round win, so that was the most of qualifying done with it being the best 2 out if 4 rounds to count. The only way to be beaten would be for 1 other driver to top the next 2 rounds and go faster than my previous 2 TQ times.

Round 3 went very well,  again with a diff oil change and rear spring adjustment, and for the first time I played with the motor settings.
Pace wise I think I was lucky to get the TQ for this round, the car was super safe to drive, maybe a little too safe. 

Round 4, with the TQ spot nice and safe, I decided to really go for it. Knowing that a number of drivers would run new tires, I decided to do the same so I could know if fresh rubber would be the way to go for the final. I also wanted to add a little more rotation to the car so I went down a little on the diff oil. But left the motor as it was.
This was a really good run. Gaining TQ again for the round making it a clean sweep, but this round, feeling confident to push the car every corner every lap, the balance was perfect coupled with the fresh rubber, I set a time 1.6 seconds ahead of everyone else, and nearly made it to the elusive 20 lap mark.





Onto the final.
Flag to flag win, I had turned the timing on the motor down ever so slightly to ensure I was safe with motor temps.
Again the car ran faultlessly and with the fine tuning of the motor, I was able to build up a very comfortable 4.5 second lead

The video of the final can be found here.




Until next time!

Luke

New Season, New Car, New Views.

So then, its been a little while since I've posted anything of substance on this.
It's time to rectify this, and on a more regular basis.


Plenty of things have changed since the last post(s), Obviously was lucky enough to do some work with Radio LeMans at Silverstone WEC championship, done loads of painting, few changes with job etc

And the big news, I'm back racing! Its taken a lot of work this past few months to sort out but I am extremely pleased to announce a tie up with Russian Company Awesomatix.

As this was sorted out so close to the start of our Indoor season, it has left no time for any testing what so ever. First practice will be the first time the car turns its wheels, no pressure there then!

I'm running in 17.5 blinky class this winter, for a few reasons, reason number 1 is purely down to lack of previous running, and the availability for testing, at least I know I can rock up each month and be competitive, whereas in 13.5 boosted, and Mod even more so, I would be needing to do a great deal more testing to be fast and at the sharp end.



Thursday 5 September 2013

Wow it's been a while!!

Jeez! How have I allowed it to go this long without a blog update?

It's time to start getting back into weekly updates, or at least per project updates!