Disaster aka Winter national

Hmm sounds familiar...

Well this was my first time running on Sorex kicks since I came back racing. And honestly, after running on Ride/Moorespeeds, I hate them. They just feel so plasticky and hard, the wheels are far from round and I general always used to make my car feel like I was driving on ice. This weekend was no exception!

With only 1 round of practise on a green track the traction would never be as high as usual for Ardent.

For the first time since running the AE car I had to differ from my usual set up to find any sort of traction.
Main changes were AE springs and very laid down dampers.

After practise it still wasn't great, but had to go into Q anyway. The only task during the runs we're to make the top 32, to get into the Reedy Style format races. (8 rounds of heads up racing, random grid order, 8 cars each race)

So after an uncomfortable Q I ended up 22nd... Which was a little rubbish as its 11 places lower than where I was this time last year.
There's a few reasons for this I think. Not only with not being used to the tires, but for a reason still unknown exactly, I struggled alot with brakes. I used 2 different ESC's and 2 different motors, but still nothing, which I found strange. There was just no brakes, and with the track having a hairpin at the end of the straight was not ideal.

So as for the Reedy races, the less said the better. Plenty of 3rd's n 5ths it's pure pot luck if u survive the first corner or not.
There were 2 races where I had comfortable leads and promptly three it away, both my fault.

Ended up like 20th overal, really unsatisfied with the whole weekend..

I'm going to take a little time off away from it all now before deciding if I'll go to Poland for ETS rd4...

Ciao

Winter national prep

So, after a long weekend racing in italy last weekend, it's the BRCA winter national this weekend at Ardent.

I hadn't even opened my race bag until today, it's just been sat in my car room since Monday morning, it always seems to be like this after a big race, = zero motivation for the next race. I'm not sure how the very top guys manage to land home one day. Then jump on a plane the next and stay enthusiastic about it all. It might have been down to being off work all this week also which hasnt helped the motivation, I've been fairly alone all week so it's been good to relax a little.

There wasn't much car prep to do apart from a simple rebuild and check of most things.
Also equipment change from ETS spec ESC and motor, over to My normal GM ESC and 10.5 motor.
I think the winter national is a great idea, its everybody in one class. Limited to 102 entries, with 3 rounds of FTD qual, then top 32 go into a Reedy race format for 8 races of heads up racing. This is great fun to do.

That's about all the news ive got for now. I'll keep everyone updated over the course of the winter national, where hopefully I don't have a wank weekend again lol.

Ciao

Disaster. Aka ETS rd2 Italy

Well that sums up ETS Italy for me.

Next topic.... Lol just kidding.

After we arrived at the track Friday morning, I found my radio was broken and missed half of controlled practise because of it, in the end I had to use Andy Moore's radio with one of Juho's receivers.
This was fine except the Sanwa system put my KO to shame. It was so much faster it's unreal. This caused problems all weekend with clipping corners having used the same radio for 7 years :-/

So qualifying went crap. Ended up down in like the E main, 45 out of 140, it doesn't sound that bad, but the car easily had pace for top 7 IMO.

The TC6.1 was pretty great all weekend, I couldn't fault it,
The only changes made were to put the long front link in, heavier diff oil in rear, and gluing up the side walls of the tires.
Funnily enough I won the E main comfortably with times that would put me 8th in each round of Qual... Did I say top 7? I meant 8th lol.

The trip overall was great, lots learnt, like don't rent I hire car with Juho, this poor Peugeot 508 had 2500 miles on the clock and ended up being red lined from cold, huge flat spots on rear tires, and a very funny SOS button that if you press it and italian man starts shouting at you.
The food there is epic... No other way to describe it.
And Scandiano track, although it may be indoors, is fucking cold, we brought a heater on Thursday. The best €30 ever spent! Which we donated to the local club after the event.

BRCA winter national this coming weekend at our test track of Ardent, it should be good with the amount of laps I've put in there.

Anyway until next time Ciao!

New lidz 2

All done! Just waiting to be mounted and decals!

New lidz

Here are some of the progress pics for the new shells by Ginga Paint

ETS prep!

So, been a quiet couple of weeks from me, I've been quite busy, both with work and with testing.

For the first time in ages (maybe ever??) I actually feel well preppared coming into an international race. Which I can sure tell you, it feels nice'!

We (me and Steffan) fly out from Gatwick at about 8:30 Thursday morning. I really wish I had looked where Gatwick was before booking the flights haha (me fail).
Should arrive in Bolgna at about 11:30am and then have a nice 3 hour wait for Juho who should land about 2pm

During testing ive been pretty comfortable. And extremely consistent. Which again is a nice change haha.

I've done 3 full days testing so far at Ardent.
This week I've mainly focused on rebuilding the car and getting things to the right standard.
As I type this, my new shells are in the spray booth of Ginga Paint, proper lovely work, so big props to him :-D

New ride!

Hi guys, been a while since I posted something, (yes I know I said itd be more regular.. But oh well)

Yesterday I had my TC6.1 arrive and got started building it at about midnight. It seemed like a good idea at the time anyway!

After working until 4am I finally called it enough.
It's only really the front bumper and battery holders still left to fit which is no big job, but they'll have to wait till later today after I've done my last Xmas shopping and dinner with a friend.

Here's the box to the new wagon, sorry I don't have any build photos as I was sorta just working on getting it done.

Until next time!