So the morning of the 18th, we hop in the crewcab and headed on down I40 about 8:30, well within my target departure time. The trip took about 5 hours or so not counting a stop for lunch. We took our break at a Ruby Tuesdays. The food was ok, but not worth what we spent on it. Never-the-less a break from driving was nice. Upon arrival in Beebe we got our room and headed to the track. It was about 3:30pm when we got there, and the races were to kickoff at 6pm. The track was pretty dry and slick in spots, but I knew not to go making changes. The track would be watered and alot better for the qualifiers. The track is mainly built for 8th scale and can be rough on 1/10th electrics if you get stupid. I broke a rear hub on the D4, which would be a theme continued throughout the evening. I broke a pivot plate on my truck, big surprise there. I have been plagued with that kind of breakage lately. The truck is fast but I cannot pust it as hard as I would like due to how fragile the pivot plates have been. If I can find a way the Losi will find a new home and a shiny new RT5 will replace it. I also broke a rear hub on the Rb5. My sister as I mentioned can still wrench, and repaired the RB5 for me. After a long delay between watering and the start of racing, we were ready to wheel.
Qualifying was ok for me, but not my best performance. In 2wd I had one decent run that I feel the scoring docked me a lap. About a minute into the race it started saying we were done. I started last in my heat, passed all the cars ahead of me and even caught a few of them again, yet It scored me an 8 lap run. I believe I got 9 laps and some of the corner marshalls supported me, but I had no hard proof. I did manage to break another hub as well, which my sister promptly repaired while I got the other cars ready.
Truck went a little better. I qualified 6th but should have been faster. I had one really good run that lap traffic ruined for me. That seems to be one of the few things you just cannot control. Jim once again let me borrow some Goosebumps for the truck. These worked alot better than the studs. The studs just did not seem to have enough sidebite for me.
4wd qualifying was nothing spectacular. I consistantly qualify near the front of the A main, however. I had one qualifier that I broke on the pace laps and could not get the car back together in time. I need to learn more about rear wings and how they change handling and flight characteristics. Before I destroyed my car I made a wing change, that made the car not jump worth a crap. I really needed to run better and get a chance at a TQ to make up some points, but this weekend it just was not in the cards.
Ah yes, now for the mains. By now it is about 12:30AM. Yup it is now Sunday. The track is located out in the country, and the bright lights that surround the track were attracting a ton of bugs. Along with large amounts of bugs, were the bats flying around eating them. During one of my mains I felt something on my back. It was rather large and moving! I have no proof it was a bat, but I did have a scene with Chris Farley in a cabin fighting off bats run through my head.
The 2wd main was up first. The car steered well, jumped well, but on the bottom end sucked. I have rebuilt shocks, diffs, everything you can imagine. I think I have narrowed my problems down to a bad sensor wire causing the motor to cog, or even a bad sensor in the motor itself. I am leaning towards the motor being the problem. The problems seem to happen when I swapped the 10.5 from my truck to my 2wd. I finished 6th, and was able to move from 10th in points to 8th. It was not the best run, but with a few good runs and some luck I can move back into the top 5 by the end of the season.
Truck was next up to bat. Keep in mind, my three mains are back to back to back. I had a decent start and moved up through traffic. I got as high as 2nd but could not keep up a quick enough pace to hold off 3rd. Shane was wheeling hard and I did not want to push the truck to much and break a pivot plate. I came home 3rd at the end of the main. This run helped me retain my 3rd in points and gain a few points over 4th place. I am really wanting to get an RT5, but it will not be out till after race 4. I am wondering if it smart to change trucks in the middle of the season. Time will tell I guess.
4wd is the final main of the evening. I took off from my 4th position but just did not have enough drive. Later inspection discovered my slipper was slipping really badly, so I was wasting power and just generating heat. On about lap 2 I broke a rear hub, but not all the way through. I decided to points race and see what I could salvage. for the remaining 5 minutes I drove with about 8 degree toe out on the left rear. I rolled all the jumps to not put any extra stress on it. I kept moving enough I was able to out last a few others that broke and finish 7th. After the races I found that the hub was only holding on by a few mm of material. I also had blown out a front shock and leaked out all the oil. I fell from 2nd in points to 3rd, but only 3 points out of 2nd. I now have a pair of aluminum hubs on the car, and hope that added durability will help.
Race 4 is August 8th, back at Thunder Valley. I hope to have a fix in place for my truck breakage issues, and a solution for my problems in 2wd buggy. The track has been shortened and tightened up to better accommodate 1/10th scale electric cars. The start time is also being moved up an hours to 5pm.
Here is one of the videos of 2wd Qualifying.
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