A Look Back at My Racing from the Past Week

I haven't had an opportunity to let you all know about my racing from last week until now, so here we are...

Week began with racing on Sunday at the Northern Indoor Carpet Series (NICS) held at one of my local clubs Ribble Valley RC Car Club (RVRCCC). It's usually a slightly bigger meeting than a usual Friday club night and is nice and relaxed. Just another excuse to go racing really! There are a couple of rounds left in the series - for more details, including entry details, check out the club links on the right side of the page. The meeting was basically my new Tamiya's maiden voyage and in summary, all went extremely well. I was fastest in timed practice, fastest and improving with every round of qualifying and I went on to TQ and win the meeting. Couldn't ask for a much better debut!

Quick plug for the club as it's a pretty new venue for them, with permanent track, carpet and pitting space (all with mains power). There's a bar which serves food downstairs and the track is plenty big to boot. Check out pictures below to see more. Sorry about quality again - I was still getting to grips with this blogging malarkey and had forgotten my proper camera.



Next race came the following day at my other local club, Monday nights at Morecambe Model Car Club (MMCC). Morecambe is very different to Ribble, it's one of the smallest tracks I've ever raced on, but it makes for insanely close racing with tight twisty tracks usually. As a result everyone there is of a pretty high standard. The Tamiya's second outing certainly didn't disappoint. I usually either end up pole in the B Final or bottom end of the A at Morecambe, however I had always felt that the Xray just wasn't working for me here no matter what I tried.

The Tamiya proved this by helping me FTQ every round (except Round 1, as grip tends to be ridiculously low unless you are in the top qualifying heat) and end up pole in the A final! This was my first ever FTQ and pole and I was delighted with it. The car was going fantastically and I literally couldn't fault it.

I led the A final for the entire race with a pretty comfortable lead, until I made slight mistake which put second a little closer but still not in a position to challenge. Coming onto the straight on my final lap... I turn right round the hairpin, and it just keeps turning into the barrier! I get marshalled and straightened up but second place is all over me now... I try to turn slightly round the sweeper before powering home to victory down the straight but the car seems to have a mind of its own and careers into the barrier with second place piling into the back of me and getting past me. I limp home to second place, still two laps up on 3rd and 4th. When I pick up the car to see what happened, the ball stud in the steering has come free causing one of my wheels to no longer be connected. That will be the LAST time I don't threadlock that assembly together!

End of the week now, and as you can probably tell from all the results I posted, I was present at the 12th National in Plymouth. Trip down on Friday night was a bit of a mare. We'd been on the road for over two hours from Preston and we hadn't made it past Birmingham... despite leaving just after lunchtime. Once we were there though we got all set up then headed back to the Travelodge. Went out into town on the Friday night which was cool, made a nice change from sitting in a Travelodge room listening to the motorway traffic passing by.

Saturday came around and car felt great, hadn't felt this good since Crewe - I just hadn't been getting on with the non-GT carpet. Everything went well in qualifying; I just didn't get enough clean runs in to significantly improve, so ended up 5th in the D final. I had wanted to make the C, so it wasn't a great result but could have been worse. I then proceeded to clip the sweeper at the end of the straight early on in the final, which launched me into the wall and popped a link off my 12R5. The marshal decided it was too much like hard work to pop it back on, so I spent the remaining 7 minutes watching my Saturday final.

After another night out on the tiles, Sunday morning rolls around far too quickly if you ask me, nevertheless we make it to the track and practice begins for open mod. I've been having trouble with my GM speed control in mod ever since I took it out the case and cut the capacitors off. Everyone else had done it fine so I thought why would I be any different? Sod's law I was different and my speedo just hasn't worked on Sundays with a mod motor despite my best efforts to identify and rectify the problem. It works fine on Saturdays with 10.5, but put a hotter motor in and all hell breaks loose. It won't run sensorless (which is how everyone runs the GM on Sundays) and although it works a little better with a sensor it's still not usable. Epic cogging plagues my runs - inconsistently working then not working, meaning sometimes I get power and overshoot a corner, other times I get nothing and turn into the corner. The last ditch attempt was to change the caps for some new, better ones for this weekend. It didn't work, so I pulled out after practice and just supported my team mates for the rest of the day. I'm now entered for 10.5 for both days for the rest of the season and I guess a new speedo is on the wishlist for when I can afford one. Probably start of next 12th season now. I was also entered in the 12th Euros for Mod, but I have now regrettably backed out now as I decided I'll save my money for the TC Nationals this summer instead. There will always be other opportunities.

Next race is this Friday at the club meeting for RVRCCC. Then on Sunday I will be at the BIWS round in Sheffield. Stay posted for updates and pictures on both of these meetings in due course.