The Neo experience has been going on now for many years & I can claim to be a veteran having attended them all from when they started in Antwerp.
The 2010 would have all the hipe & if your weekend went well was all it should be & more, for the guys that had the bad experience it was a weekend of hell but this is just the Neo experience.
DXR laid on a fantastic venue with a track that just got better, the surface was spot on & did not break up in any way but would just groove up to be a pleasure to race on. The lap had to be attacked & to be quick 38 or 39 second laps were the key but from here it was consistency & inch perfect lines.
The lap was a short straight into a droop off & table top, a double hairpin followed by a double where you had to nail the down ramp to make a fast turn. It was now a sprint across the back for a double & single jump into the touring car section, this section you had to nail & have good car rotation. Following this was the quad where nailing the far side of the down ramp made for a quick line into dolly parton & ride the mounds trying not to slide off. With a turn & drop into the large doubles hoping not to gain to much air crossing the line & onto the straight again. That was one lap simple you say heck no, awesome when it hooked up but hard to find that point.
Greg my RCdisco boss would sort the team tables as my journey up was delayed due to bank holiday traffic so the hall was shut when we arrived on the Thursday.
Meeting up with old friends & other members of the international Xray team was great. Some new goodies to play with which performed very well all weekend.
Friday
From the word go the car was good & felt hooked up, a few tweeks here & there i thought which turned into many changes in the end but as usual fun wrenching.
The timed practice would turn into a mare, 1st round the fuel tube got ate by the spur & managed 3 laps with 2 crappers.
2nd Rnd car switched off on lap 2, a quick restart gave me 7 laps with only the last 3 being any good, not perfect but kept me in the good reseeded heats few.
Saturday
Rnd 1 went well clean & steady & 39th happy with that & something to work on..
Rnd 2 some alterations to the car but it still pushed like a pig on the touring car section some errors but 49th & surprised there.
Rnd 3 again some adjustments was quicker but again the errors crept in & in the 60’s.
A rethink was decided here on setup as I was loosing time on the touring car & quick rotation sections.
Sunday
Rnd 4 speed was now there but the shock alteration was not working on the jumps leading to an unpredictable landing & mistakes
Rnd 5 & best run so far of the weekend into the 11 lap gang
& 37th.
Rnd 6 happy with setup now & again new boots for the last run. Straight into the fast 11 lap pace, back markers scuppered this but knew pace was good for the finals & would stand a chance.
Generally the qualifying had gone well consistency was the key which had let me down a bit but the track was hard as hell to hook up perfect.
Pulled the old girl apart as like most they had gone through hell to get to this point. My only injurys was a broken switch in practice & cracked gearbox casing i noticed after qualifying so not to bad. Qualified into the 1/8ths so happy with the weekends work so far.
Monday & finals day
The warm up felt hooked up & with the start dropped a few spaces from my 6th start grid but soon got these back. The easy 10 minute stops would always play into my hand putting me into a comfy bump up, finished 3rd after 20 mins & into the 1/4s .
From the back of the grid would always be hard but slowly worked my way through to catch the 4/5 battle for the bump up spot. In a position to finally challenge with 2 mins to go binned it in the touring car section leaving just to much to make up in the time left & finished 6th..
For me my Neo experience left me chuffed to bits with my result narrowly missing the chance of the bump into the semi but thats racing. The Xray had performed faultless with new engine combo not missing a beat all weekend. The KO servo’s seemed the only ones to come away not damaged in name after the event but the jumps where brutal & took many victims.
My setup ended very different to that of previous years giving me much to think about for other tracks
http://forum.teamxray.com/xform/index.php?act=view&ID=1179&setup=xb808Thanks to Neo buggy for the photo's & to Phil & crew for putting on such a great event.
Thanks of course to Xray hudy cml Rcdisco & custom blitz with last but not least Barkley as my demon pit crew all weekend.
