Fresh from Neo & raring to test some parts spoilt for choice on tracks this weekend Kent or Slough Kent or Slough both great venues & a dilema right till i left in the morning. Kent being technical & slough being high speed & fast with precision required, well report showed my choice & slough it was.
A good field turned up with our MR Chung & old school electric driver Richard Barton who i have done battle with for many years, other quick guys to slough mike waller & simon turner would make for a competitive day.
A good practice session allowed us all to tune the cars while the officials booked us all in & was a good turn out of 7 full heats. Engine i cant discuss but wow enough said. Car plenty of new ideas & thoughts following neo & came away from the event very happy with any changes made. Car stayed long rear wishbone & hub format but put diffs back to 553 thicker roll bars at 2.4 & 2.6 front wishbone flat & 10 deg castor blocks. This gave a good feel but steering was immence & led to a twitchy feel.
Rnd 1 clean run no mistakes couldnt ask for any more altered front end to inserts 0/0 & 14 deg castor this smoothed out steering giving an easy feel, went 3rd in round & 2 seconds of the tq spot.
Rnd 2 altered front end to 12 deg castor for just that bit more initial, this it did & a well balanced car with pace feeling very good. Clipped the pipework on lap one & took a bit of time to settle back in, from here it was clean & again 3rd in rnd with a quicker time.
Rnd 3 up for it now as track had grooved up & car felt spot on, changed tyres from caliber to bowfighters. Was straight on the pace but had a grip roll mid race & suffered the slowest marshal in the world, marshal those as you wish to be marshalled yourself hmmmmm think this one went to a different school. My fault though as i was the one on my roof 15 seconds though nearly half a lap ahhhhhh.
Qualified 4th with 2x3rd in rounds so a good grid position, as the track was now dust free choose revolvers & man did these feel good, plenty of turn in & traction so looked forward to this next 20 minutes. Drop of the flag & horn sounding we where off & tucked inside of 3rd on the first corner to make a clean pass here i stayed for the next few corners till a slight bobble & collected by the persuing pack, yep you know from here & last. At this point Barton, turner, waller & Chung where 1/2 a lap up with me last & the pack between what a challange. Slowy picking them off pulled through the pack, the easy 11+ minutes of fuel gave a great fuel window & into 4th. At 15 minutes was into 2nd but was as far as i could go Barton had to much of a lead from the beginning. 20 minutes no mistakes happy enough with that, a bobble can happen to any one so a pleasing result to the day.
Serious stuff begins form now & Rnd 1 of the nationals next week, goodbye nice dirt & welcome astro not my favourite well to be honest my most hated surface but what we have. SRS the following week you know it dirt & clanfield yipeeeeeeee. Some how cant see me blogging my 1st National.
My setup
http://forum.teamxray.com/xform/index.php?act=view&ID=1192&setup=xb808
