Mad Ax

It's Friday again! Despite last weekend being race weekend, I neglected to post since I was also busy prepping for a day out with my wife and starting my new job on Monday. So here I am, one week later, just one more day to go to finish my first week at work. Currently haven't done any actual work, still being trained (or more specifically waiting for the training schedules to come around), training myself on some topics I don't have experience with, and getting excited to actually start work in the next week or so. Friday - school run in 5 mins, then WFH today. To top off an already busy and stressful week, I have a filling at 2:30. Perfect time for a dentist's appointment. So probably not having the usual spicy food and beer for dinner tonight, instead I might be able to do some tidying in the workshop before bed. Saturday - quiet day at home with my daughter. Stress levels have been off the scale this week with meeting lots of new people, 3 solid days in a busy office and staying away from home - I've not done a full day in an office since 2018 - so I need some quiet time tomorrow. Hopefully my daughter won't want to go out anywhere, although it was her first week back at school since Easter, and she spent most of Easter away with grandparents, so she's probably ready for some relax time too. Eve - cook a meal and maybe chill with a movie, or maybe see if I've fixed the bugs in the scaler controller software. Sunday - Workshop Sunday. Finish the tidying first, sort out my race stuff from last weekend, then I think I'll get the hillwalking rig down and see what else needs doing. I haven't been walking for a long time, and it's only 5 weeks until I set off for my walking holiday in the lakes, so I really need to get some miles in. If I can get the truck moving under its own power, I'll take it out for a test-play and see how it handles the hills. I expect the shocks will be too soft and the tyres not up to the task, but it'll be fun finding out. Eve - spicy pizza and a few beers before getting back to the new job on Monday morning. Have a great one, everybody

I've cut the sidewalls off a set of used slicks and pushed them inside the warmers. That fills out the space and allows the heat to be transferred into the smaller tyres. I wasn't really sure they were necessary - the few times I raced without them, I didn't really notice much difference in initial grip. I did M-chassis and FWD back in 2022 and it was too stressful, I like that I've got well over an hour between each round to get my car sorted and grab a drink before having to rush out again. Come say hello if you see me at Carlisle or Broxtowe

Good point. I do have some wheel weights stuck in low down in the rear of the chassis too. Some of the other guys were running medium springs up front, where I was running hard, so that may be part of my problem. I forgot to bring my spring sets so I couldn't swap over to test it out. Yes, standard diff with Blu-Tac installed. There's so much in there now that it doesn't change so much between runs, but still needs a repack from time to time. Rules for M03 state "Tamiya gearing with unlocked differential" - that means there must be some diff action after the race (I once overdid the Blu-Tac and it got disqualified) - if the TB04 gear diff has the same gearing then that may be an option. However for M05, some aftermarket diffs are allowed. The M03 is now feeling so tired and sloppy that I'll either have to give it a full rebuild with new arms and uprights, along with some legal mods I've been putting off for years, or just go with the M05. However my M05 is 99% stock, and there's a lot more permitted hop-ups for the M05 to get it to a similar spec as the other A-final M05s. If I stick M03 I'll eventually be outclassed by the M05s, if I upgrade the M05 I've got a fair bit of money to spend up front and a lot of tuning and setup to do. Sadly I can't make practice day for at least the next two rounds, so I'll be doing my M05 setup during quali runs and hoping I don't fall too far behind during the day...

Nice build so far, there's nice attention to detail in this one. The Desert Lizards are a great looking shock but when I got mine, they still had a lot of swarf and grime inside from the manufacturing process. Probably a good idea to squirt them out with some break cleaner or something before you run them properly, I had to think what that swarf does to the rubber seals and pistons.

Yeah. Nah. I sold my original a long time ago and regretted it. I didn't buy the first round of re-res and regretted it. Now they've come back with a big-ticket limited release, I won't bother. There's enough demand for a full re-release of this, there's enough vintage racing in the UK now and we need more options for racing. Once all the vintage cars are beyond repair, we'll have a heat full of Wild Ones, Foxes, Turbo Ultimas and Top Cats (which have also been discontinued) - and perhaps the most iconic of them all, the RC10, is going to disappear. With all the tooling available to make a mass-production kit, this feels a bit unfair.

Well folks, that's round 1 completed. The final could have gone better - I lost 2 places in the first couple of corners and they were way faster than me, however I managed to stay with another and was very close all the way. When he moved over to let a lead car through I pounced, took the place and held it, even pulled out some distance. Then a leader caught me in my least favourite corner, I tried to pull over but got a wheel on the grass and flipped. I clawed back the lost time and was within a second of 9th, but alas, ran out of time and had to settle for last. It's clear that my car isn't as good as it was last year - or maybe it's me? The m05s have switched it up. So do I break my m05 out, or give the m03 some attention? I have some things to work on before the next round a month from now!

This is racing in super stock

Final time! So round 4 went as well as could be expected, I finished 7th after some other racers had trouble. A clean race with no mistakes and lots of focus on lines. As a result I have qualified 8th overall and remain in the A, which is Mission Accomplished. Best result now is to finish better than 8th, although I know the driver in 10th is faster over a single lap and 9th was bumped up from B, so it could be a close race or a total disaster. Fingers crossed . I considered changing to an older set of EXP32s as the track is getting colder, but I figured consistency is more important than trying to banzai or right now

Transit!

Mr Iconic himself gave me a coaster!

Round 3 was a big improvement, at least in terms of consistency. The stiffer diff felt like it made a difference, and although my fastest laptop time was still 3s off the fastest lap time, I had a much better race, overtaking one slower car on merit and getting a couple of other places from drivers who were clearly faster but having scruffier races. No mistakes was a big bonus. However, the times for that race are not showing online so I'm not sure if there was a problem. The result sheet was physically printed so there definitely were times, just maybe they have been removed or just didn't make it online yet. No changes for round 4 except re gluing the front tyre walls.

Round 2 was a marginal improvement. My overall time was better and I was only 1 lap off the lead, but my best was several seconds off the top time and the slowest in the heat by some margin. The car drives nicely and isn't lacking speed on the straight, but either the car isn't able to maintain speed in the corners or I'm not able to get the best from it. The diff has softened up a lot since yesterday so I have repacked it and will see how it goes in round 3.

Round 1 wasn't a huge success. The track had warmed a lot since morning practice and the tyres were too sticky. It was a bit twitchy from the start, and I had a couple of grip roll incidents towards the end which put me down to 9th. Looking at my best time, I'm a fair way off the lead and lost 2 laps, and in danger of being relegated by some B drivers. Switched back to the EXP36 tyres, fingers crossed for next round

The trailer got lots of attention but wasn't eligible for concourse prize due to not being an actual race car

I have been placed as car 7 in the A heat, which is kinda scary given how badly I raced yesterday. Tyre warmers on for the first time, although it warmed up quickly earlier today without them. If you want to follow along, live results are here. I am Alex Sparey in group 8. https://www.rc-results.com/Viewer/Main/MeetingSummary?meetingId=11418