Mad Ax

Sometime during the morning our LiPo alarm had stopped working, so we only knew our battery was flat when the ESC shut off. That meant we had no idea how long we could run in a stint, and had to be ultra-conservative on our pit stops. Since we all have to run more-or-less equal times on track, we settled on 15 minute stints in qualifying order: Matt first, then Jon, then me, then Alistair, then repeat for the 2nd hour. I was the first to take pitstop duty, which filled me with more dread than actually driving the car since a) I hadn't practiced any pitstops or battery changes all day, 2) my back was very stiff and with all the layers to keep warm I was struggling to get to the ground, and iii) I've never worked on the car before and was worried I'd fumble the battery change. I am also pretty clumsy and have a tendency to drop body clips (and anything else you give me to hold, tbh) so there was a good chance I'd mess something up and cost us laptime. The race start was a spectacular thing to behold. The organisers opened up a Secret Box to reveal the official series pace car - a black Porsche with roof lights and flashing indicators. The competitors would make their way slowly out on track, follow the pace car for 1 lap in staggered formation, then the lead car would control the pace from the back straight while the pace car got ahead and safely into the pits, and the race would start as the lead car crossed the timing loop. Of course all this sounds fab, but nobody had practiced this. Driving an RC car slow is actually harder than driving it fast, especially when you're trying to keep pace and formation with 6 other cars. In the end it wasn't even the race start that was the problem - it was getting to the grid. Matt went off to drive around to the back straight, where we thought we were lining up behind the pace car, but the others had stopped in the middle section and our car hit another, hard. Everything seemed OK but these modern TCs don't take much to get tweaked out, so we were potentially starting with a twisted car. The formation lap went well, and then, as the drizzle came down, we were off. Laptimes were slowed by the weather, and Matt had lost some confidence after the crash, but he put in 35 laps before we radioed up for a driver change and I got my gloves off ready to swap the battery. In the car came, over I creaked to lift it up, off came the shell, out came the battery, in went the new one, and then it was back together and on track, and Jon was racing away to put in some fast laptimes and chase down the lead. When the stars had cleared from my eyes, I realised we were the first team in, by a long, long way. We were already some laps down on the lead, and they were running a lot longer than us. And then I realised - I only had 10 minutes or so before I was up, and it would all be in my hands. Literally.

Qualifying was to run over an hour-long session, in the form of 5 minute staggered-start heats with a 10 minute break between. Team captains had to submit the qualifier driver order to race control in advance, and it was a tactical decision to send Matt out first while he was still fresh from his recent practice stint. The drizzle had increased just before Q1 and laptimes were down, but Matt put in a respectable 11 laps and qualified 5th out of 6. The 4 teams above us were on 12 laps, but our best lap was comparable with theirs. The track was faster again for Q2, and Jon went out to get us the top spot - 1st place with 13 laps, 3 seconds ahead of 2nd. Q3 was even faster still, and it was my turn to get on track for a 5-minute sprint. We broke the 14 lap barrier and got 3rd. Alistair was up for Q4, but laptimes were up again thanks to the weather, and we came in 4th. Overall we qualified 3rd out of 6, which was pretty good considering we only have 1 superstar driver, I don't rate myself as particularly fast and Matt hasn't raced in 8 months. We had a 30 minute break to go over the car again, top off all the batteries, and prepare our strategy for the race.

Open practice began at 9am, so the rest of the team had a relaxed morning getting the car prepped and ready to go while I fired up the hob and cooked some bacon rolls. With the Breakfast of Endurance Champions thoroughly nommed, Alistair and Jon took turns running the car on track to see how well it handled. The next 3 hours was something of a blur. Matt hadn't held a transmitter in over 8 months, and is not a fan of touring car racing, preferring RWD GT12 with foams on carpet to 4wd 1:10 with rubber on tarmac, so he had the 3rd stint of practice, and he put in some respectable times despite the tricky, slippery conditions. Cold and damp with intermittent light drizzle was the order of the day, and after slipping around on dry tyres we eventually went for full wets. I was incredibly nervous for my stint. Although I raced 7 Iconic Cup rounds on tarmac last year, including a 2 day event at this very same track in September, that was with an FWD M-chassis car, not with a high-spec TC. I was worried I'd find it too much of a handful, and my two practice races with a 421 on carpet a week ago weren't filling me with any confidence at all. Regardless, my stint went very well. The car was very smooth despite the conditions, and it drove extremely well. I ran for about 10 minutes before I was called down on the radio for some setup changes and a fresh battery, and I was pleased to find that my laptimes were consistent, if not fast. Jon said it was funny how my laptimes would improve dramatically when someone started catching me, I'd push my braking points later and corner faster, get on the power earlier and generally drive much more aggressively when I knew a faster car was approaching. On several occasions it served me well because the "faster" car would go off the track before it got close enough that I had to pull over and let it through. The car got a bad knock from another racer at some point during the practice, which didn't break anything but tweaked it quite badly, so it went on the deck for realignment before we went out again for another session. I got another 10 minutes or so of practice at the end of the 3 hour session, and then I was off to cook the burgers while the team got the car ready for qualifying. Here's some photos from the morning practice.

TBH this evolved from a small friendly 5-hour race at the Mendip track last September, which was something a few local lads had been talking about doing for ages and not got around to. That event went so well that they formed an official committee, registered with the BRCA, and started drafting a ruleset and contacting clubs. We've never had anything quite like it before, only the odd special endurance event. It's also going to be a pretty niche thing, by necessity. Most clubs can't allow more than 10 drivers on the rostrum at a time, for safety reasons, which means a max of 10 cars per race. If the race is between 2 and 5 hours, with a practice session before the race starts, that doesn't leave time for any other races. With teams of 4, that's a max of 40 drivers per day - which is way below the 100+ drivers you'd see at a big club meet. It's happening elsewhere in Europe, but I don't know what will happen to the series in 2026. Will it be the same exclusive club of 40 drivers in an event which simply can't grow, or will they find a way to run more teams? Interestingly, most of the host clubs (and some non-host clubs) are also running their own endurance races outside of the official championship. For host clubs, this is most likely an opportunity to test the timing system and race control procedures before they have to host the official event - losing 1 final on a club weekend due to a procedural error is bad enough, losing the result of a 6 hour race because the timing app crashes after 5 hours and 55 minutes would be desperately disappointing! More to follow when I have time to sit down and sort it out

This is definitely true in my case - seeing this release has made me really want one. OTOH if it had quietly come on the market in black plastic under the Apex brand, I doubt I'd have known about it and probably would never consider buying one, as it's just a cheap plastic touring car with an extra axle on the back.

The Rules Before we go too deep into the race reports, let's quickly go over the rules. A full rule book is available on the Facebook page but here's a brief overview: Cars - modern touring, 1:10 / 190mm. Bodies - Le Mans Hypercar, from a predefined list. Liveries - Le Man / WEC / IMSA replicas preferred, must be realistic, no painted windows / Juan Can specials, no clear wings, no tribal flames. Tyres - rubber, preferably round. No additives or tyre warmers, no limits on number of sets used per race. Motors - 23.5 turn brushless, adjustable timing permitted. Batteries - 2S LiPo, audible alarm must be fitted and LiPo cutoff must be enabled on ESC. Teams - 4 drivers. Qualifying - 5-minute staggered-start heats, 1 heat per driver. Race starting position determined by aggregate time. Race Rules 2 to 6 hours, depending on host club drivers to share equal time drivers must change when batteries are changed (driver changes can also be done between battery changes) battery and tyre changes to be performed at trackside pits all other repairs and modifications must be performed at the team pit table no spare cars, although pre-assembled corners and bulkheads are permitted only one full lap may be performed after the LiPo alarm sounds at any time during the race, teams must have 1 member on the drivers' rostrum, 1 member in marshalling duty and 1 member on pit stop duty. the 4th member should be on rest time (although normally this meant being on battery charge duty) race will begin with a full lap behind the pace car, then the lead car will control the pace until passing the start/finish line, all other cars to maintain stagger formation until the line Meet the Team Alistair: team captain, car owner, chief painter Jon: star driver, chief mechanic Matt: experienced driver Alex: makes tea and burgers The Event After a week of sunshine and the first hint of warm weather, Sunday 23rd dawned cold and misty, with a threat of rain. I left home at 7am to make the hour-long journey to the track, passing a shower of light drizzle on the way. It was dry when I arrived at the track, although low temperatures and heavy mist made the track surface damp, with little chance that it would dry much unless the sun came out. It was cold, with a blustery wind that cut right through the Garage30 official sponsor hoodie and the Dell's Racing Products beanie hat. It was so cold that I had to go throw my walking jacket on over my hoodie and pull on my gloves, and even then, I was still chilled to the bone. The rest of the team turned up a few minutes later, we bagged ourselves a table in the covered pitting area, threw down a pit matthew and pulled out the car. Alistair set up a second pit mat with all the spares arranged as if in an exploded diagram, so if we had a breakage during the race we could quickly grab the parts we needed to repair it. While the rest of the team were doing complicated team stuff, I made my way through the pits with a camera and took some pics of the track and other cars. Track. Tarmac. Cold, damp. Pits. Wooden. Cold, dry. Full power and lights. Cotswold truly is a high-end facility and it will be a sad, sad loss if the landowners kick them off like they tried to do last year. Team Jagermoose. Juan Can rule does not apply because it is a replica. Other team bodies. Spike. Wrong Turn Racing - our team, in Alistair's personal livery for this pre-championship round. This is a fantastic livery. to be continued...

It was September last year, and I was at the Iconic Revival in Broxtowe, when I doomscrolled past a post on Facebook notifying me of a 5-hour endurance event at Mendip RC Raceway. This seemed like the perfect race weekend for me - simple cars, a local track that I know and love and perform well at, and a chance to drive in a long endurance race, something I've been going on about for years. The only problem was, it was only 2 weeks away, and so far the Algorithms That Be had decided I didn't need to know about it. I called up all the RC friends I knew, and put my name on the reserves list for a drive at Mendip, but alas, it was not to be - the day came and went, and I had no drive. The event itself was a rip-roaring success, and from the back of it came a whole new BRCA race series: Sportscar Endurance. With teams of 4 drivers, races between 2 and 6 hours long, 23.5 motor limit and strict rules on scale Le Mans Hypercar bodies and liveries (no Juan Can or tribal flames!), it looked like it would be awesome. However, with a maximum of 10 teams per event, places would be at a premium, and if I wanted to drive, I'd have to act fast. I spotted a post on Facebook from someone I knew from my indoor carpet racing days at West Wilts Model Car Club, stating his intent to enter a team and asking for volunteer drivers. Immediately I dropped him a message and offered my services - limited though they are, as I'm not exactly a top-class driver. That was fine, he said - it's about having fun, not winning, and he'd be happy to have me on the team. Autumn came and went, winter set in, and things were moving slowly in the Sportscar Endurance world. The committee were working hard behind the scenes, but naturally it took a while to get commitment from the host clubs, to sort the ruleset, and to organise a calendar, but by February things seemed to be moving. Two of my prospective teammates would be racing at the CWICS in Chippenham - 2 towns along from me - in mid-Feb, so I took a day out to introduce myself. It had been some years since I'd seen either of them in person, so we had a brief reunion between race rounds, and I had a chance to look over the TRF-421 which would be our weapon of choice for the upcoming race series. Since I haven't raced touring in many, many years - not since the TA-05IFS was a current car - and I haven't owned a proper, high-spec touring car since the Corally RDX was current - and I was pretty gosh-darned rubbish at it - I decided I needed some practice. See this thread for details, in which I got a chance to drive a TRF-421 and found it to be horribly slippery on new tyres compared to my Schumacher Mi-8. The first round of the season isn't until mid-April, but as there are lots of potential pitfalls in endurance racing - for the organisers as much as for the racers - they decided to run a 2-hour practice round at Cotswold on 23rd March. Our team captain booked our entry, our mechanic prepped the car, our chef prepped the burgers and I prepped the frying pan. to be continued...

I saw this on a group chat yesterday and immediately wrote "bit early for April Fools innit..?" That said - I actually really like it. Great spot by @ad456 on the Apex2 - it could be a photoshop or prototype, or they could have remade the parts in white. Also, since the Apex2 is listed as 190 / 259mm, we can expect this to be standard touring size, so should compare well with 1:14 big rigs. To my mind, this is something else to put on a trailer on the back of a big rig. It would be nice to look for a more realistic shell, too. I'd even wonder about entering this into the truck class at local club level. I doubt it would be as good (especially on smaller club tracks) as a TT01E but would add some more variety to the grid. This is the first thing to come from AE that's actually making me want to put my hand in my pocket.

Happy Friday, everyone A busy weekend for me here. Friday - this morning I'm in the office after a work night out yesterday, I've got a 2 hour motorcycle ride home soon. Work until mid-afternoon then taking daughter to mother-in-law for the weekend. MiL has been estranged for over a year after a family feud, so I hope it goes well. Hopefully have time for a short walk on the way home, then a quiet night in. Saturday - first child-free weekend for as long as I can remember, so the wife and I are going to the coast for the day. The weather this week has been fabulous but rain is forecast tomorrow so we might have to find some weather-cover options. I need to be home in time to pack up for Sunday. Sunday - practice round of the new BRCA Sportscar Endurance championship at Cotswold Model Car Club. 3 hours of open practice, followed by an hour-long quali session, then a 2 hour race. Excited, but nervous. Weather is changeable. Possibly have time for a walk after the event is over, depending on weather and finish time. Have a great weekend everyone

So the outcome is a tyre that is pretty gosh darned solid. There's still some foam betwix'd the big rig tyre tread and the inside of the outer tyre, so there is a little bit of give, and plenty of foam in the sidewalls to give definition and volume. These tyres are so soft-of-tread and there's so much weight that I very much doubt traction will be an issue. For some reason I didn't take photos of the tyres on the truck, but I did give it a light run outside to see how it fared. It went very well - it's not great on tarmac because of the lack of diffs and the stickiness of the tyre, but they didn't slip or fall off. They'll definitely want gluing - once water gets in they'll slip off the rim - but as a proof of concept, it's a good one. Plus, being beadlock rims that come nicely apart, I'll at least be able to glue the visible face from the inside, so I don't leave horrible glue marks everywhere like I usually do. Result. If I can get the gluing done tomorrow night, I just maybe might be able to take it out for a test run on Friday night.

Tamiya big rig tyre. Cut a ring out of the middle of the foam. Squidge the big rig tyre into the recess cut into the foam. Stuff the whole lot back into the tyre. Force the wheel into the tyre. Note the big rig tyre is 1.7" ID, not 1.9", but it will fit (with some persuasion) and that helps to keep everything central.

But we still have this problem - and this is a big problem. The obvious solution is stiffer foams - but from where? I hunted around to see what I had, but nothing was going to work. I looked online, but the only things I could find were for bigger tyres - I didn't want to wait another 10 days for a delivery from China to find it wouldn't fit properly. Then I had a genius idea. I tried a few iterations, but here's what I settled on.

All fired up and working At this point, I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I still had a lot of day left, but my next challenge was those wheels and tyres. I still love those metal beadlocks - they're perfect, if only they can be made to fit! One option is to abandon the locking ring and use superglue. This is how they look with the tyres fitted, no locking rings. Perfect. Correct FTX tyres front, those other ones (which fit the beadlocks but don't look so scale) on the rear.

This was a fiddly thing to make and a bit rushed, but I can tidy it later if it works. Fitted Seems to work well and the lamp feels secure. Hopefully that screw doesn't pull out. Plumbing in the wires done

Fitted, with LEDs in place Next thing on the list was the rear floodlamp. I wanted something to cast a gentle glow behind the truck so I can see where my feet are going in the dark. I used this square lamp from a Toyota Hilux High Lift (I never had that kit but I bought the chrome and lens parts for my vintage Bruiser body, these have been rolling around in the spare scale parts tub for years). Scribble marks show outline of where important parts are behind the panel, which could interfere with my fittings. I then spent the next hour rooting through every box I could find for the clamps for the square lamp. Eventually I turned to a High Lift manual to discover there aren't any - it screws directly into its mount on the bumper. Gah. So, the solution is to drill and tap into whatever I want to mount this to, which in this case is 4mm ID tube. It's very cheap aluminium, so won't hold much of a thread. My plan was to drill to 1.5mm and use an M2 tap, but a) I don't know if I have an M2 tab and 2) I definitely don't have a 1.5mm drill any more, because they all snapped. Gah. So, M3 it was. If I could drill right through and put a nut on the other side, that would be fab - but I couldn't, because a screw needs to go through the middle. In the end I settled for drilling it to 2.5mm then putting a stainless screw in to make the thread - a tap would be too aggressive and not leave me with any meat to screw into.

Sunday morning would be my last Workshop Sunday for a while, as I have 2 weekends of racing ahead of me, so I got into the shop early to make more progress on this truck. First thing I wanted to do was trim the spare wheel brackets so I could move the rear closing panels forwards a little to clear the roll cage. I also took the opportunity to move the left upright inboard of the L-section bracket to give me a little more space on the left, as that one had wandered from where it was supposed to be and it was proving hard to get the light unit in. I also added L-section to the uprights to secure the closing panels / light units on. To secure the LEDs, I used the stock light unit backplates but with the mounting brackets cut off. Also made these little spacers to go inside the recesses under the light units. thus. This looks so cute I want to leave it like this, but it's only here to stop the body panel from distorting when I torque down the screws. like so

My rear body mount brackets were getting in the way of these upright panels, so I had to do some re-drilling.... and cutting and filing... to make space. Test-fit only at this point. Recessed slightly so the light units clear the cage.

Meanwhile, with new wheels and tyres on the cards one way or another, I could get rid of the temporary spare tyres and fit 2 of the old FTX wheels and tyres into the spare rack. Old tyres. These came with my first ever CC01, more years ago than I care to remember. They are hard as oak. I cleaned up the FTX wheels and fitted them. Perfect. They were a little off-centre (somehow my mountings for the brackets didn't get drilled correctly on the bed floor) so I made some new spacers to centralise them. Finally, with the spare wheels position formalised, I could start thinking about how to fit the light units. I was going to use the stock Scania rear light clusters to save cost, but mount them up on high so they don't get damaged on the trails. I hadn't planned to close off the rear of the body, but it seemed the best way to mount the lights was off an upright part. I made this one from 2mm plasticard.

The next day, they arrived. I'm sure you've worked out where this is going. No, they don't fit. The bead on the FTX tyres is too big. I tried and tried, and I tried and I tried and I tried, and they just wouldn't fit. OK - other options? Let's try some plastic beadlocks. I can always 3D print some different faces. I've had these wheel for 15 years or so, and never used them. They came with a used truck. The tyres fit but they won't go over the hubs. Ok... Deep breath. Back to plan A - buy some FTX rims, because I know they'll fit the axles, and just glue the danged things on.

These ones fit perfectly. They're not the tyre I want - they just don't look right - but they do fit. They look good on the truck, too. Not as good as the other ones, but good. Confident that the FTX tyres would fit, I went back online and ordered 2 pairs.

OK! Updates. Honestly, building this truck is a somewhat exhausting experience. It's like one of those beautiful, fickle, temperamental girlfriends - the type that one day makes you feel like the luckiest person alive, and the next day has you tearing your hair out in despair. So - wheels and tyres. My long-term plan for this truck has always been to use the FTX tyres that came with a used Outback 2 that I bought a couple of years back. They are the perfect tyre for this truck - the scale is spot on, they have a nice, wide, chunky tread, and they work well off road. There are just 2 problems: a) they are far too soft, and are almost completely flat with all the weight in this truck 2) the plastic wheels are not scale, and are far too light - they really need some weights added to stop the truck toppling over. Both of these issues are solvable, except they are pre-glued, so I can't fix them. That means buying new wheels AND tyres. I was always planning on buying more FTX wheels and 3D-printing some big hubs to go over them, for a more scale look, but I decided to have a very quick look on Aliexpress to see if there was something suitable. I got these. All metal (apart from the plastic beadlock ring) and very, very heavy. I opted not to buy the tyres right away because I wasn't 100% sure they'd fit. However, the FTX Outback also came with another set of tyres, which I had always assumed were also FTX tyres. If those fit, then the ones on the plastic rims should fit, right?

So - in summary - the Schumacher was an absolute dream, I totally loved it and can't wait to give it another try once the Friday club has reopened. The TRF-421, on the other hand, wasn't able to show me its best on the night. This wasn't the actual car we'll be driving in the endurance race - that one was in the hands of our star driver, getting some setup tweaks - this is the spare, which will be stripped down into pre-assembled corners ready to go on the race car if we have any kind of failure on Sunday. I'll start a new thread about the endurance championship next week

So, what happened next? Well, the local club still isn't open, and the practice round of the endurance championship is this Sunday. However, there is another club local to me (actually even closer), and one I raced at a lot round 15 years ago. That's where the team captain of our endurance team races every week, and he offered me a drive on the TRF-421 if I could get myself along. So I made special arrangements with the wife (usually we spend Monday together) and made the 20 minute drive last night to see some very old friends and do some racing. I was put in the C group, the slowest of the TC heats. That was fine by me since my Mi-8 was a complete unknown quantity, but I wanted to race that first before taking out Alistair's 421. I at least wanted to see how bad my carpet racing skills were before I crashed someone else's prized possession. For a car that has literally just been put back together with an out-of-the-box setup and brand new, not-even-cleaned tyres on it, it was very, very good. The most planted TC I've ever driven. It was a little tail happy coming out of the corners, and took some time for me to calibrate my head and give it less throttle, but it was a very smooth heat with next to no crashing. It was pretty slow, though - I don't have a lot of 48dp pinions and I'd gone with the smallest one that came with the car, on the basis that the previous owner was running it outdoors where it would want much taller gearing than it does in a little town hall. Well it turns out it was geared way too low, and I was miles off the pace because of that. But no bother - I was absolutely blown away by how good it was, and I was actually sad that I'd have to pull my receiver and transponder out of it to set up the 421 for round 2. An hour later and I was back on the track again, this time with a properly sorted car that my team captain has been peddling around the A finals for some time. The buzzer went off and I drove away and... straight into a spin. It was all but impossible to drive - like driving on ice. Understeer on turn-in, oversteer on corner exit, like a drift car. I wobbled around for 5 minutes mostly trying to stay out of the way, then came in feeling incredibly disappointed. So it turns out I didn't have the best set of tyres on. Luckily another friend had a scrubbed-in set to get me going, so I put those on and gave them some additive (which I thus far hadn't bothered with). Week-night racing is a short and sweet affair - 2 heats and a final - so I only had one more chance to learn the TRF. I did a couple of practice laps and it felt much better - still a little over-steery, but driveable. I hoped it would get better as the tyres warmed up. Sadly, 2 laps in and I drifted wide on the sweeper and clipped the track edge. I was still struggling to turn in there - not sure if I had a fundamental lack of grip or if it's just my driving. Well, the car came off the barrier without too much fanfare, then suddenly swerved across the track. The front wheel was hanging off. Not the one I'd hit the barrier with, the inside one. The thread had gone in the plastic hub, and the arm had pulled out. TBH that might have been my problem in the previous heat. The car owner put the ball back in while I waited on the rostrum, and I got a few more laps in before it went again.

8th March rolled around and the car still wasn't running, as I'd been putting a lot of time into my hillwalking truck instead. But I had a morning in the workshop, so I decided to have one final push and get it ready to go. With the practice round of the endurance championship just 2 weeks away, time was running out to actually get some TC driving in before the big day. I pulled the Savox servo out of my T4F 2019, which I absolutely love but can't drive for toffee and haven't driven for a few years. Then the trusty Hudy deck and my never-used Schumacher glass board came out. The board was a raffle prize and has remained unopened in the box behind my workbench as scenery for several years. I set everything up mostly stock, or as much as I could. I'd chosen to refit the proper top arms with the dual adjusters for camber and caster, but then realised my Hudy caster gauge doesn't work with the Schumacher hubs. There is a special adapter from Schumacher but has been out of stock for a while. Maybe that's why the previous owner went back to basic arms? Kind of annoying, really. I went as best as I could by eye. Here it is, all ready to go.

Now we're on the 24th Feb. The car had been in my possession for a few weeks by this point, and still wasn't assembled, but that's OK because the local club still hadn't resumed racing - the building was closed before Christmas for some work which, like most building work done on behalf of a local organisation, was massively overrunning. I wanted the car ready for when racing resumed, so I had to get over my hatred of building shocks and, well, build shocks. I set these up in standard trim, although I didn't drill the shock tops to vent them as per the setup sheet. The previous owner hadn't done that either. Possibly because it's a one-way mod, mostly because I don't have the stupidly small drill bit required to do the job. eurgh. So glad I bought new eyes. I had another problem here that the balls wouldn't screw in without feeling like they were stripping the thread. These were all-new lower mounts, so I took a closer look and discovered the screws used to hold them on are too long. I used 6mm screws and they should be 4mm. I hadn't noticed when I'd stripped it down, and I didn't have any 4mm screws in the pot. Could I have used them elsewhere on the car by mistake? At this point there was a full strip-down of the whole entire car to find those pesky 4mm screws, but I couldn't find them anywhere. My only assumption is that the car was incorrectly assembled, and (as per the alloy hubs above) the long screws had damaged the threads. Annoyingly, no part number is listed for these mysterious 4mm screws, so I've had to buy stainless ones instead of the lovely gold ones that should be supplied with the kit. So assembly was halted once again while I waited for a tiny bag of screws to arrive. Finally - on 28th Feb - the car was mostly back together...