lukej

Afternoon TC, Before I get into the race week posts, one of the things I've been meaning to share for a while is an explanation for the efforts I'm making and why, especially when this is just a plastic kit rather than a proper race chassis. With any competitive endeavour, success is achieved through the control of two things - process & variables. Having robust process brings repeatability and minimises errors that cost performance; the better the process, the more likely a positive outcome. Similarly, managing the variables means that you can mitigate risk factors; if you can isolate the things that actually determine performance, you avoid getting off track due to the myriad of things it isn't. These two things are foundational to the work I do with my professional sport clients, bringing them to my racing should have the same benefit of shortening the learning period then. So, why plastic toy cars then? It's certainly not because they're cheap, I estimated the other day that cost for each of my Sidcup chassis is in the region of £550 with electrics. That's a lot of money for a box stock class. For me though, the Tamiya class is perfect, we have an inexpensive base kit, a slower motor, and the opportunity to learn along the way. Do I understand roll bars? Yes. Do I need to worry about setting them up? No. The same applies for su much more. To get deeper into my thinking on this journey of why then, we need to identify two things: 1) What my objective is. 2) How far I am from it. Now, that might seem stupidly simple, possibly to the point of not needing explanation, but it is not necessarily an easy thing to answer and these things themselves are dynamic targets. Fortunately for us, we can very easily set the long term objective as being the fastest on track, and in the short term, winning a B Final. If we had the same track layout at each event, this would be somewhat easier to follow, but this is not the case at SRCC, and so we have the first variable outside of our control. How do we measure relative performance gain then? Total Laps %age vs A Main Winner, or Lap Time %age vs Overall Fastest Lap are both viable metrics. The very act of going racing gives us a hand, and as the old adage goes, the stopwatch doesn't lie. With that in mind, lap time as the primary metric, and let stick time and setup learning take care of average lap times and lap counts. On to my historical SRCC results then. So there's definitely evidence of me improving across any given evening, which shouldn't come as a surprise, but less so from event to event unless we dig deeper. In the case of the non-championship round two weeks ago, every driver in the A Final went slower than they had in one of the earlier heats, with the winner running a 12.65s in the A Final, and a 12.44 in Heat 3 to set the overall fastest lap. My best lap of the night in the heats was a 15.75s lap and in the B Final was a 15.70, so I improved where others didn't and this bucks a trend for the event. Returning to the professional sports approach, let's see how we affect change. 1) Break everything down into its simplest form. 2) Remove the variables that are in your control. 3) Build consistent, repeatable processes. 4) Change only one thing at a time so you understand its effects. 5) Be honest with yourself. Let's step through some of my decisions so far and which points they apply to - Only racing at one club. The carpet is always the same, the pit environment is broadly the same, the temperature is somewhat stable (indoors), and the format of the evening changes little. These things all lend themselves to delivering on points 2, 3, 4 & 5. - Using all of the available high quality hop-ups. Better parts mean less risk of failure, which mean my cars should be as close to identical as possible, and mean that my learning is sped up because things are more consistent with the car. These things address points 1, 2, 3 & 4. - Requesting regs changes. The approved carbon battery brace means that I can balance the car and that makes a more stable, even platform. The bearing clamp I've requested approval for helps me service the car better and hopefully not make the same mistake with tightening down the motor again. The high-speed gear set request helps with the last point, and also allows me to run a stronger spur that's less likely to strip its teeth. All of these requests help me take on points 1, 2, 3 & 5. - Having a specifically laid out workspace. I know where everything is, and can practice the concept of first order retrievability. This takes on points 1, 2 & 3. As a rookie, my start point is to assume I know absolutely nothing about what I'm doing, which means that I must do all of the learning. Creating the above simplified, repeatable steps will do so much of the heavy lifting for me. My decision to build 2 cars is to make sure that I have identical platforms but for a single variables which can be changed in and out with relative speed. The SRCC events are shorter affairs so time is not a luxury I have on race day. Right now, the difference between each car is the front diff. My #1 car has diff putty per The RC Racer's guide, and my #2 car has AW grease loaded into it. I bring a range of pre-built diffs to each event, all set at different stiffnesses so that I can make a quick change if needed and then I can move on without stress. In this scenario, I've applied points 2, 3 & 4 nicely, and I've given myself time away from the track to be fussy about the details. It's also a nice mindful activity and keeps the racing stress free. From the non-championship event two weeks ago, I can tell you I really like the putty diff and it gives me a more stable car with predictable turn in. I might back to back the two cars in warm up this week to see what's working for me, but if I'm honest, there's more lap time in me than anything else so perhaps this isn't a rabbit hole to go down just now. That brings me to the second part of the professional approach to competition: Deal with the biggest problems first to create the most benefit as quickly as possible. That is me, for now at least, but I hope that its clear the above let's me tackle whatever the biggest effect on performance is and remedy it with speed. It should also be noted that as someone with a case of the 'tism, I have to work hard to change my perspectives and to take a different path, which could slow my rate of improvement down. This is precisely why I follow the processes I do, because otherwise I can be blinkered to what needs changing. Anyway, that was lengthier than I expected, but it is what it is! Luke

@Starky_UK you know this bit I wrote, that was me acknowledging in advance that it wasn't a workable plan... I appreciate the club has to follow what people want to race, it's just a shame it has the potential to impact the pure rookies, though hopefully entries are high enough that we can have 2 or 3 grids and it should all balance itself out. With that being said, when someone drives through the back of me and roofs me twice at a non-championship event, then an apology should be forthcoming. Any less than that speaks poorly to their character, and the club not handling it when John C was made to phone and apologise to others for the same isn't great. Then our motivations aren't the same. For me, the ask wasn't about speed, it was about making my life easier and possibly the clubs. 64dp isn't allowed, no bother, I've had my answer and l'll move on. Anyway, I didn't start this thread to have an argument over club decisions and my level of caring ends when I get an answer. Regularly scheduled programming of me writing my silly little thread about learning to race and the way I develop my car (within the rules) to follow. Luke

They are, and I appreciate administering all the classes isn't easy so the line has to be set somewhere, but there's plenty of other mods being allowed which aren't published mostly in the name of servicing & reliability, which is all I was asking for. Ultimately, when the answer is no I accept it, even if I think it's an odd decision, much like the horizontal rear post question. I don't think it's fair to characterise the allowances I've requested as coming from a desire to gain a speed advantage, because that has and will always be within me, it's more that I have an extensive box of spares and some of these allow me a servicing or reliability benefit without increasing performance so what harm can it do? Again if the answer is no, then it is what it is. IMHO, Sidcup needs a more structured formula to allow progression and the upgrades that suit, I guess like Iconic Cup has. The headache of course being that we run to the same rules as SMCC despite being on carpet not boards. Even if I had Sundays to spare, I'd not race SMCC as it's a new variable and I want to reduce those to expedite my learning. Entering the hypothetical realm for a second, if I were running SRCC, I'd suggest the following changes: - All drivers start in the stock class unless they're already notable drivers. - Progression to more advanced racing (technically & competitively) comes via results. - Streamline the number of chassis types to create a secondary market for cars. The above, is of course based only on my narrow view and without the full context of being a committee member. It's idealistic, and undoubtedly full of holes, but it would also solve one of my other gripes re. experienced drivers who've come down from M Chassis without the patience and character to be racing against novices. Medway will happen for me when sauce is allowed. Much like SMCC, I've no interest in adding other variables into my learning curve, being green is its own challenge, without having to adjust a setup for lower grip. Luke

Evening TC! It’s been a couple of days without a post but I’ve not been idle, currently pestering SRCC to work with me on a few changes/allowances. @Starky_UK I’m sure you’ve seen the messages… Essentially, there’s 2 things I’d like to achieve for ease of servicing the car/avoiding people cheating. They are: - Permit use of The RC Racer’s rear driveshaft bearing holders. - Permit use of the TT-02 High Speed Gear set & 64dp gears whilst maintaining the stock FDR. The bearing holder is relatively cheap at £4 each, & they allow you to run an open gearbox which is much better for servicing and for scrutineering. The downside, is that they don’t fit with 0.6 module gears. Hence the request to use the high-speed gear set. I’ve written to RW Racing to see if they can make me some acetal polymer spur gears in 0.6 module, and I’ve asked the guys who manufacture the bearing holder if they could make a small tweak to the design to allow for kit standard gears to pass through. I did win a concession on the allowed use of the high-speed gear set with 0.6 module spur gears, the Tamiya options are famously made of cheese so it’s a reliability mod. I believe the rear bearing holder will be allowed after next week anyway, as it doesn’t offer a performance advantage. Luke

Semi finished the next body shell for my TT-02 stock class car, & mounted a motor cooling fan to it. Luke

Muchmore goodies from Mt Sakaguchi! These are for my TT-02 stock class racer. Luke

Had a delivery this morning, so some upgrades/changes are ready to be made, but first, here's a shot of my 3 race bodes side by side. Note the thinner window frames on the Mondeo in the centre when compared to the one on the right. It has it's own story of learning which we will come back to another time. Today's delivery was from Dai Sakaguchi. During the event last week, both Dan & I felt that we were seeing increased motor temps, and with my heat sinks not doing the job (they also have a habit of making nightly bid for freedom), some 40mm fans, fan mounts and comm drops were ordered to aid motor performance. Said delivery. I've also become the recent owner of a Surikarn edition Muchmore Motor Master, and I'm hoping to use this to help me break in my motors so the combination of this and comm drops should be useful before and during race meetings. For the sake of it, a picture of the mounted fan. In time, Dan & I are discussing using my resin 3D printer to make some fan ducts, the ones that are commonly available are for longitudinal mounted motors not transverse. Anyway, a brief update for now, but more to be done this evening for sure. Luke

A slightly late, and not totally finished body for my Wednesday post. Lots learned and ready to improve on the next one. Luke

Definitely dead, it's already had 5+ repairs on the inside, the diffuser got cut off & the front arch has a 1" split. It's all good though, I'm not short of bodies Luke

Afternoon TC! In an attempt to improve my prep, and to build a race car which is drivable and gives me confidence, I want to do a small amount each day and set aside time for learning too. My thinking here is that in giving myself more time for each task, I will end up completing more things before race day and hopefully that will help speed up the learning curve. First up, it's time for a new body, so that Mondeo I showed you before needs setting up and trimming. Three of the 5 stages of the body shell lifecycle - *******ed, Roughly Prepped & Painted. All I'm missing is Clear, and Mounted. More on that later. After 4 meetings, more splits than a ballet dancer, and multiple trips onto my roof/into the wall/over the top, the BRZ is dead. After the working day is over, I'll make a concerted effort to fit and trim the first Mondeo properly. Then it's time to prep the second, which will also allow me to show the possibly successful remedy to some formerly shoddy paintwork. For now, I'm off but I'll add more later, and I'm relying on you all to keep me accountable! Luke

I have a few separates left to sell, turnbuckle wrench, off-road ride height gauge, tool bag.

It’s beautiful!

Race report time! As always, it's 3 qualifying heats and a final at Sidcup, but for the first time ever I was put in Group 2 for the faster drivers. They do know my history right? Still, it's not a points paying round, what could go wrong? Heat 1 This is where we uncovered the first thing that could go wrong, and it is entirely my fault. Having done more prep than I've ever done before, it turns out that I didn't do it right, I didn't tighten the motor screws enough and the motor shifted. After 6 laps, I lost drives, with the gears moving out of mesh. *****s. Heat 2 This one went better, and I managed 12 of 19 laps, having spent most of my time getting out of others way. The result of the M Chassis class going is that some of those more experienced drivers have dropped down to the Tamiya Tourers class again, and if patience is a virtue, one of my competitors is not especially virtuous. Ramming a slower car out of the way is never okay. Heat 3 Can I manage 15+ laps this time? Not a chance. As soon as the car was put down on the track, a problem reared its head, and as I pulled away the car lost drive. Gear mesh again? Sadly not. Having walked over to the car I pulled the throttle trigger and the wheels span up for the briefest of moments before the distinct smell of an electrical fire reached me. Okay, I think, stay calm and take the body off, pull the battery to kill the power and hope that I'm not about to have a LiPo fire and a torched car. The ESC was okay, the LiPo was okay, and luckily I'd only popped the motor. Not as bad as it could have been, and only £15-20 to replace. Time to prep for the final was thankfully longer, having not run in the third qualifier, and by the time I'd done my stint as a marshal I only had to quickly desolder and resolder motors to swap to a spare. Being able to sort this track side is one of the advantages of me carrying spares and a soldering kit, but I hadn't run it in yet so it wasn't a fast motor. I have a second car too, and that could have been on the ground quicker, but I was using a different diff setup in it and Chassis #1 had my preferred, @qatmix spec front diff with Tamiya putty in it instead of AW grease. B Main If one race has to go well, it should always be the final, and to be honest dropping into the B Main was a blessing in disguise. The track layout was tricky & technical, and the slower pace of the cars I'd have around me meant that I could focus on driving my own race a bit more. I started off well enough, backing out of a few tighter corners and holding the 3rd position I started with, only to slip back with a couple of silly mistakes over the next two laps. The steadier period that followed was great for my confidence, and with it my average times coming down. Unfortunately, on lap 10 or there abouts, I got entangled with a young racer just as I was lapping her, and as we were each being lapped by the race leader which sent them both into the barrier. I felt pretty guilty about that, as it spoiled her run somewhat, and advantaged me by keeping me on the lead lap as the first place driver lost time in the wall. An apology on the stand to both followed, and I can only hope that Chris's retirement from the race a 3 laps from home was not of my making. As we entered the last few circuits, now running in P2 and closing the gap to Ben who was leading, I could smell blood. My adrenaline was high, the prospect of a B Main win was in front of me, and I pushed on. L14: 15.94s. Gap: +7.86s. Difference: -1.08s. L15: 15.70s. Gap: +5.65s. Difference: -2.21s. L16: 16.86s. Gap: +5.94s. Difference: +0.29s. L17: 16.30s. Gap: +3.99s. Difference: -1.95s. Then came the last lap. Turning into T1, I see Ben struggling in the infield. This is my chance. A PB and I could maybe do it. I turn in, clip the wall at the apex and roll over the barrier. ****! L18: 19.96s. Gap: +7.95s. Difference: +3.96s. To add insult to injury, I'd have maybe even had one more lap to chase Ben if I'd not rolled, he crossed the timing line just before 5 minutes elapsed, and I did not. Still, an improvement on past events, and a positive outcome after a not so easy night. If only I'd gotten up to speed earlier, or put sauce on my tyres instead of forgetting (whoops). On the plus side, pit buddy Dan gave me a pat on the back and congratulated me. He's a man who offers few compliments, so it was a nice surprise. Upon arrival home, I recalled my epic drive to Mrs Luke, who at midnight was of course so blown away by my tale, that she was rendered incapable of words or movement from beneath the duvet. With American football taking most of my time up Saturday & Sunday, I took the best part of those two days to decompress and cut open the motor, which revealed scorch marks on the comm and a very chewed up brush. Now to drink tea, eat biscuits and plan my next endeavours. Parts are already on order for this Luke

Afternoon TC! It's been a minute, with a month off from racing, but I made it down to the Sidcup non-championship round this past Friday and even with the gap in running, I think it's fair to say that I've improved both my process and my smoothness. I've taken few pictures in the past month, so this one of my dining table workshop will have to suffice. The first job of race week was to thread lock some screws in my hybridMo7/@wtcc5 KRv4 battery brace. I've been finding that the screws on the underside unwind instead of those on the topside so they got fixed in place. I also decided to try and lock the screws into the front body posts, but no amount of effort is going to stop those backing out when I hit the walls. I've also been running at 38g over the minimum weight limit, so the brass servo and ESC weights (combined 30g) were taken back out. This should also help with my cross axle weights to create a more balanced car. Next up was alignment, though I got no photos of this as I was doing it in the last hour before leaving Canterbury. This definitely needed some work, and having borrowed pit buddy Dan's old Hudy setup station for the best part of the month, I finally got to set it up somewhat. I have now acquired a SkyRC version from a former Tamiya class racer at Sidcup, so I will learn what I'm doing and make this a more regular part of my maintenance and to quote Kevin "Sometimes we mess up the setup in a way that we make the car undriveable and then think, that our driving is bad." Now, my driving is bad, but it was definitely hindered by bad setup. In order to get the wheels pointing in the right direction, I dumped the blue titanium turnbuckles in favour of the steering upgrade kit supplied ones, and this helped me reach a negative toe angle but 3x38mm just feels too long and they are almost entirely wound in just to create -2º toe. I'm open to suggestions on what size to go with here, as I've 10mm of turnbuckle inside each adjuster, I suspect either the 3x35mm option (Tamiya 9808238 from the F104) or the 3x32mm option (Tamiya 54249) will do, but how much thread needs to be inside the adjusters? Any suggestions welcome, from @qatmix or otherwise. Okay, so this is essentially where my prep ended, and upon arrival I tried to recreate my workspace in a more condensed space. The TRF tools finally making an outing now that I've secured some more. Very blue and very lovely. As I said to a fellow Tamiya class racer on Friday night "If I can't be fast, at least my stuff looks nice!" I have some work to do now, but the above gets us to pre-race level, and I'll add another post later this evening in some spare time. Luke

List updated with new lines.

DM’d you both

My NIB FFs for sale. 58121 Idemitsu Motion Mugen Civic (BNIB). £375 58147 Castrol Nissan Primera JTCC (BNIB) but missing greases (Japanese customs issues). £350 Shipping & Fees calculated on sale. Luke

TRF tools for sale. Not sure how to price these so if I’m wide of the mark let me know. New In Packet 42147 - Hex Wrench Screwdriver (2.5mm). £20. 42199 - Ground Clearance Gauge (for Off-Road Car). £30. New (Out of Packet) 53858 - Wrench for 5mm Reinforced Adjusters. £25. 54635 - Aluminium Camber Gauge Post. £15. Add £3 for shipping if paying using PayPal F&F, £5 if using G&S Luke

If you’re after some, just let me know. I still have all the other parts to build that Evo to the release photo spec, ESC etc. Luke

Which ones? And how’s the Evo5?

Need to get these bits moving onto a new home ASAP, if anything is of interest to anyone, make me an offer. Luke

Need to bring Tamiya Mini back, I want to race 2 classes and that’s my second chassis! Luke

Need to bring Tamiya Mini back, I want to race 2 classes and that’s my second chassis! Luke

Yeah that’s what he messaged me. I don’t see it as performance enhancing, just very mildly better at preventing rookie shaped errors becoming race altering problems. Oh and I picked up a Muchmore Motor Master this week so my various Torque Tuned motors will be methodically broken in and prepped for future races! Luke