Back To The Track

[Will16]

The problem you were having in race 2 with the oversteer is called lift-off oversteer. It's a very common problem with FWD and 4WD cars in 1:1 and 1:10. Basically the rear end goes light reducing grip, heat and area of the tyre on the ground. Try putting more power on through the corner to keep the rear end planted.

[Mad Ax]

Hi all!! Many apologies for the delay in this post. I was knocked down by a virus last week which has put me out of action for far longer than I imagined possible. I'm back at work today with the car packed up ready for tonight's round (I hope there was no "no racing next week" sign up last week!)

I've now got the motor wires soldered, but otherwise haven't made any changes. I'll have to go back through this log to see if there's something else I'd planned to do for tonight, but mostly I'm having trouble remembering more important things, like my own name and how to do my job.

Watch this space for a race report!

[Percymon]

Good luck for tonight, and despite some of the frustrations remember its fun and you're still learning.

The soldered connections should keep you mobile 100% now, they were probably you're weakest link ; that and the ESC setting !

If 1:1 car drivign is anything to go by then do all your braking in a straight line and get a little bit of power on to balance the car through the corner. As Jackie Stewart said to James May 'only put the throttle down when you know for sure you won't have to come of it again'

[Mad Ax]

Monday, 21st March - Race Night

I arrived good and early, after debating with myself for ages about taking another night off. I still wasn't feeling too great after last week's virus, and wanted some rest. But I'd already missed one week, and I'm one of those people who habitually joins a new club, goes along for a few weeks and then can't be bothered any more. Determined to break this cycle, I forced myself to go along, saying I could always leave early if I was too tired to continue.

I'd only had time to charge one pack the previous night, so first of all I plugged in my charger and pack and left it be. It was almost balanced by the time the track was built, so I decided to go out for a practice run.

As always, the practice session was hugely busy and it was a challenge to get some useful feedback, but generally I was happy that the car was running properly and nothing had gone awry after two weeks in the pit box. I still felt that the rear grip was too low, so I went back to the pits and gave just the slightest adjustment to the rear camber. Up to that point I'd left all the turnbuckles exactly as Mr Tamiya intended, so I decided it couldn't do any harm to experiment a little. Back on the track I was surprised to notice a different - better rear grip in corners, with no apparent loss of stability.

The track was an interesting layout, with no long straight. I still haven't bought any new spurs, and without a straight I couldn't take advantage of my car's straightline speed, so it looked like it would be a tough night. However, the carpet was laid well, without too many ripples, and even after an extended practice session it didn't look like it had lost too much shape.

I was assigned car number 2 in heat 4, with two fast refugees from heat 5, and my arch-rival ( ) Rob.

Race 1

I started second, and held position for longer than I expected. A couple of impacts with the barrier cost me my place, but in the confusion of the race I took a few places back again. There was a lot of place-swapping as the race unfolded, but half-way through the race something seemed to click in my head, and for the first time on an RC track, I felt that I'd found "the rhythm." I remembered Will16's last post about lift-off oversteer, and was trying to take as many corners as possible without completely shutting off the power. The more power I tried to apply, the more stable the car was and the faster I could take the corner. There's definately a balance between powering smoothly around the corner and understeering straight-on into the barrier, but I was finding it better and better each lap.

Finally the race ended. I didn't note the finishing position, but I was shocked when the computer called out that I had the fastest time of the day so far. I was stunned, and wondered if there'd been a problem with the timing system. I paced through my marshalling stint, willing it to end, then rushed to take a look at the timing sheet.

There had indeed been a timing problem. I was shown as the race winner, beating everyone else by at least 2 laps. This clearly wasn't right. I looked closely at my laptimes - all were between 11 and 15 seconds, with no "bad" laps; however, all of the other cars in my heats had registered two 25 second laps each. With a suspected timing loop problem, the race result was called into question. However, my fastest time, 11.001 seconds, was entirely feasible, and wasn't far off my average of 13.174. I had a handful of sub-12s laps towards the end of the race. It's possible that some of the uncounted laps from my competitors were faster that my 11.001, but even so, I was happy with my result. Happier even with my car's handling and my newfound ability to get around corners.

Race 2

We started the race with a warning that the timing system was playing up. A few test-laps were run to see that everything was being counted, so we set off happy that we'd get some proper timing. For the first time in ages, I was actually nervous about starting. Up to now, I've only been tuning the car and learning techniques. Now, I had rhythm. I've competed in various forms of motorsport over the years, as well as playing competitive and live music, and I know how easy it is, after months of practice, to find the zone, and how easy it is to lose it again. I was actually terrified that I'd start the second race in the lead and be facing the wrong way after the first corner, then spend the rest of the race spinning and barrier-bashing.

With nervous fingers holding the trigger, I waited for the countdown to finish.

to be continued...

[Percymon]

Come on....the suspense is killing me

[Mad Ax]

Ten seconds until the next race... Beep... Beep... Beep... ....Beep... Two

Trigger down, wheels spin, tyres hook up on smooth carpet. Car springs forward, immediately into the first turn, hooks up nicely on the wide curve and away down the back straight. I clip a few barriers and curse under my breath, but I stay with it, keep my temper under control and the car on the track. For a while I think I'm going to throw away the lead, but I keep it for some time, far longer than I expected. Even when I'm eventually passed (during an impromptu trip into the barrier) I still stay in touch with the pack, including the two Heat 5 refugees. There's a few incidents in the mid-section and these help me to keep up. It wasn't until midway through the race when I started to lose concentration a little, and throw my car into the barriers.

I'm not disappointed. At last, the car is doing what I want it to do. At one point it even threatened to grip-roll. If I have a few barrier moments entirely of my own doing then that's not so bad, as this is easily the best performance I've had since I've returned to the track.

Once or twice I notice the lap counter doesn't bleep when I pass the timing loop, so I know it will be another un-timed race. Unfortunate for myself, annoying for those hunting championship points. That said, Race 2 showed some really great racing from everyone, and it was really great to be out front at the beginning, and not afraid to get in close with the other racers - no championship points were going to come from the race, I was racing for position, and wasn't going to let anybody through on a whim. For perhaps the first time since I've returned to racing, I really felt my competitive spirit rising.

Perhaps the only disappointing thing - and it was only a minor disappointment - was that my main rival seemed to be running with as much improvement as I was. Despite having more control, more direction and more corner speed than ever before, I was still losing places to my closest rival. After a fulll race Rob had caught and passed me a couple of times, purely by putting in faster laptimes, not by staying out of the barriers any more than I did. It raised the question in my head: what external factors have changed? Has the warmer ambient temperature helped our tyres? Has the carpet been laid flatter than usual? And more importantly, am I going to be back to tail-sliding and understeering again next week..?

Only time will tell. Maybe Rob's gearing suited the track better than mine. My car is usually noticeable quicker than his in a straight line, but the track had no straights where I could use this advantage - so perhaps I need to be investing in some more gearing options; perhaps my tall gearing and cooking motor was holding me back from making quick laptimes. Maybe Rob is just more consistent, putting in good lap after good lap where I still have a few off-track excursions that cost me time. Or maybe I should just relax and stop worrying about it. I didn't record an improvement, although my fastest recorded time was an 11.060, once again the fastest (recorded) laptime in the group. Everyone suffered lost laps, so my recorded first place was (fairly) discounted. It's impossible to say if anyone would have recorded faster than 11.060 if the timing system had been working, so I won't show anyone else's times for comparison.

Race 3

Race 3 was really a repeat of Race 2. The timing system didn't work from the off, and no timing sheets were printed, so I don't know what my laptimes were like. Again, I managed to have a good, clean race, although I had a crash on the first lap and lost first place almost immediately. I got hunted down and lapped by the other cars as the race wore on, but at least I was keeping the car running. I even grip-rolled the car at one point, but fortunately landed back on the wheels and facing the right direction.

There's not really much else to say about Race 3, so I'll leave it at that.

Summary

Generally, really pleased. The car went great, although the gearing is too high for the twisty tracks that the club seems to be favouring. I hope the club gets to the bottom of the timing system before next week, otherwise the championship is going to roll on forever. I no longer feel the need to replace my tyres for pre-glued ones just yet - think I'll leave my money in my pocket and concentrate on control. I might get in a different spur for next week, just in case we run yet another tight track.

I hope you enjoyed this week's more cheerful update, and I'll update after next week's event!

[Kevin_Mc]

glad to hear it went so well for you. Hopefully the timing's fixed for next time out too and you can chart your improvement properly

[IBIFTKH]

Always enjoy your blog Mad Ax, great to see you're getting to grips with it and it sounds like you're enjoying yourself immensely.

[Will16]

Just read your last post. Brilliant read and I always enjoy it. Glad my post on lift off oversteer came in handy

[Kevin_Mc]

Just read your last post. Brilliant read and I always enjoy it. Glad my post on lift off oversteer came in handy

wait til you can drive a (1:1) on the road and you'll see how much fun lift off oversteer in a FWD hatch can be

My wee Punto was good for it on wet roundabouts as it had a solid rear beam with stiff coilovers on the front and a stripped out rear, even on mildy damp/fairly dry roads it could be tail happy an required almost full lock at some points

[Will16]

I want a Mini (original) as my first car. They are really light (612kg!!!!!) and chuckable. I better get one soon before they turn into piles of rust !!!!

[Walsall-Basher]

wait til you can drive a (1:1) on the road and you'll see how much fun lift off oversteer in a FWD hatch can be

My wee Punto was good for it on wet roundabouts as it had a solid rear beam with stiff coilovers on the front and a stripped out rear, even on mildy damp/fairly dry roads it could be tail happy an required almost full lock at some points

was pretty scary in a pug 205 1.9 gti too, i ended up going backwards round a roundabout once trying to snatch 2nd gear, those were the days

[Kevin_Mc]

the last time i was in a Peugeot 205 GTi I was scared for my life. That was more to do with the 19 year old driver right enough.

[Mad Ax]

I want a Mini (original) as my first car. They are really light (612kg!!!!!) and chuckable. I better get one soon before they turn into piles of rust !!!!

Good choice. I've have a couple of Minis (most fun was a Clubman Estate with a 1330cc rally engine) and my girlfriend has one at the moment - there's a possibility I might not make it to the race track tonight because I have to go home and replace the starter relay in it. We were out last night and it wouldn't start, I had to jump the starter terminals with a pair of pliers to get us home. Oh, yeah, and the wheel bearing started grinding on Saturday. That's after rebuilding the sticking brake calipers a two weeks ago, which hasn't cured the awful judder under braking.

:-/ yeah, Minis rock. Fixing them every weekend, less so.

[Will16]

My mum has had Mini's for most of her life. Mainly clubmans. I don't know why but I really want a Clubman Van/Traveller but they are really rare. I prefer the Clubman to the Cooper. Someone near me has a really mint beige/brown one on a set of silver minilites! So cool! Also someone has one down my road has one under cover. Hasn't moved for years and is full of rust but would be a great resto project! My dad has forbidden me to ask about it!

Sorry to hijack your thread !!

[tonysmini]

Mini's rock (my nickname gives me away). The best mod out there at present is to ditch the rubber springs for coils, greatly improves the ride and handling.

[c_a_r_t_e_r]

My first car was a mini - 1982 Mayfair with the beige velour "deluxe" interior! My tip - don't buy anything older than a B-reg (1985 I think) as they swapped to disc brakes at the front - unless you're prepared to retrofit discs yourself. Mine was drums all round, dangerously inadequate with 4 people in the car, and had to be fettled with every other month to prevent it thowing me into a ditch during heavy braking due to the front being catastrophically out of balance!

Sorry to hijack again Mad Ax, really enjoying your race reports!

Tim.

[Kevin_Mc]

i hope he went racing last night or this thread is going to take a detour...!

[Mad Ax]

OK, this week's race report! I decided to get along to the club to try to build on last week's improvement, or at least consolidate it. I got to the venue pretty early as usual, but it was one of those nights where it seemed to take ages to get everything set up. The organiser "got bored" with the pre-defined track layouts so we went freestyle, just slotting bits in wherever it looked right. We ended up with another tight and technical track, with lots of switchbacks and only one real fast corner, a wide 180 degree loop leading onto the short start-finish straight. Again it looked like my tall gearing would be all wrong for the track - if I had any spare cash I'd buy some new spurs and pinions, but the way things are right now I'm struggling to put food on the table, so can't afford to spend anything on the race car :-/

Anyway, I eventually got out for a quick practice, and once again found myself struggling for grip. My technique was definately improved over previous weeks, but I struggled to get enough heat into the tyres to really switch them on, so couldn't keep up with the faster cars. Also, the one fast section of the track was set over a seriously bumpy section of carpet. It felt more like a buggy track than a carpet track. It was bad enough to lift my front wheels off the ground, so if I took that corner under power I'd usually understeer straight into the barrier.

I left the car alone after practice, and decided to see how it went in the first race. The simple answer is - much the same as the practice. I started in first, but conceded the lead after a couple of laps. I had a couple of bashes but nothing too serious, and was really pleased with how I was handling the close racing against other cars. Overtaking without bashing into cars or barriers has always been a tricky point for me, but I'm definitely improving.

Unfortunately there were more problems with the timing system, so I didn't get any timing data and nobody knew where they'd finished in the race.

The same happened in race two - no timing, and no grip. The tyres eventually started working in the last few laps, and I recorded a fast time, but still not sure where I finished in the overall race.

Feeling pretty happy with my performance, I chose to skip the last race and head home to get the girlfriend's Mini fixed before it got too late. It looks like the championship is set to roll and roll until the club gets the timing loop fixed, because they still need to count a few more rounds before they can calculate the final standings.

Hopefully will have a better update next week!

[pattinsonchris]

Really enjoying this thread... great reading.

[Kevin_Mc]

are there any updates for this week?

[Mad Ax]

Hi all, and firstly many apologies for not updating this thread recently. RC had to take a back seat for a while as I had some other stuff to sort out, but now I hope I'm fully back on track and RC is definately coming back to my attention. That two fingers and a thumb are stinging today after spending all weekend cutting styrene sheet for a scaler project is testament to this fact.

Anyhoo, I really should give a quick update on where things have been with RC racing over the last few weeks:

The club's championship ended just after my last update. Since I wasn't competing in the championship and haven't been blogging anyone else's progress, I won't waste pixels publishing the results. The club has decided not to run another championship now until the end of the summer, which is partly good news because it gives me more time to get competitive and fully prepare the car with new shell and wheels for the start of the championship, and partly bad news because I was really looking forward to getting into a long-running competition rather than having a quick-fix of racing every week.

The first night since the end of the championship was fairly quiet - I think a few people decided to have a break after such a long time. I got put into the fast seniors heat, which I originally thought would be a disaster, but having an opportunity to drive with the fastest seemed to help, because I finished the night in 2nd place. Yes, I'll admit that there were some people absent, and others suffered technical difficulties, but I finished ahead of the championship winner overall and only one lap short of the top-ranking driver. Easily my best achievement to date and hugely confidence-inspiring.

The next event was a drift night, so I took along my rally-prep'd TB01 which also serves as my drift toy on smooth tarmac. I've never really got the hang of drifting, although I've read up lots on technique and watched lots of vids. The club's drift night basically involves using regular rubber tyres and racing directly on the polished wooden surface of the assembly hall (which also conveniently saves having to roll out the carpets ). The super-smooth and predictable surface makes for a much easier drift experience, and the BZ-powered TB01 had plenty of torque to spin up the wheels, although it lacked a bit of top-end RPM compared to the 27turn race-spec motors or 13.5 brushless setups that most others were using. I'll spare the complete details, but I had a fantastic time and finished the night in 3rd place with 33 laps overall, just one lap down on 1st and 2nd places. A hugely fun night, especially when we turned off the strip lamps, put on the hall's new disco lighting, and turned up the sound system with some fantastic new electronic tunes from Bristol techno act Tantalus.

The next two weeks were bank holidays, so no racing took place. However I believe (hope) the club is meeting again tonight - watch this space for results of tonight's racing.

[Kevin_Mc]

glad to hear you're back at it, i've been neglecting RC recently in favour of trying to get my Sierra back on the road and working on my ERST too

the drift night sounds good

[Mad Ax]

BACK AT LAST!! Sorry for the delay - AGAIN - I was supposed to do a write-up of last week's race, but got side-tracked with other things and didn't do an update.

Anyway, last week's racing went reasonably well. I wasn't on the form that I found a few weeks ago with my 2nd place overall, but the car was behaving and my consistency was good. I was placed in Heat 4, the level below the top racers. Only one of my closest competitors, Keith, was in my heat - Rob was put in the Heat 5 group. In fact, for the first time, I felt like I was genuinely taking part in something larger than a single race at a time - I would have 3 rounds to race before I could properly analyse my results against Robs in the final standings. It was a hugely exciting feeling - I hope the start of the new championship later in the year will be like this, but more so.

Race 1 saw me take the top spot on the podium with 26 laps in total, also with the fastest time of the group, ahead of 2nd placed Keith by 3 laps.

Race 2's results were much the same, with an improvement in my personal best lap time, and although I took first place again by 2 laps, Keith took the honours of the fastest lap of the group, beating mine by .2 of a second.

Race 3 wasn't as good - perhaps it was the pressure of being ahead, or fatigue, or just plain old rubbishness, but I started finding barriers more often than corners. It was an intense race in which I traded places with Keith for the lead several times, eventually coming in 2nd, just 4 seconds behind my rival. Despite many bumps and scrapes, I smashed my previous laptime by 1.2 seconds to hit a 9.03, and although it was faster than Keith's, there was another Heat 4 racer who recorded a stunning 8.44 laptime.

With the night's results counted from the final race times, this put me in 6th place overall, just 4 seconds behind Keith and only 4 laps off the leader. All-in, not a bad result.

Stay tuned for last night's race results!

[Mad Ax]

Monday 16th May

Race night arrived after a hard day's work, and once again I was the first to arrive. I've got the table layout memorised now, so after sticking my LiPos on charge I lugged all the tables out of their storage area and got the pit area set up. Once the organisers arrived and started getting the track set up I settled down in the pits to give my tyres a good clean and make sure the chassis was ready to go. It looked like being a quiet night, but a large number of last-minute arrivals bolstered numbers and made for a very busy hall. It was great to see lots of new youngers at the club, and especially great to see them driving so well in Race 1.

Because of a higher-than-usual number of touring car juniors, I was moved up into Heat 5 with the fast seniors. Keith wasn't racing, so Rob was to be my closest competitor on the track. He looked like he'd been absolutely flying last week, so I wasn't confident of being able to stick with the pack this time around. The track was a very tight and technical affair, and a bit too much pit-lane banter meant that I missed my chance to get out for a practice run.

Race 1

I was given the number 2 slot, so I started in 2nd place. I took a few jerky laps to warm up my tyres, but found my car hugely lacking in front-end grip at the start of the race. The number of tight corners meant that I wasn't able to keep up - I simply couldn't get my car to turn on the radius required to make the corner. Go in fast and it understeered almost straight; go in slower and it described an arc too wide to make the turn. Slow right up and everybody else came screaming past in the bends. My laptimes were down in the 14s-16s in the first half of the race, until the tyres finally switched on. Despite Rob starting the race late due to technical problems, I still wasn't able to make up any time, and a bad crash in the closing laps put my car upside-down and spinning on its roof for long enough to lose 4th place to the latecomer.

I finished last, 8 laps down on the leader and 8 seconds behind 4th placed- Rob, with an average laptime of 13.52 against the winner's 9.85, although my fastest lap was 9.98, just over a second off the best pace and half a second quicker than Rob's fastest. More disappointing was the state of Rob's car after the race - a deformed motor bell had caused the comm bearing to run twisted, overheating the motor and melting the bell plastic - which meant that I had lost out to a driver who started the race late, and was running with severe motor problems. He fitted a spare motor in time for race 2.

Race 2

I cleaned up the tyres for the second race. My supply of lighter fluid had been getting low so I hadn't used much in race 1. For race 2 they got a proper soaking, and cakes of black dirt wiped free onto my Pedigree Bitter bar-matt-turned-pit-towel. Feel at the start of race 2 was much better, with the front tyres coming on much sooner. The car felt a whole lot better, and although it looked nowhere near as precise as the expensive non-Tamiya racers, it was still controllable enough to hook up a 9.45s fastest lap, this time beating Rob's by .3 seconds. I couldn't keep him at bay for the length of the race, however, and finished behind him by just 3 seconds, 4 laps off the lead. However, a bad race from pit-buddy Darren promoted us both, placing me 4th at the end of the race.

Race 3

I started feeling quietly confident. All I had to do was keep up and not make mistakes. I knew I was capable of putting in faster laps than Rob, having proved it in both previous races. All I needed was to string a series of them together to move up the leaderboard. However, it was not to be. The car wasn't to blame - it was my driving. I think I was trying too hard; sometimes I would hook a perfect run of corners together, cutting the apexes right and sliding around the tight sections with ease, but more often than not I'd cut in too early and slam into the barrier. I smashed head-on into the metal corner section on the exit of a chicane on several occasions, and was sure I would have broken something important on a more advanced chassis.

Frustration got the better of me and I actually started to feel quite angry by the end of the race. My fastest time was back down in the 10s, and I was 5 laps off the lead, one lap behind Rob.

It could have been worse, however, as the final results put me in 5th overall - meaning that my poor race 3 hadn't been enough to put me back into the clutches of the Heat 4 drivers.

There's not much else to report. The club organisers have become aware of this blog, prompting talks of renovating the club's website, which might open up the possibility of this blog migrating and becoming more involved. Well, we'll have to see - this already takes long enough! But the chance to provide a proper race report across the entire night would be good fun.

Watch this space for next week's race results.