Petit Race 2010 Day Two
*Beep beep, Beep beep*. ”What time is it?” ”OH SHIT!!!”
That was the start to the day, luckily it was only mild panic as the alarm that didn’t go off was set about 15 minutes before the text came in from Crazy Bob…
Rapid getting-up and down to the track for practice.
Mark went out, stripped a spur gear in about 5 feet. Nice start. That’s about the 123rd spur gear he’s stripped on that Cat. And he has no idea why.
Rob goes out, fine and dandy. I go out and the bloody plastic Durga went just ace, admittedly I was playing very safe with an 8.5, but it was a hoot. Hitting the window off the tabletop was a worrying moment, I thought that was game over, but no, back on the track and it was just fine. Don’t worry, I’ll break it later.
After practice I snorted some chocolate soya milk, for breakfast. So cool.
Just been reading Jimmy’s Oople Report, and he’s got pictures of Fabien’s ZX5 conversion, and it seems a Durango 2wd made the A Final yesterday. I knew nothing of this, I was far too busy breaking things to notice anything exciting or exclusive. Jimmy’s way more professional at this reporting lark than I’ll ever be, so I’ll leave it up to him to provide cutting-edge information.
This morning I was watching top heat practice, and Lee Martin was running a Tamiya 511X (correction, it’s 511 not 511x, there isn’t a Tamiya 511x, yet, and not until after a 511WE? or something. There is of course a 501x, that’s what was confusing me…) This foxed me somewhat, but again, it’s no news apparently, everyone knew.
Round 1 resulted in a quicker time than I did all day yesterday in 2wd. The car felt a bit soft, so I’ve increased the pack in my emotional dampers. Yannic Pruemper was in my heat, so four laps I was getting out of his and others way. (The ability sorting is possibly the only thing that could be improved at this event…)
Popped back to the hotel to collect stuff and found a button with a green star in the lift. I pressed it: it illuminated. Nothing more happened.
Round 2: Holy Snappage! I committed to the corner ramp a little too hard, fell off and someone whacked me one. The result, a broken front wishbone, snapped shock shaft and hinge pin bent to 30 degrees. Mark measured it. He carried a protractor in his pitbox, just in case.
Round 3: It stayed in one piece! I gave the track, and other drivers lots of respect, kept it steady and only had one roll in the whole run. Smashing. Discover my damping was too stiff at the rear in comparison to the front, so I’ll tidy that up. A faster time. Maybe even J final!
Rob’s round 3 was an okay run followed by giving it large up the death wall after the final buzzer and removing his front bulkhead. Good work Howett. Moss came to the rescue for the price of a curry.
Round 4: nothing happened, people raced, some got faster, we didn’t, we were too untidy. Oh, I did fiddle some more with damping and the car went ‘fine’. I think I’m sitting in the low hundreds from 127. So better than yesterday, and certainly less far behind the faster
The time came around for the finals, I was 9th in the K final, better than yesterday’s L final by a whole ten places! Woo! Rob was up in the heady heights of the H final, mark in the I.
My final run was spectacular if nothing else, I managed to go from 9th to 2nd to 10th all before the 2nd corner… I then faffed around for 5 minutes trying to break it, but failed! It held together and completed 5 minutes and a huge amount of fun was had.
Both Mark and Rob broke theirs in their respective finals…
So that’s it! We legged it quickly, and had a smooth drive home, buzzing from the best weekend’s racing we’ve had in years. Touring cars is SO much easier than this off-road malarky.
HUGE thanks to everyone: Maritime, Nicolas Petit, racers, supporters, etc etc.
2010? It’s all about the jumps baby.
(Look, even more photos of broken things, including protractors and sweets!)
Phrase of the day: emotional damping.
Written by simon.
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2 Responses to “Petit Race 2010 Day Two”
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Bllody ell Simon, even I knew that Lee was running a Tam, and that a Durango 2wd was gonna be there…. I also know how the knew schuey 2wd steering looks… haha!
Oh, and you boys are rubbish… made the F in 2wd last year, and the G in 4wd… :p