Team Durango Winter Series at Ardent Raceway – Race Day

October 31, 2010 · Posted in Off Road, Racing · by simon · Comment

The hall has been open about 10 minutes and it’s filling up nicely.

I need some bacon to fill me up nicely.

Farmer Ralph has navigated his tractor successfully, and brought 12 cars to race with. We’re confused.

Lots of people practised, there was a queue and everything. Helliwell broke his car a dozen times, and then found one of his gold teeth in his rear diff.

I only managed one practice run, then decided to strip the whole car, found a dead bearing.

John Dawson announced that we’re not doing round by round, but he didn’t tell us what we are doing. So we are guessing it’s FTD. 3 rounds of qualifying and (only) 2 legs of finals.

4wd are out first, then Short Course and then 2wd.

It’s like being in a foreign country here. But it’s ace!

I’m going to attempt to update this throughout the day. Which means I’ll break the car around lunchtime and you’ll wonder what’s happened until about Tuesday.

Just run my first round, now a bad run, crashed a few times over the double, just not consistent, so I started taking it in two. Slower, but a lot quicker than waiting for Stefan Chodzyniniskiskiski to marshall me…

The car was peachy, not changing a thing.

Andy Moore caused a bit of a buzz, the locals had put themselves all in Heat 1. And Andy TQed the round. Murmers of ”oh, he’s not bad” and “he knows when to put the power down, and when not to” were heard along the fence which was packed 2-deep to see his performance.

There’s a lot of people here, and the fence is pretty much full the whole time, lots of spectators have popped in. Including illustrious RC names such as Phil Booth, and, err, James Stewart.

Oh that’s all rubbish, Andy didn’t TQ round 1 at all, it was Nathan Waters, you know, a proper buggy driver, with Debbie McGee in 2 spot. I seemed to be down at the top of the C, which was exactly what I was hoping for, middle of the pack, if I stay in the C final I’ll be happy.

Something else happened in Round 1. Oh, I remmeber, a short course truck went big up the wall of death and caused a big ‘oooooo’ in the crowd.

Round 2 I did a slow but safe run, not very quick, but only one mistake. And I was feeling the car was a bit slow. I think I need new LiPos to be honest, mine aren’t what they used to be.

So I’ve fiddled with speedo settings a bit, and geared up, try and eek out a quicker still third round.

I keep taking pics.

I also thought I needed a bit more front end. Ralph pointed out my inner top link positions were for maximum rear grip and minimum front grip. I now recall last time I ran this car was on a slippery TORCH track…

Team Durango are constantly talking about roll bars and rear ends collapsing. I’ve no idea what they are talking about, but no doubt it contributes to why they are far quicker than me.

At the end of Round 2 I was sitting 26th. Still in the C, hope I stay there.

Round 3 was slightly delayed by John Dawson having babies about PCs, lots of bloopy noises… So I had a nice jacket spud, catching up with Part Number Stewart.

My last qualifying run the car was better, quicker, and the laptimes came down, but it was a bit of a messy heat and I got caught up in other people’s incidents. A shame, so I didn’t improve. So fingers crossed my round 2 time is good enough for the C final.

Looking around the pits there’s a few weird and wonderful machines. Buggy racing is big on ‘home brew’, whereas touring car doesn’t seem to do that as much.

Finals time. I amazingly managed to squeeze C10. I like qualifying at the bottom of a final, you can only improve, takes the pressure off. So that’s perfect, I came here hoping for the C, and I made it, just.

I’ve no idea who qualified at the top, I’m so rubbish at these reports, I don’t take much notice of what’s going on up there… rcLazy?

Two leg finals. And Daisy the cat hasn’t been seen for a while…

My final was unmemorable, but I somehow finished 6th. Even with a ball joint popping off.

The B final was all broken Durangos, by the end of the race I was somehow holding various parts from two separate cars. There’s an awful lot of Durangos here this weekend, and they’re strong, but not invincible!

The 4wd A main was quite excited, young Moore managed to get out in front of Waters in the first lap. But later in the race Moore made one too many mistakes over the double and Waters managed to pull out a lead to take the win. Ralph did a great job of breaking Skelding’s car. Tut.

The 2wd A main was being happily leaded by Ralph, and Debbie was chasing hard, but a mis-marshalling put Ralph in 2nd, a bit of a sore win for Debs.

2nd leg of my final I went all a bit aggressive, and got up to 5th, but then a few mistakes and it was back down to the bottom. So I just faffed about for the second half.

Up in the 4wd A main 2nd leg, Waters and Moore battled it out, but Waters put his stamp on things and won nicely. 3rd place was fascinating, Kev Lee storming up to the leaders on the 2nd or 3rd lap, before a mistake put him down. And who replaced him? Amish from down in 10th or something. That didn’t last either, all a bit scrappy.

So Durango won the 4wd meeting with a 1,2, 3. Spooky (hey, it’s Halloween). Skelding was still wondering about his big bores and rear end collapse.

In the 2wd A main 2nd leg Lloyd Storey and Debbie McGee (he’s gonna hate me) battled it out, and Lloyd took the win. But on points Debbie was the winner overall with Lloyd 2nd. They were dead chuffed and asked me to take a picture of the loving couple, allegedly for their Schumacher sponsor…

Tags: c10, chilly, crowd

Team Durango Winter Series at Ardent – Practice Day

October 30, 2010 · Posted in Off Road, Racing · by simon · 1 Comment

I got here about 4pm, and the place was pretty busy.

I nabbed a space with the Durango boys (must to their annoyance when I started breaking things…) and got set up.

Practice on the track was a bit of a shock to begin with, the track was tricky, a mental cross-over that was nigh on impossible to land.

The Durango was perfect, didn’t touch the setup, just fixed it when I broke it, a couple of times.

After too many broken cars, the crossover was taken out. The track is now like a touring car track with a couple of humps. Funnily enough it was Andy Moore who changed the track. Ahem. Rumour is he’s finding buggies challenging. He’s got his grumpy face on.

Here’s a smattering of photos. I’m gonna do another run or two, and then go to my bed. Open practice first thing, and then some racing!

Tags: no tags

Team Durango Winter Series at Ardent Raceway

October 29, 2010 · Posted in Off Road, Racing · by simon · Comment

I’m racing up at Ardent Raceway this weekend, in the first round of their indoor buggy series sponsored by Team Durango.

rcLazy is hoping to become a Durango supplier, so I’ll have to buy Skelders bacon butties and try to convince him I’m not a stalker.

Practice on Saturday and a full day of racing on Sunday, it’s gonna be ace, vertical wall of death anyone?

Fingers crossed I’ll get a wifi signal in the pits, so will hopefully be able to post updates throughout the weekend of my shambolic driving performance.

Tags: ardent, jealousy, shed

RC Car Build Workshops at rcLazy HQ

October 28, 2010 · Posted in Live, rcLazy.com, Shop, Workshops · by simon · 4 Comments

rcLazy has recently taken the lease on a shop in Southbourne, Bournemouth. It has gained the title of “HQ”.

We are still settling in, and aren’t quite ‘open for business’ as a general RC shop yet. In the meantime we are quietly trading on the interwebs and at meetings.

To make the most of our shiny shop, we are planning to host RC Car Building Workshops. The first one is planned for 9th November 2010, 7-10pm. (Doors open at 6:30pm.)

“What’s an RC Car Building Workshop?” I hear you ask.

Basically, a group of people gather at rcLazy HQ and we get a new RC car kit or two and we build it, as a group.

The group will consist of people with decades of RC experience, and it will also include TOTAL newbies. The newbies get the experience of building a car, and the experts help them out and show them how it’s done. And everyone has fun and games of building a shiny new kit.

We will also be streaming it live over the Internet on rcLazy.com, so RC geeks can watch us screwing bits of plastic together, awesome! I did this for my infamous Cougar SV Live Build and was surprised at how many people sat and watched it ALL DAY LONG!

For the first one the tickets are FREE! If you’d like to come along, contact us and we’ll put your name on the list. Everyone is welcome, racers, geeks, dads, mums, girlfriends, wives. But no pets, please.

We have limited seats at this Exclusive Ground-Breaking Earth-Shattering event so get in touch NOW! We will contact to confirm your place, and let you know how to get to HQ.

And, if you have a kit you want us to build in a workshop for you, let us know that too and we’ll try and arrange it!

Tea, biscuits, cake, maybe pizza etc are anticipated as part of the event. Nom nom nom nom!

Tags: live, shop, workshop

Taplow Winter Series Round 1

October 25, 2010 · Posted in Off Road, Racing · by simon · Comment

So at 4-something am I got going in the bus up to Taplow, near Slough. This relatively new club has been running indoors on carpet for a while, and this is the first Sunday meeting.

About 40 drivers turned up, and we were treated to an awesome track, inside a coachworks. Plenty big enough, lots of pitting space, food, drinks, really great.

I got there early and hit the track as soon as I could with the Cougar for some practice. I’ve not run on carpet since Petit in January, so I thought I’d need the practice. And to be honest, I thought I’d hate it…

But I loved it, from the very first lap. Track was sweet, lots of features, and the carpet wasn’t mega grippy, so no grip roll farce.

The Cougar went okay, I hassled Trish for some setup advice, and got it going nice. I made the most of practice, and did 5 or 6 runs, and went through a pair of rears…

The first round was sweet, I popped in a 14 lapper, and could relax. Unfortunately, I didn’t go any faster all day! Rasey takes full credit for the first round coaching he gave me. So I qualified middle of the pack in 19 out of 36. C2.

In the afternoon we had 4 leg finals for everyone, and the first leg was messy, but legs 2 and 3 were tidy and I got a 2nd overall.

Fantastic day, up at the top of the tree Ellis (hero!) came on top, Trish second and Grant third. There was only a handful of 4wd (who know why?) and Rasey pot hunted and got the win, his 2wd borrowed car having not turned up that morning…

Here’s a handful of pictures, including Ellis with his awesome tool. (From my phone, I forgot my camera SD card…) Oh! Yes, and a couple of sneaky pics of the new Atomic Carbon 201 mid-motor conversion prototype

Tags: awesome, ellis, tool

Free Shipping Over £30!

October 20, 2010 · Posted in rcLazy.com, Shop · by simon · Comment

We now offer free shipping for all orders over £30.

So order your tyres and kits etc at the Shop.

If you want anything specific orderng just get in touch and we’ll do you a deal.

Are we doing a deal or are we doing a deal?

Tags: no tags

Lazy Goo Dunking Demonstration Video

October 14, 2010 · Posted in rcLazy.com, Videos · by simon · Comment

Buy some now – Click Here to go to the Lazy Goo shop page.

Tags: no tags

We Now Stock Schumacher!

October 6, 2010 · Posted in rcLazy.com, Schumacher, Shop · by simon · Comment

We’ve just received our first order of stock from Schumacher. It’s not much, but we’re only a hobby business, not full time.

We’re not planning on stocking everything in our online rc shop, just stuff everyone wants all the time. So that’ll be tyres then!

Yellow mini spikes, staggered ribs of course. Minipins are also in stock for winter carpet racing, and we will be taking these for sale along to meetings we’re attending. Or we can post them out to you, of course.

And, we’ve also got a Cougar CV Pro Kit if you are looking for one, just £235.

Of course, if you want anything ordering, just get in touch with us and we’ll work something out.

Tags: shop, stock, superb