Always Late To The Party
TORCH again. Up at six (after an awesome sleep, including a bizarre sci fi dream all in Russian…), and picked up Mark on the way.
We thought we’d be the first there, but no, three cars already in the car park… Eager beavers.
We set the shop up, and left plenty of room for some sociable pitting, but only Rasey joined us! Do we smell? Does he?
Rasey forgot to bring everything, including his charger, and Mark blew his up, so my 4-way charger was fully loaded all day, and it worked like a dream.
I forgot the milk for the boys teas. But remembered my strawberry soya milk!
Anyway, onto the racing, the car was handling great, but I had a couple of issues. I thermalled the speedo, so disabled the cut off for now. Will refit it with a fan. And I broke the rearmost suspension hanger, which was the only one on the car that was still plastic… Must get alloy ones.
So it took me all day to get to the party, and in the last round put in a great run, third in round, but it missed a lap somehow, and I didn’t spot it, so ended up half way down the B final… So I went out and won it by about a mile. I often don’t get my speed until late in the day. Maybe I need to start racing before everyone else.
Some other stuff happened, including John Clark swapping a Gainabull paint job for a top secret test engine we’ve been asked to evaluate.
We stayed on after racing for some testing, and I tried a few setup changes. We also made some changes to the track and made it even better. TORCH is fast becoming an awesome venue.
More Tresrey Stuff
Tresrey have sent us more red things! We’re loving em, and we’re the only place in the UK you can get hold of them right now (though, that’s not stopping the orders we’re getting from all around the world, we’ve even sent some back to Japan, what’s all that about!?)
Today we’ve received the alloy servo cranks and the amazing carbon chassis.
BUY THEM ALL!
Trinity Monster Horsepower “Back to the Future”
Back in the 1980′s when hair was big and me and Simon had more of it, there was only one motor to run, the Trinity Monster Horsepower Joel Johnson Modified range. Winds were crazy fast like 14 doubles! They were super quick, brushed motors that would use up every milliamp from your 1200 SC cells. So much so, you actually had to adjust gear ratios to get the car to last 5 minutes.
Well those days of limited capacity are over and Trinity are back with a vengeance. I picked up a shiny new Trinity Monster Horsepower 8.5 from our friendly model shoppe rcLazy.com to replace the frankly too fast GM6.5 in my TRF201.
Opening the box reveals a very smart matt black motor and a senser lead to boot! Which was very fortunate as the original GM lead had just packed up on the 201.
Quick run round TORCH was promising with plenty of low end grunt but a bit outpaced on the straights.
Cue a little bit of timkering with the Speed Passion GT speedo and the car was like a rocket! Monster Hosepower indeed, so many beans the car flipped on the straight as the turbo charger kicked in. These things are very rapid and because I ‘only’ went 8.5 was lovely and smooth in it’s delivery.
Even Simon the stalwart mid motor driver commented how smooth the TRF201 with the Monster Horsepower 8.5 was.
Time will tell but initial impressions are top notch.
Trinity Monster Horsepower is back from the 80′s, thankfully mullets are not!
Durango a go go at TORCH
We raced at TORCH yesterday, another new track layout, on newly smoothed astro.
The day started damp, so I was furiously gluing up Ballistics. By the time I’d done them the track had dried out.
So it was onto blue rear mini spikes, and stagger ribs up front. The TORCH locals favourite. The astro is bizarrely mega high grip, just like the old track was, even though the astro is new. Must be something to do with the base soil it’s on?
I was running the Durango, together with an ORCA speedo, and a LRP X12 7.5 motor, and Vampire 60C lipos.
I messed about with setup a bit, and got it working rather well. It was a little edgy perhaps, but it was quick, I ended up qualifying 3rd in the A. In the final I even managed to get up to 2nd (with Williams blaming AE springs being rubbish!?), until I binned it and then fell out with a few less than eager marshals (RUN DAMNIT).
Here’s a setup sheet from today DEX410 & 410R-Setup TORCH 200311, more for my future reference than anything else! I have a bunch of setup changes to try next time out, with a view to making the front end less responsive, with the aim of running a more usual 4wd front tyre! (Different front camper link positions, wheelbase changes, ackerman changes.)
The one thing the car did seem to do was snake it’s way along under acceleration. Torque steer? The smaller diameter front stagger ribs overdriving? Something else? It got a bit tied up in nots sometimes, and didn’t always pull itself out of the tank slapper! Advice?
Mark was running his 511, and he was quick too, arguably quicker than me, but his old Sphere was suffering, time for him to try the ORCA too. Matt was also running a 511, and managed to break it about 3 times. Good work.
Excellent day as always by the TORCH crew, great turnout and good racing. This summer is going to be ACE.
Losi TLR 22 Ceramic Diff Balls
Tonight whilst I was minding my own business, three people within an hour asked me about ceramic diff balls for the Losi TLR 22.
Now, the diff has 14 balls. Our’s are in packs of 12. And the thrusts are 6 balls, our packs again are 12s.
So I quickly agreed to split the packs and count out the tiny balls in the perfect amounts to build a 22 diff with our lovely shiny ceramic diff balls.
They’re £14, free postage, grab yours as soon as you can on our Losi TLR 22 Ceramic Diff Balls page. They’ll go out by first class post,
Two Twenty-Twos
The most anticipated day in recent off-road history is here. The Losi 22 has arrived.
Losi haven’t produced a new 10th off-road buggy for quite some time, and these boys are quite special. Dazza Bloomfield winning first time out with the car made great press. The fact that they had sold out before they had even been made made for fantastic marketing.
But, thankfully, marketing was only what it was, there ARE some available for those who didn’t pre-order.
We’ve just received our batch, so those who have pre-ordered them can collect, or wait. There are TWO 22s available, sitting lonely on our shop counter, waiting for a new home.
Please give them a warm new place to sleep, they’re a bit chilly after being in a container ship for a while.
Click here to buy online at £194.95 with free delivery.
Losi 22 Due Soon…
Everyone’s getting excited at the buggy release of the year, the Losi 22. And it’s due very soon…
We’ve got a batch on order, and a few of them haven’t got anyone’s name on them, so if you want one, act now and buy online.
Tresrey Stuff Excitement
We’ve just got the first shipment of our Tresrey stuff.
Gainabull body shells, front uprights, weights and speedo.
Moto Arena Madness
4:30am the alarm rudely awakes me from a deep slumber. Boy, that’s early. Time to get up, get Mark and trundle up to Silverstone to Moto Arena.
Moto Arena is hailed as the World’s most amazingest RC complex. Three tracks, a shop, cafe, slot cars, simulators and more. So we had to visit, it would be a crime not to.
Mark was awake and not grumpy, obviously full of Shreddies with hot milk (bless!).
The drive up was long, but okay, and we didn’t get lost. Moto Arena was found by basically driving as close to the main Silverstone track as possible at Luffield. It’s just the other side of the fence…
Their car park is across a road, and we stupidly parked before lugging our stuff. Tip: take a trolley, or use the little layby to drop stuff off…
The track was busy already, lots of practicing going on. Big rostrum, but big track, so loads of space for everyone.
The team had done an awesome job with the track, building a drop down corner table-top cross-over bridge (based on one from the Nitro Challenge in the US a couple of weeks earlier I think?). Really nice track, loads of achievable features, on a great flowing layout. Take note folks, if you want to build an indoor track, build it like this. (See video below from Nick Wilson for layout etc).
Mark and I both entered 4wd, and I entered 2wd as well, and we shared the driving on that one, just to confuse everyone, well, to confuse Puppy…
In practise Mark broke a front shock shaft on his 511. In round 2 of 2wd I broke the front bulkhead on my Cougar. Then in Round 4 I broke my servo on the last lap. Then in the last final I bent the shock tower, and Mark broke his rear wishbone. We know how to break things.
A great day, loads of track time, and a great bunch of people. Great cafe too!
(The PA was shit though guys, couldn’t hear it AT ALL underneath the rostrum…)
Where did we finish, I think I was 2nd in the C in 4wd, Mark was 2nd in the B. In 2wd we were somewhere in the C final after swapping cars around and not really paying it much attention.
On the way home, we had the highlight of the day. A diversion to Riblington (or somewhere) Police Station, a close shave with Uncle Nobby, and then a cultural tour of Oxford city centre, for some corduroy-spotting (9 pairs). VERY funny. You had to be there…
Some bad photos…
Schumacher Cut Staggers
In the dim and distant past, some crazy foreigners decided the Schumacher stagger-rib tyre didn’t offer enough grip.
So, they got their dremels out and cut grooves in them!
Lots of people were doing it in no time, the smell in the pits was intoxicating. But it worked!
After the Oswestry National last year, I jokingly started a rumour in this thread on oOple that Schumacher was going to release them as a proper tyre.
Some time later, I excitedly hear that they are! And, they’ve arrived today! Not all of that I ordered, but I suspect they gave me first dibs on a few sets.
So go and buy them now, but don’t be surprised if we sell out!
Buy Lazy Things !
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