PDA Dirt Challenge Report
I’ve already written this report twice, the first time on Saturday night I got writer’s block. Then on Sunday I wrote it and managed to lose it in the tinterweb somewhere…
Day 1 – 2wd (& SC)
An early start, 5am ish for me, pick up the boys on the way and get the campenwagen to Bicester. Traffic was light, and cheese power helped us reach Mach 8.8.
Rob revealed his breakfast choice as a gourmet romantic picnic. His girlfriend Steph had bought fancy cheeses, tiny fish, olives, meats, crackers and other delights, so Rob stole them and brought them racing, nice (but smelly)! It’s okay, they’ve gone on holiday today (Monday) so she hopefully wont read this until they get back.
PDA was full and buzzing at 7:30, we squeezed in opposite some Welsh chaps and went to order bacon.
9 heats were booked in, 2 short course trucks and 7 2wd heats. I was in the first 2wd heat: this is because I’m shit at off-road.
The track was cool as always, nice dirt, a big jump over the table top and the double double under the rostrum.
Practice was in heats, and my car was slow, and hard to drive. I fiddled with it a bit and run the first round and decided to pull the nice and safe 10.5 out and put in an 8.5
The next run I discovered my speedo wasn’t set up correctly (that Novak always seems to forget it’s settings…) and reset it.
Third round was a decent run, and I was going okay in the last run until a ball joint popped off.
So I ended up 40th out of 42. That’s not very good at all is it!
The rest of the ‘Lazy tem faired better, Staples was up in 9th (!), Townsend in the 20s, Haskell and Howett in the 30s.
Finals were unusual for electric, running a double-sided Christmas tree bump-up format. So I won my first find (16ths), bumped up and ended up 4th, so that wasn’t too bad in the end really.
Up at the top the boys were flying, Lee Martin lapped pretty much everyone in the A main with his Atomic Carbon Losi XXX-CR2 Red Speed Passion Yadda Yadda machine. It was dialed, great racing.
We trucked up to the Travelodge, and I got very bored and grumpy whilst Mark built a Tamiya and tested it in the corridor. Finally we were allowed to go for dinner, and the Fox & Hounds provided amazing pies, and those Welsh boys provided far too much hilarity! Great crack!
All tucked up in bed before midnight, ready for sleepies for Sunday’s 4wd.
And what do you mean no-one wears sleeping hats anymore?
Day 2 – 4wd
I woke up an hour too early, so got up and showered and dressed, then realised I was knackered so got back into bed. Another couple of hours whilst Mark faffed around and Bob watched children’s telly then to the track.
Tamiya was out in force, with about a dozen 511s, all looking nice and shiny. And practice showed them all performing well.
I was trying my shocks at the rear-rear, and it didn’t really cut it, so I put it back to the conventional position and the car was ace.
I couldn’t drive it very well, I could do a decent single lap (quicker than Mark or Bob, thankyouverymuch), I just need to figure out how to do it for 5 minutes… Lots of mistakes…
Round 3 I thought my diff was knackered, and I popped in a fresh one and the final round was nice.
All three of us ended up at the top of the same 8th final with Nick Wilson joining us. The first handful of laps I was flying, catching Nick nicely and then I put it into the rostrum with a nice crack of plasticky parts… So my bump up chances were shot.
Bob bumped up and his dugga-dugga, I mean Cat, was looking great. All credit to Nick though, he bumped up, and I think he might even have bumped up again?
Up at the top the usual suspects were getting it done, the main started with Lee Martin dominating with his 511, and the other 511s of Newton and Griffiths looking good.
Kifo Newton did very well in qualifying, his car totally kit settings apart from slightly harder rear springs and some front toe out. He even ran Tamiya shock oil, whatever that is!
Lee Martin somehow managed to lose a rear driveshaft, popping out of the diff drive cup so it was left to Truman to take the win.
Brilliant weekend, the PDA guys and girls doing an excellent job, and everyone providing lots of entertainment.
Random Quotes of The Weekend
“He carries it well.”
“Blog that!”
“Go on Downramp.”
“Mmm Manta Ray.”
“Nice Fruit Basket”
“Cheese?!”
“Yellow card.”
“That’ll be £13.79 please.”
“The curry’s sold out now.”
(I can’t remember any more, comment below…)
Videos
2wd main
2wd main (2 camera very amateur edit)
4wd main
[to follow]
Photos
Written by simon.
PDA Dirt Challenge
This weekend sees the first PDA Dirt Challenge.
A 2 day event at the Proline Dirt Arena for 1/10th off-road, 2wd (and short course trucks) on Saturday, 4wd on Sunday.
4 qualifying rounds, plus finals, and finals will be in the Nirto popular double-sided christmas tree format. So opportunities for bumping up finals.
Team rcLazy are racing both days, and are expected to finish in the lower finals. The organisers certainly think they will, judging by where they’ve been placed in the heats…
A dirty weekend!
Written by simon.
Tamiya 511 Build Review
After a short delay of doing other things, I’ve finished the Tamiya 511 build. It worked out real nice, probably the nicest kit I’ve ever built.
Last year I built a Tamiya TRF-416WE touring car chassis, and the 511 is remarkably similar, but chunkier, more robust, and just more more more (no much).
The build was sweet, it went together no problem at all. Mark and I did 80% of it one Saturday afternoon, and built it to kit settings, apart from ceramic balls in the diffs (from Ghost RC), Ghost damper o-rings and a couple of other bits here and there, including some titanium turnbuckles.
And of course, wishbones are (or will be) 501X kit items after my embarrassing wishbone breaking incidents: I dropped it breaking a rear, and I drove it into the living room door breaking a front, before it was even finished…
Very few parts needed adjustment, everything is mentioned in the manual. Shimming of the wishbones and steering is worthwhile, so spacers and shims on hand are very useful.
Getting it up to rolling chassis stage was easy. The electrics install was hard though, it easily took as much time again. There’s a lot of things to avoid, the spur gear is right where you want to put everything, and the belts are close by too.
Electrics for now are Losi Xcelorin speedo and 6.5 motor, Futaba S9550 low-profile servo, Futaba 2.4GHz receiver, AMB PT.
After a lot of perseverance, the install was done, and it’s neat. The lipos I used are only 3200s so no clearance issues, higher capacity lipos need the bulkheads trimming, or lipos moving out a little. I located the lipos with some lead strips on the bottom in the cell slots.
The weight distribution is okayish with 845g on the rear axle and 795g on the front. Total weight comes in at 1640g. So that’s 52/48, so I need a touch more over the rear. There’s space between the lipos for some weights, but I’ll probably run it first to see what it’s like, once I’ve got the race tyres on it, currently it’s just a set of Tamiya wheels and tyres from the DB01 kit.
One thing I’ve not done is remove the rear spring adjusters. The ‘TRF boys’ all remove them to get the rear end low enough, but with kit springs (which are arguably too soft?) the rear driveshafts are almost horizontal. I’m as yet undecided whether to run Tamiya springs or Associated, I’ll end up trying both I’m sure.
A quick shell in my usual colours topped it off, and a few stickers and it’s almost ready to race. I’ve got to do final camber/toe adjustments .
Very nice car, I’m looking forward to getting it on the track this year. I’m keeping the DB01 to run along side it, and to compare the two.
Brilliant!
Written by simon.
Tamiya 511 / 501X / DB01 Wishbones Arm Breakage
Written by simon.
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.
