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.
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.
Petit Race 2010 Day One
Day 1 started at ridiculous o’clock – it began with a 5. We were at the venue just after 6am and the man with the voluminous voice was informing us gently of practice formalities at 6:30am, waking us all up nicely.
One round of in-heat practice was all, the first heat out at 6:45am. The track seemed fun, but hard. The corner platform onto the large tabletop was pretty immense, what you did on the way into the corner pretty much determining where you would land on the straight. And you’d be hoping to land on the straight, not in the wall, window, or on-coming track.
I broke it big style over the tabletop after a handful of laps, snapping a rear wishbone. I was not alone, many many people snapped off the table top, the most spectacular by hitting the window and shearing off the whole front end…
We were further awoken with driver’s briefing with many rules and many reasons to find yourself going home. Mainly involving smoking, drinking and fast food…
Round 1 and I was in heat 11 of 14. This was WAY too high a heat for me. And in round 1 I managed a total of 2 and half laps. Snapping it off the corner platform, breaking a shock top and a turnbuckle. Nice.
So basically I spent the whole morning wrenching on the thing. I put the 4wd together too.
Round 2 was better for me, as much as I actually carried on going around for a whole five minutes. Slightly dispiriting was the leaders had done 50% more laps than me…
Set up changes ensued, rebuilding rear shocks, change of front tyres and we’ll see how round 3 goes…
It’s 4 rounds and a final.
Oh, what are the top guys doing? It seems to be all about Elliot, Shin and Lee… I wont ask Shin for his RB5 setup, as I suspect his thumbs are a touch better than mine…
Round 3 was better, enjoying the run and then went large over the tabletop and snapped the rear wishbone, again. Checking out the quick guys it seems they don’t go large and land it on the down ramp. I’m not yet sure how one does the throttle control to do that…
Mark’s getting it done for a GQ it seems (oh no he didn’t), I’ll be more like LQ…
Round 4 was a repeat of practice: I broke a rear wishbone.
So the scores on the doors…
I was 9th in the L final. There was only 4 in the M final. How amusingly shit!
Mark was in the I final. Rob was in the J final. Gray was in the H. (We had money on Gray being in the B. How wrong we were!)
The finals happened without event, things broke, Rob came third, nothing much else happened.
Then we all got a bit tired and went back to the hotel after watching the A finals. They were jolly impressive, so quick, and so consistent. Impressive stuff. I had to think that touring cars look easy in comparison…
Oh yes, we also wrenched away on 4wds in some sort of attempt to make them work for tomorrow. Looking forward to it. I reckon the damage will be even bigger.
Maritime is just brilliant, well run, tight ship, good communication, ace food, easily the best carpet venue in the UK.
Look! More photos!
Written by simon.
Petit Race 2010 Day Zero
We got here. We managed to not get lost, apart from in both Fleet and Clacket Lane services… And also stopped all 4 lanes of the M25 for a moment, missed gearchange, cough.
Maritime circuit its on Chatham Historic Dockyard, easy enough to find, turn left at the big boat.
We hung around for a bit until climbing the stairs (via the window) to possibly the best indoor carpet facility in the UK. Loads of pitting, bagged some tables, and wondered in amazement at the cafe, toy shop and then a jolly quick looking track.
Mark’s wondering how you go round corners on a vertical wall…
It was still being built, but pictures show they layout, additions from last year include no straight and a bridge…
Pizza Hut provided comedy hats, and the hotel provided the smallest twin room I’ve ever seen. Complete with a no-walled wardrobe.
Timetable starts at 6am doors open, Mark and Rob practising before 7am and for some unknown reason I’m in heat 10 of 13… Yeah right, I’ll be dropping down then…
Look, photos!
Phrase of the day: High 5!
