Race Day

In VTA my car was great all day. Qualified 3rd, finished third out of 6 or 7, but I was very pleased with me and the car. I just need to get faster, so more throttle through the infield. Im faster with a rabbit in front of me, I tend to lollygag when I dont have anyone in view.
F1 qualified 3rd, finished 3rd as well. Bad thing is there were only three to begin with and I was off the pace all day. 1st race with the Pit Shimizus and I didnt have it. Went harder springs up front, softer in the rear. Just unstable and loose out of the turns and on the straight. 17.5 is about to come out, and the silvercan is goin in. Repair held up for the most part, it got soft by the main. But I dont think it affected much if anything. Video possibly later.

Racing Saturday

Im all in for a day of F1 and VTA racing at Mikes. Although while checking out the cars tonight, I found I had a broken front arm on the F109. Strapping tape and epoxy will hopefully get me through the day until I can order a new front end. Stand by for results...... Also will be running Pit Shimizu rubbers for the first time. Soft rears and medium fronts, thats the recipe I was given. Put Tamiya front black springs on and dialed out the camber. We ll see how it  goes, broken arm permitting of course.

F103 body on an F109

Mounting a low nose F103 body on an F109 is not much of an ordeal. Getting all the wires to fit inside said F103 body is. Did a fair bit of trimming on the nose area of body and had to dremel away a small portion of the nose of wing on chassis. Top it all off with a subpar paintjob and you have what we have here. I really need to stick with one color paint schemes. I do not have the patience to mask.

F1 babe

Start a new segment, daily, weekly, whenever I feel like it. It's the F1 babe!

mail call!

Got some parts in today. An F103 body to replace the blue/yellow abortion Im driving now. And aluminum rear bulkhead for the Zero. Im slowly replacing the plastic with aluminum on it. After breaking a suspension mount I figured I might oughtta start doin that from time to time. Too bad the aliminum is pink, but what do ya do?

VTA 7/23

Basically another piss poor showing of VTA drivers at Mikes, barely enough for a class. ME, Drew and Double D. Drew didnt get his car put together until 3rd heat. So basically it was a battle over 2nd with me and Double D. He was better and faster, but kept letting me stay ahead. Hell, he even let me go first getting down the stairs from the driver stand. So, I won. Put another asterick by that win, because it was a gift. But Ill take it.  Still turned my best 8 minute and 6 minute races to date. Traction compound is 95% of the set up for me. And I still miss it 50% of the time.
  Double D is just one of a couple of guys at Mikes that have done nothing but help me, and the other mortals that try to race on the carpet. Class. And he has a killer Streetglide!

Upcoming NASCAR/VTA race

There is talk at Mikes of a NASCAR tribute race around the time NASCAR comes back to Texas in November. So basically the plan is to get oval bodies and paint em up in NASCAR liveries and race. Maybe even oval. Which would be sweet. Anywhoo, some had asked if the bodies would fit our VTAs with the offset tires. Answer: yes. And they look pretty good. Bought a couple of Dodge bodies (all that was left, Im a ford guy) and started one up today. This is going to be modeled after the GREAT Davey Allison's 1992 Daytona 500 Thunderbird. Davey was MY driver. NASCAR wasnt the same to me after he passed.

First F1 day at Mikes Hobbies

Success. Id say definitely a success. First time ever for F1 on the carpet at Mikes and we had 4 racers. 4 drivers, 4 different chassis, 3 different motor winds, both foams and rubber tires. And our fast laps were all within .25 seconds of eachother. Boards are the great equalizer. I ran 17.5 and with my gearing and setting max throttle at 70% I was not much faster than a 21.5 on the back stretch, the infield is where the race is won and lost (in my case). Fun day, good racing, very close, and VERY clean. We actually looked like we had done it before. Racer Robert took the TQ and the win with a 27/6:01. I qualified 2nd and finished 3rd 2 laps down with a 25/6:02. A mistake at the beginining and at the end, and that was all it took. Had a blast, I think we all did. Hope to see some more F1 cars soon.

Not so fresh Paint

Ok got some paint on it. I liked the Alonso Renault from 2005 or 6 so I loosely based this off that. Blue is wrong, yellow is wrong, and no decals. Like I said, junk paint job, but not really a lot to do. I live an hour from the track so its not like I can test settings right? Hoping to have the first F1 race this Saturday. Really looking forward to it.

cars

These are my current cars and paint schemes. The F1 is a 3racing F109 and the Mustang is a 3racing Sakura Zero S. Actually the F1 is undergoing a paint job change right now. There is a coat of blue drying as I type this. Will be a junk paint job. Im just painting over the current body. I get bored, I do things like that.

getting started

Im TC, stands for Topcat, its my old radio handle, and it stuck with me. I started RC racing back in 1990 at Indy RC World in Mesquite Texas. I had watched Days of Thunder at the theatre on Friday night and went over to Indy afterwards to check out the races for the first time. They had a big paved tri-oval in there and I was instantly hooked. I bought every rc magazine I could find. I scoured all the ads looking for my first car. Hung out at every hobby shop I could find. And every Saturday night I went to Indy to watch the races, dreaming of the day I could join them. After a few months I bought a Bolink Eliminator Sport combo from Tower Hobbies. It was a basic pan car chassis with a rotary speed control and a Buick stock car body. Painted it green with Gatorade decals and Orange numbers. It was ugly. Got the cheapest 2 channel Futaba radio I could find a battery and a charger. When started running my car at Indy, I was so lost. I knew nothing, I constantly spun out, wrecked, I couldn't get around the track. I couldn't even get my car to make the turns. Learned quickly about grip. And I didn't have any. Finally after watching me time after time try and fail to get around the track, some people began to help me out. Learned lots of stuff, mainly that I was a long way from racing. Basically everything I had bought besides the radio, was in no shape to race. Summer passed, fall passed, and finally in late winter I had acquired an electronic speedo, a better motor, battery and some expensive ass capped tires. I was ready. My car still sucked and I was slow, but I dint care. I was racing. And life was good. I kept at it, got better, got a better car and began winning some races. Man it was fun. Raced until spring of 92 and had to quit because of various reasons. One was money, another was I was 21 and liked to chase the girls a lot. Shortly after, the track was torn down, and I didn't have a place to race if I wanted too.

Fast forward to 1997 and I started racing again. New car, new track, dint last long. Just not a lot of interest in oval like the old days. So shortly after I was done again. I missed it. I thought back to the days of racing and really missed it. I tried to get into off-road, but just didn't have the desire. Tried dirt oval, and it didn't work for me either. I thought I was done, but the desire was still there. Finally I found Mikes Hobby shop in Dallas. Big mother. Big. Carpet track. Was a road course but what the hell, it was a track. Bought a 1/12 scale car and played around with it for a bit. But they started a VTA class. So out with the 1/12 scale and onto a touring car. Bingo! I'm racing again. Battling for last place week in and week out. And loving it. Don't care if I ever win, I really don't. Just being out there is enough. We are now starting an F1 class. And I guess that is what this blog is going to be about. I'll put down what I learn, what worked what didn't. What happened on the track and off. I'm all about improving. There are no prizes for first place, so why worry about it? I'm racing for me. I'm racing. Nuff said.