When Will It End?

The dumb luck continues. I thought I was over this.

First the good news. After man handling this car through practice I put the weight back in the rear that I moved forward last week. I also lowered my upper rear end link in an effort to gain more bite off the corner. I did this after 3 practice sessions for qualifying so I had no clue as to what this was going to do. Well it turned out to be one of the best moves so far. I ripped off 16.666s and a 16.722s time for qualifying. Those were my best 2 consecutive laps ever.

Now the bad news. I was still third slowest. Just can't catch a break.

The heat race was nothing spectacular. Got stuck on the outside and this car will not turn on the high side and now has a good push coming out. There was a bunch of junk up high so I sort of chalked it up to that.

The feature went even worse. I put fuel in it hoping that maybe the fuel filled cell will make some improvement on the handling. The heat race was run with a lighter load. Running in about 10-11th I came out of the corners pushing more and more each lap. I was slowly losing the lead pack. I should have accepted that but no, my pride of trying to get a top ten took over and I tried too hard and bounced the rear end off the wall. This resulted in the rearend getting shoved all the way over to the left. Next thing to happen was the battery getting grounded out on the trailing arms, the driveshaft grinding on the hoop and eventually but quickly made into a 2 piece driveshaft. Done. So that driveshaft lasted a few weeks. A big OUCH to the cheapracer.

We are off next week, so I am going to go through this car more. I also have to hunt ebay for another driveshaft. In the mean time the steel one will have to do.

First Race Of The Year

Finally the stars aligned and I got to race.

Qualifying went better than last week. I did miss my first lap's time though so I am not sure if I did better or worse than my second. Still it was nothing stellar. Either way I was in the back as usual. I just can't get this thing to go fast for a lap or two. I will tell you though I don't think my car is bad though when it comes to the feature. I always feel faster and right on the guy in front of me at the end of the night.

I started throwing the kitchen sink at this thing. It seemed after the heat race it handled better with less fuel in the back end. So I moved the 60 lbs of weight at the very back and put it up near the LF. Better but still a little loose as I go up the track more. I could gain on them by riding the very bottom of the track. I suspect I have too much stagger in the car. I plan to attack that this weekend.

I did OK considering this was opening night for me. 12 out 17. If I get over the qualifying hump I think we can have some top 5's. This is an extremely hard track to pass at. Track position is everything.

We did have 1 mechanical failure that I discovered this week. The cam button seized up. It is an adjustable type that attaches to the timing cover. Apparently the locking screw came lose and the spinning of the cam slowly backed the button back into the cam. Eventually the bearing in it seized and locked up. I got another one from http://www.summitracing.com/ for $40. I also found the sway bar disconnected (D'oh!!!) I never set it for the weekend.

Changes coming: RF shock from 7600 to 7500. Retarded the cam a degree or two. Bump the ignition timing up from 36 to 38. Reduce rear stagger.

So I look forward to this Saturday. Forecast for Saturday: Rain! Go figure.

Even Closer!

We continue to get closer to actually racing every week. This time we got some practice in and got to qualify. Then the rains came. So again, we will try next week.

But so far the car accelerates great. The light weight stuff really seems to give a good kick in the seat all the way down the straightaway.

With the torque absorber I can really hit the throttle and not break traction. Car is definitely pushing more than in the past. So I am going to work on that for the next week. Did find the toe was out too much. How it got that way, I have no clue.

As for lap times, I have no clue as I had no help this weekend.