Wreckin' is Racin'

I've only been at this about five years now, so I don't pretend to know it all.  I watch the fast guys, try to learn everything I can and occasionally, I get around the track pretty good.  Been thinking about some stuff, mainly what works and what doesn't work when it comes to race strategy.

The last few times I've been out RC racing at my local track, it seems like the racing has gotten less clean and more and more wrecking has resulted in some pretty fast cars ending up with some pretty slow results.

The first time I ever put my car down on the track and asked for advice, someone (and I don't remember who) told me that sometimes you have to go slow to go fast.  Now I've heard that 283 times since then and we all know it's true, it's just incredibly hard to force yourself to do that when the object is to get around the track as fast as you can.

I am sort of taking the reflective route remembering a time a few summers ago when I was down at a track in Danville Illinois (JTEC) racing in the MDOR series.  Turns out I had a rocket fast car that day and I was completely hooked up.  My car had all kinds of grip and for the most part, I was lapping the field.  In my first qualifier, I was running good and a car that was clearly, slower, and out of control for most of the race would not yield position.  For some reason, I had it in my head that I was going to get around him come hell or high water so after a few laps I made my move.  Sure enough, the other driver, swerved up to block me I guess and took us both out of the race.  

Later that evening in the mains, the exact same situation presented itself, only this time I was fortunate enough to have a Custom Works driver yelling at me on the stand reminding me that I did not have to pass him to win the race.   While common sense sometimes eludes me in these situations, I did back off and as a result won the main, which was the whole point of the race.

In hindsight it seems ridiculous.  Anyone in their right mind should know that it's all about winning, not how many laps I turn at a race track that I probably won't ever be at again.  I don't see myself as a particularly aggressive driver, yet I was unable to resist the urge to go for broke just to see if I could get another lap in.

After tanking a few of my heat races (and having a few races tanked for me), I started thinking about how I can improve my race strategy to get better results.  In my mind, I see the successful racers and try to emulate that.  When someone faster comes up on me in a heat race, I immediately look for the first opportunity to let them by safely without putting myself out in the marbles.  It's the way I was taught to race and it's the common courtesy that I hope will be returned in future races.  It doesn't always happen on the first turn, but the fast guys know they'll get their opportunity.  I don't move out immediately, because if the guy is truly faster than me and not very patient, they may try to blow by me on the outside.  In that case, both of us usually wreck and nobody is happy.  Now in the mains, it's a little tougher to give up positions, but I figure that if I don't give them an opportunity, sooner or later they are just going to wreck me to move me.

In watching the fast guys race, they come up on someone and follow them (not too closely) for a lap or two to see where they might get by the person in front of them.  One of two things usually happens.  In most circumstances, the slower driver makes a mistake and bobbles or there is a place somewhere on the track where it's a higher percentage play to make their move.

Because I tend to run a pretty tight line if I can to the inside, I usually feel like I can get my car inside the car in front of me at some point. Once I do that, it is my responsibility not to run the other car off the track by pushing out to the wall.  I will back off if my car won't stick low to let the other car by, saving us both time in the process.  Driving into the corner too hard just to get under them, plowing into the guy in front of you and using them as a steering aid is not a strategy.  It's also a low percentage play.  In at least half of those instances, both cars are taken out.

We do everything to our cars to pick up a tenth of a second here and a tenth of a second there.  Waiting behind someone to get an opportunity to pass may yield a few tenths, but if you look at your lap times, a single instance where your car needs to be marshaled usually ends up being at least one lap's worth of time on our local track.  Even if it wasn't discourteous, the risk reward just isn't there when viewed from a strategy standpoint.

Yeah, that's me :)

Thank God Thanksgiving is Over

For me, the dirt oval season really starts cranking up just after Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately, that's also when the endless holiday events on Saturday nights starting inexplicably showing up on my Google Calendar (put their by my wife).  As the weather gets crappier, I'm starting to wonder about some of the RC racers that I've seen in years past that just aren't around this year.  I'm not sure if they got out or their wives got to their calendars before they could.

As I look at my schedule for the next few weeks, I'll be luck to make it out more than a couple of times in December.  That's just how it rolls I guess.  Wish there were places to race during the week, but we're lucky to find a good race program on the weekends in these parts without driving 5 hours.   I plan to make up for it in January when I head down to the Big O at Monee and I'm trying to find a wingman for a trip to Teas in February to take on the Midwest Outlaw Nationals.

Made it out to race Saturday night for the "Turkey Day Classic".  I didn't know it was a special night, but the track had some free food and an all day race program going on.  I'm a dirt oval guy so there's not much point in the other stuff for me, but there were a few late models there and a handfull of Sprint cars to race.

Only a couple of sprint cars were there.  Managed to do ok with the GTB still in that one.  It feels like I might be ready for a little more motor in that one.  The best run I could muster was 49 laps.  The track record is 50, so I need a little something  :O  Might wait until the track comes in a little more before I get to crazy.

Late model action was a little rough again to say the least for me.  In the first heat, my car just wasn't hooked up.  In the other heats, my car was crazy fast, just couldn't keep it away from the carnage.  In one heat, I came up on lap traffic and tried to thread the needle through two cars in front of me getting into it.  That didn't work out so well.  Knocked the motor mount loose and ended a promising run.  In the main, I had a good showing for myself put together, when a marshalled car rolled out right in front of me at the end of the straight.  Broke a shock shaft on that one.  Oddly enough, I managed to break shock shafts in my late model and sprint cars for the first times ever.  I had never broken that part before last night.

Anyway, no sense crying over a four minute race with toy cars.  I was the beneficiary of some others having unfortunate luck the week before.  I was out of the race, but I think I heard Curt Garret get called out as the winner.  That guy can flat out drive!  It's not luck that he manages to miss just about every accident on the track.

Some of the newer dirt oval racers might not know Curt Garret, although they probably should.  Curt might be one of the best RC drivers I have ever seen.  I still remember the first time I ever went to a dirt oval race, I sat there watching in amazement as Curt handled the field with ease.  When he came off the track, he was gracious enough to talk to me a little about the hobby and when I asked him about dirt oval he said "I like because you don't need the best stuff to run good".   Even though I feed my addiction by buying any gadget I think will make me go faster, I still try to keep that in mind.

Curt was running a hand made car and showed me one that he had converted from an old gas truck.  Looked cool, tranny was flipped like a CW car.  That guy is always fabricating something.  I think he gets a kick out of creating something that you just can't buy.  I have no doubt that he will get it set up to run up front before too long.

The Intimidator SE is just about ready to go now.   Kind of wish I hadn't given up on it over the summer.  I put a 17.5 in it and hope to have some laps on it the next time I go racing.  I think it's going to be the ticket when we head down to Monee, maybe even at BFG if I can get the balance right on it.  Just got to make the leap.

Hoping to get out at least one more time before the points race if I can figure out how to get out of some of these holiday appointments :)

A Little Lucky

Well, the first night of the points series is in the books.  Not as many racers as I was hoping for, but an extremely competitive field for both Sprint and Late Models.  Still not a fan of the new 5pm start time, but I think it works better for others, so I'll head up there when I can.

Also saw a few of those Slash Late Models.  Some guys from Battle Creek came up to run.  A couple years ago, there were at least eight regulars from BC coming up to run mini late models.  Hopefully, a few more will start turning out.  I've got a couple of mini's ready to bring out if they ever do show up.  The current BFG layout is perfect for them.  Larry, Matt Rugg, and Curt Garret can make those things fly.

Slapped the Sprint car together and it worked pretty good.  Not rocket ship fast, but it handled well.  My front tires were just about worn out so I pulled out the Dremmel and grooved my Street Tracs so that they could make it through the night.  Seemed to work out ok.  Managed to get TQ and win the main, but a lot of that had to do with others having bad luck than having a super fast ride.

I'm planning to swap out the chasis to stand the battery up and pick up a seven inch wing as well as swap out the old GTB I've been running in my sprint.  I've always run the sprint as a second class, so I never really worried too much about what I had in it.  The competition is pretty stout so I think I'm going to step it up and upgrade the speedo as well.

My Late Model picked up where it left off last week.  My crazy ass setup seems to give me all kinds of turn in and I was able to power off the corners with a lot of juice.  The only problem I see with the setup is that the chasis still kind of flops, which makes it a little unpredictable at times right in the apex of the corner.  I haven't turned track record number of laps, but my car has been as fast as anybody out there.  I'm going to stick with it.

The Late Model racing was a little rough on Saturday.  The heat races left a couple of the fast guys on the outside looking in because they couldn't get a clean run in.  I didn't have any steller runs, but got one good one in to make the A.

It was unfortunate that we had to drop to 5 with a bump for the main, but you can't argue with how great the bump up is.  RC legend Butch Beebe laid down a track record in the B to bump to the A in a clean feature where the second place car would have won the A main.

The A main was rougher than our normal racing.  Maybe it was the points, maybe it was just that everyone was trying to get that last little bit out of their car (you don't know where the line is until you cross it sometimes).  I had a fast car and managed to win, however, that was probably more a product of hitting one less car than the other guys.   There definitely was some contact out there:

If anyone knows where Rich is, I need a new body painted stat

John said that he was dragging the track today which will set everything back to zero as far as setups go. I'm planning to stick with mine for right now until the track comes back in.   Should be good.

On the other side of racing, my carpet car is finally just about done.  Probably take a few weeks off from dirt racing to give that a go.  I keep hearing about how fun it is and how much it's going to help me in dirt car racing.  We'll see about that.  Looking forward to the change of pace. 

Points Racing

I'm not much for points racing.  The whole idea clearly exceeds my four minute attention span and forces me to keep track of stuff that I have no desire to keep track of.  It also forces me to do math, which in general, I am against for a number of reasons.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm against points racing for me, but there's something about points racing that makes it a little more exciting for folks.  It usually brings in a few more racers and the racing seems that much more intense.  As much as I am against keeping track of points for myself personally, that's why I'm excited about the start of the indoor points season this weekend.

After spending much of last weekend figuring out my new Rocket chasis, I feel like my car is handling pretty good and has enough speed to be competitive as it sits, but you know how it goes.  I am looking for that extra tenth and I've got some ideas.

Some things I noticed on my late model that I didn't like was the tire wear on the right front.  I know I'm hard on right fronts, my car is set up to dive into the corner so that I can enter hard.  My theory being that's where I typically set up any passing that I do.  I want to be able to hug the inside and carry speed through the corner whenever possible.  One thing that I did to combat the severe interior tire wear was that I put positive camber on the tire.  The idea is that the car pitches into the corner when the weight transfers.  If I can set it up so that the contact patch is larger at that point, it should turn better.  Looks friggin weird though.

Another thing that I bailed on last week was the extreme offset battery placement.  Just didn't seem to work with my setup very well.   I could get it into the corner, but it would spin out on exit from the corner.  I had some other issues going so that might not have been the problem.  Anyway, I'm going to try it out there early and if it works, it could be the way to go.

Didn't even try my Sprint car last week other than a few hot laps with foams.  Skated like Ice out there.  Not sure what the deal is.  Foams just don't hook up on this surface for some reason.  The grand experiment might have to take a week off.  I'm heading back to street tracs for this weekend.  Would not be surprised if I motor up a little with that thing.  Sprints run open and if I can get some side bite, that might be the ticket.  Also looking to pick up a seven inch wing if anyone knows where one is available.

Looking forward to this weekend at BFG even if I will be getting there a little later than I would like to.  The racing has been very tight and there are probably half a dozen cars with enough speed to win the mains if they can get a good run in.   The rest are just looking for consistency.

Dirt Oval Farming

I just ran across a thread on Hobbytalk talking about "Why Dirt Oval Isn't More Popular" and felt the need to reflect on that thought for a minute.

One thing that I think all of RC suffers from is the lack of new racers getting into the hobby.  Dirt oval racing, while perceived to be "easier" than offroad or onroad racing is actually quite difficult when you're starting out.  They say anybody can go in circles, but not anybody can go fast.  The learning curve, when you're getting passed every other lap and trying desperately to move out of the way the entire race isn't all that much fun.

Sticking with it can be tough for a culture addicted to fast food and video games that you can restart infinitely until you get a particular move down.  This is, of course, true for all RC as I'm sure it's not all that easy for the beginner to fly helicopters or run onroad carpet tracks.

I'm lucky.  When I started out in the hobby, there were a few really instrumental people that helped me get my feet underneath me.  They took the time to explain why I needed to worry about this or that and helped me fix my vehicle (which was quite frequently) when I really didn't know how to do it myself.   There were a few times when I would have sold all my stuff and gotten out if it hadn't have been for them.

I'm still not an expert on setups or equipment, but I can hold my own now so I want to make sure that I pay it forward as much as I can to others because I know now what those guys that helped me knew.  This hobby is going to die out if it doesn't have a constant infusion of new blood.

People are going to get out of the hobby (although it seems most come back after a few years) for a number of reasons.  Boredom, frustration, and financial reasons are just a few.  That and the average age of many RC racers puts them in the bracket of well, retirement.

This periodic outflux of racers necessitates the recruitment of new souls to compete with.  The question that needs to be answered is, how are you going to bring them in and keep them interested long enough to get hooked like you are?

I feel like it is therefore incumbent upon the existing racers to seek new racers out, mentor and encourage them so that the hobby can grow and it's future can be sustained.  I've thought about how that might be formalized in a number of ways.

One idea is to have a pit area dedicated to novice racers.  Anyone pitting in the novice area is saying "please come help me", so heading over there to lend a hand or provide advice is not inappropriate.  It would be up to some of the more patient fast guys to mentor them.  In our area, there is virtually no factory support for RC products, but if there was, I would think it would be a team drivers responsibility to hover close to that area to make sure that the new initiate had the guidance they needed to be successful.

It also seems like it would be a good idea to have RC setup seminars early on a race day.  Whether the topic was setting the diff, adjusting castor, or what the effect of wing placement on a sprint car does, developing a better understanding of how RC cars work (and by work I mean go fast), it sets the hook because once you understand a little, you're going to want to understand more.

Another issue that I think Dirt oval suffers from is exposure.   Most of the tracks that I visit are off the beaten path.  Beautiful indoor tracks like Monee sit in the middle of nowhere with little signage and curb appeal.  My home track sits in the back half of a roller hockey rink building with a small, hand crafted sign that isn't visible from the main thoroughfare.

I'm told that back in the day, parking lot racing sparked interest in the hobby by holding races, albiet not dirt oval races in places where there were more people to race and spectate.  I'm not sure what happened to that but I'm sorry that I missed out on it.

I think if people at full scale dirt tracks like Crystal, Hartford, and I-96 were ever exposed to dirt oval RC, they would go crazy to get involved with this hobby.  If it were ever possible to set up a loose dirt track in the parking lot on race day, I would bet my next paycheck that a couple of them would start RC racing the next week.  Once you get the bug, you can't stop.

See, for me it's all about cultivating the hobby.  Making it grow, not so that I or anyone else can make money, but because more racers equals more fun in my book.  The harvest would be more opportunities to share experiences, swap lexan paint, and talk about what I could have done, if only.......  

Sometimes the B aint that Bad

On the short end of three cars that all qualified within 4 tenths of a second of each other, I found myself in B main after what I thought was a pretty good run for me.  That's how close the racing was Saturday night at BFG this weekend.  3 heats of late models made for some very competitive racing for everyone.

As usual, I got to the track late and had little opportunity to test and tune before the heats.  My late model felt good, but had a little loose snap coming out of the corners if I wasn't careful.  I felt like it was as fast as all but one of the cars, but it was a handful trying to rip off 4 minutes of perfect corners with it. I played around a little with the handling through the heats and got it to come out of the corners a little faster, but I still wasn't really happy with it.  It didn't help that I was inconsistent in hitting my entry points and had a little contact with some of the other racers.

Anyway, I ended up in the B, but I was fortunate enough to earn a bump up into the A main, where I was able to finish second.  Honestly, it was much better than I thought I was running, especially with how well some of the other cars were performing.


Had some great racing with Brian Dougherty in his Dirtovalcars.com custom car.  He let me drive his car after the race and it it was really easy to drive.  I think I'm going to try to emulate that feel if not that setup directly.

The cars that were faster than me all had left side battery trays.  This makes me think that I will be transitioning to my new Rocket chasis sometime this week to try it out.  We'll see if it makes a difference.

On a side note, the turnout was decent.  I think someone said that there were 28 entries.  Hopefully that picks up as the weather continues to get colder and nastier.

In a few weeks, I'd like to make it down to Monee to do some foam tire racing.  Always have a very good time when I go there.

Foam Tire Test

Took my Outlaw Sprint car over to BFG last night to do a little tire testing and see if I could pick up a tenth or two on my best times.

The track was in great condition, so it was really a perfect opportunity to try out some foam tires, which I think will be faster there by a longshot once we get the right combination and setup together.

How did I do?  Not that great really, but I think I learned a little about my setup that may help in the long run.

I tried a set of fresh set of Custom Works Gold tires (super soft), 25's, and V2's in the rear with BSR pinks and 25's in the front.  None seemed to be remarkably different than the others in performance, although the V2's felt the most consistent for me.

What I experienced was a lack of side bite in almost all of them.  4.9's and an occasional 4.8 was about as good as I could do with most laps right around the 5.0 5.1 range.  That is definitely not going to get it done if I can't get into the 4's consistently with it.

I tried a few things, but really think in hindsight that I might try moving the wing back to put more downforce and weight on the rear of the car and hopefully a little better turn radius. 

I'm committed to foam tires now, so it's either going to get really good or get really ugly with them. 

The plan for this next week is to swap out the old Outlaw chasis for the new one that allows for the battery to stand up on the left-hand side of the chasis.  At this point, it can't hurt.......

Is It Time for Foam?

Indoor season may have started, but I haven't had a chance to really dial in my stuff at all this season for BFG.

From the little racing I've done so far, the track appears to be an excellent layout with a ton of grip when watered properly.  In some heats, the rubber tires were screaming as cars went around the corner, which brings up my question (rhetorical since I'm the only one that reads this blog).  Is it time for foam tires?

I tried them briefly two weeks ago and the track felt like it could take the foam tires, but the side bite was just not there for me.  I really didn't try to dial in the setup too much because we were in the middle of racing and like usual, I was running behind when I showed up.

If I can get over there this Tuesday, I'm going to spend some time with them to see if I can get them to hook up.  If I can, I've got to believe that we're going to pick up two laps on our rubber tire times.

That begs the question, is a foam tire track the way to go?

I think so.  Once the right foam is figured out (guessing 25's or another really soft foam), a person really only needs one set for a season.  They really don't wear out on the clay.  The only real downside is that the track has to be maintained with moisture in the track or they are out to lunch.  Short truck and rubber tire classes don't tend to like the track that moist, but I guess that's the tradeoff.  There's no one perfect surface for racing.

Anyway, I don't know if I"m ready to commit, but I'm ready to give it a serious try.

Fall Indoor Season Has Started

Just got back from a business trip and hopped in the car to head up to BFG in GR.

Hadn't really touched my cars since the last time I raced and showed up fairly late in the day, so I had to hustle to get my rides together.  Had my cars running average by the start of the heats, but really never gained on my setup during the entire evening.

Decent crowd, a couple heats of late models and a big heat of Sprints along with some short courses.  Many, but not all of the usual suspects were there.  Still haven't seen Scott Brady out this year.  Wonder if he gave up on oval racing or is just busy with other stuff?   Anyway, with the new track layout, I wouldn't be surprised to see attendance pick up dramatically.

The track conditions were excellent other than the mains for me. John watered the track between heats, which I usually really like, but for some reason, my car went out to lunch.  It did not affect the other cars as Steve Bahr went on to set a blistering 49  4min.07 second track record in Late Model.

I think it might be time to remove the negative wedge from my car and go with a more traditional setup with a lot of left side bias in my weight distribution.  I have the new Rocket chasis ordered but haven't heard from the guy I ordered it from in weeks.  Hope it's on it's way soon.  I think that will be the ticket for those short dirt ovals with good bite.

I've got to get out on a Tuesday night to practice and see if the Intimidator SE is going to be a better fit.  Would also like to get foam tires working.  They have worked before, but the brief testing I did last night seemed like they were still just a hair too loose in the back to make them work.  Maybe a foam tire setup would help.  A night of practice some Tuesday definitely would.

Southern Indiana Loose Dirt Shootout

RC legend Butch Beebe and I took a road trip at the end of September down to North Vernon Speedway for the Southern Indiana Loose Dirt Shootout.  We really didn't know what to expect, but dirt oval is dirt oval, right? We had to have something that would work.

North Vernon Speedway is located oddly enough in the town of North Vernon, Indiana, about an hour and a half south of Indianapolis if I remember correctly (I wasn't driving so you'd have to ask Butch).  The track itself is in the city park, in what appeared to be the center of town.  Kind of a neat arrangement, although no one seemed to know how they were able to put a track in the middle of a city park and run nitro 1/8th scales until 2am without anyone complaining.  When questioned, one younger racer told me "You're not from here, if you were, you'd understand".  Nice to have a town that supports racing.

The two of us got down there about 5pm on Friday night for a little practice session to figure out tires and gearing.  When we got there, a guy named Toby was working the track and it looked pretty good.

My first impression, was Wow, that is a really small track.  Butch got out his measuring wheel and measured the run line to be about 135 ft with about a 155 ft run line further out in the track.  I'm not sure how many degrees the banking was, but it was pretty decent.  The surface was a solid sand/clay mix that they kept soft by breaking it up, then smoothing and rolling it out.  Made it very easy to drive on and the lane were wide enough with deep corners, which seemed to make for good racing.

The race was being run as mod for both late models and sprints, but Butch and I both agreed that 13.5 was plenty of motor for the track with the grip it had on it.  I was a little surprised, but my late model held up very well time-wise with everyone else practicing.  I think I might have had the fast lap of the night during practice. Butch's cars looked good out there too, so we put our stuff away and called it a night a little earlier than we had planned.

The following day we woke up and discovered that it had rained during the night.  Went over to the track where Toby was already up working the track with his tractor and a fairly unique little attachment that he built to do a controlled breakup of any uneven patches.   I'd like to have one of those things for some of the other tracks we run on.

Everything was looking good until about halfway through practice where the skies opened up and a deluge came down, drowning the track completely.  Even with the banking, standing water was sitting in the lower portions of the track. When the rains finally let up, they had some decisions to make.

There were 75-80 racers there from several different states that had traveled a long way to get there.  If it were club racing, they probably would have just packed it in and called it a night, but Toby jumped on his tractor and started to run in the track.  It was not pretty at first.  Clay mud stuck to the tires and just about everything on the tractor.  The once smooth surface was now rutted and looked like a muddy mess.  But Toby kept going around, and around.....

After about an hour of running it in, the mud finally started to lay back down.  Things were looking promising, although no one really knew what to expect the surface to race like.  

Race track completely changed on everyone, but everyone seemed to adapt pretty well.  Qualifiers were cut down to two and I broke in the first round with both of my cars (snapped a drive pin, and overheated).  Second qualifiers were a little better.  Made the A in my Sprint and was the second B qualifier in my late model.  Lost out on a chance to bump up to the A in late model when Butch passed me at the start finish line on the last lap.

I had a fast Sprint car in the main, but did not drive it very well.  Ended up fourth or fifth of the 8 cars in the main.

For a money race, the racing was surprisingly clean.  Racers seemed to have a lot of respect for one another.  For the most part, the slower car would move over as soon as they could and the faster car would wait for a real opportunity to pass rather than punting the car in front out of the way.

Probably the best part was meeting some really great racers and learning some new tricks for track maintenance.

All in all, a really good time.  If the opportunity presents itself, I would go back.

New BFG Layout

Made it over to BFG for the indoor season opener last weekend to check out the new layout and get my cars ready for indoor clay this winter.  The more some stuff changes, the more it stays the same.

There was a lot of talk over the summer about making changes to the track and even some discussion about changing the location of the track due to some difficulties with the landlord.  I spoke to John and he indicated that he still has some details to work out with his current landlord, but it looks like, for all intents and purposes that BFG will remain in it's current location this fall.

John asked for, and received a lot of feedback on what could be done to improve the track and there was a perception that the previous layout with a 190-200 ft runline was too long and narrow for good racing.  I always disagreed with that.  I thought the track made for pretty good racing when there was moisture in the clay and the track was maintained properly.

The other comment that was nearly universal was that the tubes had to go.  I agreed with this one.  There's no reason to have them out there in oval racing.  Tubes just lead to broken parts and additional marshalling.

The new layout is approximately 60x40 with something like a 125 foot runline in the groove.  For many of us here in the midwest, that probably seems like a tiny track and in some ways, it is.  It's a lot smaller than the previous layouts, the straights are 30 feet or so shorter on each side (last track was something like 90x40), while the width remains the same.

John hasn't gotten any new clay in yet, so the surface is very similar to what it was last year, flat and rock hard, but it works well with the Custom Works HB tires that most of us run when moisture is kept in the track.  If John does the track over, he has indicated that he will put a tarp under the clay to help keep the concrete from extracting the moisture from the track.  I think we all agree that it could use some more depth as well.

On the racing side, we all showed up way over motored and way over-geared for the new track so it took a little while to start figuring some of that out, but because the surface was pretty much the same as it was last year, we didn't have to spend a bunch of time testing tires and such.

I thought that for being the first night on a new track the racing was very close and competitive.  There's no doubt that we'll all pick up some speed as the season progresses, but it wasn't bad.  You could have thrown a blanket over the Late Models and Sprints outside of driver error, which is a good sign.

The short layout led to a couple of things that we're not used to.  Super tight racing means that you're probably going to have to pick your spots to pass in.  The groove hasn't opened up much so if someone doesn't move over for you, you might have to follow them around for awhile and pick your spots.  You also come around on lapped traffic pretty quickly.  We're already about 10 laps quicker than we were on the longer layout which means a wreck almost certainly puts you a lap down.  I think this made the track seem racier to me.  It's not going to be easy to get a record setting TQ, but that's the fun of racing isn't it?

I don't remember seeing anyone with broken parts last night.  One really positive aspect of shortening the track is that we're not carrying nearly the same amount of speed as we were before, so crashes aren't causing the same level of dammage as they used to.

If I were recommending class modifications, I think John should seriously consider moving trucks and Late Models to 17.5 to improve the racing for everyone.  Sprints should probably just stay open, but I'll bet you that a 17.5 holds the track record before too long.

I realize that this would cause a bunch of people to say "aw man, I don't have a 17.5", so it's probably something that would have to be phased in over time, but I really do believe it's the way to go.  It keeps the folks with more motor than skill from pile driving you at the end of the straight when you've already eased off to get into the corner because they've got too much motor in their car to control.  I'm usually a fan of getting the fastest motor I can under the hood, but here's one time where I think I could live with dialing it back a little.  Slower seems faster on the smaller track anyway.

The other recommendation would be for a little bit of banking.  Banking does a lot of stuff.  It keeps out to lunch cars on the track, it creates the possibility of a second groove, and it looks like a full scale dirt oval.

So, to make a long story longer, I like the new layout.

John says there's more clay and more changes on the way so stay tuned.....

Welcome!

I've been into RC racing now for about 5 years, racing mainly dirt oval, but occasionally dabbling in offroad and carpet oval racing.  My goal for this blog is discuss the thriving RC community in the Midwest to the extent that I am able to get to.  Maybe it helps to get a few more people interested in this great hobby, maybe not.  Either way, I'm only out some words.

I'm not an expert, engineer, or even a particularly talented driver.    I've learned some stuff, but probably have even more stuff that I don't know about this hobby yet.  Hopefully, I can share a few things, spark a few discussions and provide some direction for people trying to get into the hobby.

One of the first things you learn in this hobby is that you need to dig to find information, updates, and news about what's going on in your area.  Sites like: Dirtoval.com and Hobbytalk.com are great for folks that know where the RC action is in their area, but those threads are typically track based and very promotional in nature.  The folks that run those threads typically don't appreciate people hijacking their thread or talking about other tracks, so a lot of times, you don't get the whole picture of what's going on in RC in a particular area.