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.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
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.
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.
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.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
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.....
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.....
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