The sun was smiling on this weekend as we all got taste of what summer should feel like. Temperature hit 30 Celsius on Saturday and made for a very enjoyable weekend. So hot that the track dried out and made a somewhat dusty and loose race condition. The Red Deer RC club did a tremendous job of upgrading their facility and re-building the track to accommodate a reverse direction with a challenging layout.
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The track:
From the driver stand, as we travel in clockwise direction we first encounter a huge big air jump, connected onto a banked sweeper then flows onto the main full length 170â™ straightaway. Another short banked hair pin meets up with a double which cannot cleared together, so taking separately and caution not to overshoot the 2nd one requires braking to cut close to set up for the next series of tight corners. Next is the chicane triple, which has to be setup perfectly to be able to clear entirely. Onto a 15 foot washboard section and turning back onto the 6 huge bump rhythm section with a bit of a dog leg for the last two jumps.
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During practice it was a difficult decision for setup to either go soft or medium damping. Since we noticed very little track maintenance and no watering we knew this track will eventually get blown out, so we stuck with a soft setup. This paid off early as I secured TQ in buggy in the first round. It wasnâ™t till the 3rd round of truggy that we decided to do the same with the dampening and some minor suspension adjustments that allowed us to run the fastest lap and secure TQ in that class as well.
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The buggy main A was tougher than anticipated. Right off the start, coming off the first jump, I got tangled up with another buggy and ended up in last. Playing catchup for a third of the race was tough, a lot of traffic and patience. Midway in the race we were swapping the lead position with a close race with the current leader. With 15 minutes remaining in the 45 minute race, our battle ended with his buggy losing rear drive. I drove conservatively till the end, winning the buggy A main.
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The truggy A main had a better beginning with bad luck towards the final 10 minutes. While in the lead, I had to retire from the race when I broke the steering hub coming off a jump and landing square onto the front right tire. This pre-production truggy box stock with minimal track time and setup was clearly the fastest out there which impressed a lot of racers.
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The buggy seemed to be slightly loose with the softer dirt, but still manageable in the corners. The three-double section always owned me at this track, but the EC seemed to be able to settle quicker between the doubles allowing me to aim for the next one. The setup Iâ™m running is a very good base setup; little changes from track to track are required and make the race enjoyable.
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The truggy was very fast around the track, but a handful until we softened it up. The soft setup seemed to flow through the washboard and shrugged off any ruts, although it was an easy tenth slower per lap it was more consistent. This is definitely a fun truck to drive, passing lapped traffic and fighting for position is easy as itâ™s not as nervous as some of the other trucks out there. The setup I ended up with is very docile and easy to drive, although VERY quick in the corners and easily handles big air.
I would like thank my sponsors Xray, Can West R/C & Werks for their help and support for this race.
