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Report from the Reedy Race written by Peter Robinson:
The Reedy International Touring Car Race of Champions held for the last three years at the Tamiya America race facility in beautiful Alsio Viejo, CA is one of the most prestigious races on the planet. The format for the Invitational class takes approximately 30 of the worlds top drivers and puts
them through 8 rounds of rigorous heads up racing to determine that overall Reedy Race champion. I however would be facing the competition in the popular 19T spec class.
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| I was very excited for this race having just won the 2005 ROAR carpet nationals in March. I flew the short two and a half hour flight from my home in Seattle, WA to the Orange County airport in California the day before practice started. Once there I met up with RC America drivers Ralph Burch, Jarod Scott, and Alex Lopez and spent the rest of the night at a local go-kart track. |
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| The next day was the first day of practice. This year the practice format was perfect, instead of drivers from all classes lining up around the fence that surrounds the track and waiting for sometimes hours in line to get a few minutes practice, they decided to control practice the entire time. |
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Everybody knows when they get to practice, for how long, and nobody gets any more track time that another... Perfect!
Before the race, I practiced a little bit on my home track, Peel-It R/C Raceway in my hometown, to get used to the car on aspahlt. Right off the bat, my T1FK05 was really good, and i was turning laps in the 14.2-14.3 range, not bad for the first practice run! I ran the rest of the first day of practice with the same setup, just to see how the car was going to react with temp, changes, tire changes, and such. |
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At the end of day one, I was very happy with the car that my T1FK05 was working, and had gotten down into the 14.0-14.1 sec. Lap range. Xray/ RC America team mate Alex Lopez was also turning lap times similar to mine.
For the second day of practice i consulted with Xray driver and Snowbirds champion, Jilles Groskamp. This was my first time meeting Jilles, and he was very kind to help me with the questions i had about the car. My car was to stable around the track, so it was time to make changes. After talking to Jilles for a little bit, i decided to soften both my front and rear springs, going from middle blue in the front/ white in the rear, to light blue in the front/ yellow in the rear. This was a major improvement, the car was now rolling around a bit more, and carrying more corner speed. On the second run of the day, the sun was starting to break on the track, so i installed the new -1mm offset front axles to give that car a little more steering response, and a new set of the RP30 control tires, and wow! I was very pleased with my car, and check my practice lap times. 13.7! This was the setup i settled with and kept all the way through qualifying and the Mains.
Qualifying started on Saturday, and it was set for three rounds for each of the Open classes and four rounds for the Invitational, all classes were to use points qualifying. In the first round, i did not do so good, getting caught by clipping the curbs to close and rolling over a few times. I still managed to finish seventh over all for the round. In the second round, the track was a bit warmer and my car and driving were perfect, taking the TQ position for the round and setting the Fastest time. I was in really good shape already, so i was confident going into the third round that i could TQ again. I ended getting second for the third round after i collided with a car facing backwards in the chicane section. This gave a total of 2 points, and the overall TQ after the first day.
Sunday held the resorted fourth round of qualifying and the Triple A-main events. They starting order was resorted by fastest overall time, so I would be starting in second. I rolled over one time in the heat costing me two seconds and giving me fourth for the round. Still maintaining my 2points, I still secured the TQ position going into the mains. Also making the show, was Alex Lopez in the 7th position.
A1: At the tone i did not get a very good jump, so the pack was all over me in the first turn. I maintained composure and started to turn some fast laps and get away from the field. Running in second was Mike Dobbs, and third was Jason Ertractor. Dobbs made a small mistake in the sweeper that rolled his car over, and both he an Jason then dropped back and allowed me to check out and take the win in A-Main number 1.
A2: I got a much better start in the second A-Main and was the only one to get through the first corner untouched. After the first few laps i had a gigantic lead and just extended it until the end of the race, taking the win in A2 and the win overall. |
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Final Thoughts:
This was a very fun race for me, and a good result. I want to give a special tanks to all of the RC America team, XRAY and Jilles Groskamp from XRAY Europe for the help with setup.
Peter Robinson
PS: My set-up you can download at the XRAY Set-up Sheet Database |
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