2mm chassis - a must have for rubber carpet racing
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Tech Tip by Martin Hudy
The carpet season has already started and I have done more than eight races. On my first carpet race this season in Las Vegas, I had a problem finding a working setup which motivated me to spend countless amount of time on carpet track to practice and work on the car set-up. Later on we had a race with the same tires (Take Off CS27) as used in Vegas and after fine tuning I have found a very good setup which works perfectly with these tires as well with any other rubber tires. I already tried this setup on five different carpets including a brand new, no-grip carpet. My car was perfect the entire time and I have won at almost all races. If you want to follow my setup sheet, here are couple of small details on which you should concentrate.
The first thing to start with is the 2mm chassis (301114). We were positively surprised with the excellent performance of the car with 2mm chassis on the carpet with rubber tires and I and the whole European team have not used anything else since. The 2mm chassis will make the car very soft and this will increase the grip. To make the car even softer and have sufficient amount of grip on all tracks I changed from the adjustable top deck to the standard top deck (301164), which I then modified to make it even softer without the front alu stands. Check out the photo where you can see how I have modified the top deck. You can do it easily, just take a Dremel and make a groove in the middle of the chassis. (For your safety please make sure that you have protective gloves and safety glasses all the time when you want to modify any parts or the graphite parts.)
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At some tracks I still faced a problem that my car used to stop in some corners. I solved this problem by using blue springs (308395) on the front shocks. These springs are quite stiff and you will have no longer a problem with stopping in the corners. I use white springs (308384) in the rear to achieve the required grip but at the same time to keep sufficient cornering speed. If the grip is very low you can try yellow springs (308393) in the rear which will give even more grip but this will decrease steering.
To achieve a sufficient grip it is very important to have 3° rear toe-in. The adjustable top deck is great for all racing conditions on asphalt, which is the only top deck I use outdoors, but for indoor carpet racing with rubber tires the standard top deck with the modification I made makes the car to handle best. This modified top deck is also very good on very bumpy tracks because the car will absorb bumps better. On a brand new carpet which had no grip at all I even removed the two front screws from the top deck which mount the top deck to the rear bulkhead. Once you remove these screws the car will have more rear grip and you do not need to be afraid of losing steering because these screws have no relation to the steering.
Remember that body choice is very important too. In very low grip conditions you should use the Stratus1. In case you need to have more steering you can try the Stratus3. The Mazda6 is perfect in high-grip conditions because it gives you more steering but less grip.
For further details check out and follow my online setup sheet. In case you drive with rubber tires on carpet, I strongly suggest that you use my setup sheet as a starting point and you can tweak and fine-tune things from there.
