Autosport International GT Race

Long time update again, apologies!
Only one new thing concerning the car, Viper motor:


Viper RC were very kind and offered me a team driver role for 2013! Many thanks to them, their products are amazing.

Well one of the most exciting opportunities for RC racing has been and gone. The BRCA were offered space to put on a display at the Autosport International Exhibition at Birmingham's NEC Arena. I have been to this show a few time to look at the cars but the chance to actually race there was amazing. The only problem was that it was on the weekend of my wedding anniversary, got a lot of making up to do for that one but my lovely wife CJ let me go!

Everyone was hyped prior to the meeting, as well as the usual GT racers lots of teams were throwing their drivers at it, Olly Jefferies and Zak Smith were there for team associated and Serpent had a big turn out of drivers. The BRCA requested everyone try and do realistic looking bodyshells. The majority of people did put a lot of effort into their shells and they looked great going round. I got my hands on a Parma Aston Martin DB9 shell and the plan was to do in Beechdean Racing colours. I decided that it deserved more than my limited talent with a spray can so sent it off to Craig Mawson and he did a fantastic job. Here are some pics of the car (before it bounced of several barries) and I also got some pics of it next to the real thing.


I took the Friday before and the Monday after off work as I knew it was going to be a long weekend (VERY glad I did). I offered myself and Tim Ward as helpers for the friday night to set the track up. I picked Tim up on Friday afternoon and headed down. We got the hotel, had a heart attack over the car park charges, checked quickly and headed back to the arena. Unfortunately we couldn't get in and start building till after the show closed and the engineering hall had been dismantled. So we went to the pub and had tea. Fortunately some of the BRCA guys joined us in pub so we didn't have to worry about finding anyone. Now the track was going to be massive, 9 Rolls of carpet wide, 28mx17m. Biggest I think I have ever raced on. Unfortunately the track build got off to a slow start as the stand that was there before us took an ages to dismantle. The track was finally built by midnight!!!! We left at quarter past but other guys stopped even later doing signage. Fair play to the BRCA guys they worked their asses off!

So day one of racing and after bugger all sleep we were back at the hall at 7am ready to get passes and in and setup. It was a impressive sight to be fair, a massive track surrounded by real life sports cars. Couldn't ask for better. The format was going to be Reedy race, I have always raced FTD with finals so this was going to be an interesting weekend. First race was just a practice race which had no grip as to be expected. Car was quick from the get go and had great potention. First race got off to a good start and was fighting for second position when I got took out by a back marker. Well the weekend kinda went down hill from there really! The car was very edgy when the grip come up and had a massive fight with grip roll. A mixture of driving errors from me, car failures and back markers left me 17th at the end of the weekend.

The car was great when it was going well, my god it had speed. Here is my setup for the Viper VTX1 and VST 10.5 motor.
Rollout: 56MMPR
Static Timing: 15 (lowest mark on the can)
Brakes:
strength 90%
freq 3200
curve: linear

Throttle
freq 6400
punch 100
curve linear
deadband narrow

Motor Power
Acceleration Boost
start rpm 3500
finish rpm 11500
max adv timing 45
Top Speed timing
slew rate 4
max adv timing 15

The motor was coming of about 70-80 degree C but it was bloody quick throughout the whole 6 minutes.

Wish I could have done better, the car definitely had it, my best race of the weekend was a 2nd place finish. Would have been my fastest time but I was fighting with Jason for 1st and just clipped his back wheel and put him on his roof. Waited for him to be flipped which left us 2nd and 3rd but we both got past Richard Norris for a good finish. Fastest lap was a 13.1. Congrats to Olly Jefferies for the win. The whole event was a success, loads of people came and had a go of the schumacher arrive and drive cars. The GT12 and F1 display guys did a great job of keeping the crowd entertained. We had lots of people wander round to see the pit area and ask lots of questions. The crowds were three people deep all the way round at peak times. It was really great to see, hopefully it will have drummed up a fair amount of interest and get some new people racing.

So not a great start to my racing this year but onward and upwards. Will be looking to upgrade batteries in the next couple of months. Tempted by a new chassis as well. My CRC started life as the original GENX10 and has slowly been upgraded. Its now fairly tired, I could replace the worn parts but it cost a fair bit. So what chassis to get next? Tempted by either the Associated RC10R5.1 or the Serpent S100 LT. Would be interested to hear peoples experiences with either of them.

Here are some more pics of the show, robbed a couple of my car going round from Chris Taylor and Martin Bollenbacher.