Maritime BRCA national

Well the second round of the BRCA GT10/F1 Nationals took place last Sunday.
A fantastic meeting ran by the Maritime Raceway team. Bit of a trek for me but spending a couple of days at Auntie Sues in suffolk broke up the journey.

For a long time I have used a blue and white colour scheme as you can see in the pics below. A lot of people are doing more realistic bodyshells for this series so thought I would join in. This is my attempt at a racing scheme similar to the one in GT5 on the corvette, really pleased how it turned out.



The track was fantastic nice and flowing. Car setup remained the same except I have moved to a GM 2010 10.5 that I picked up second hand. It weighs about 15grams lighter than my Tekin Redline. Many thanks to Mark Burgess for the setup on the Tekin speed and after playing around with the gearing I got a stable temperature and the car was plenty quick enough.

Had great fun in qualifying, Chris O'Donoguhe was my target and we were trading the lead lap after lap in the qualifiers. Had a slight issue where I lost the camber shims due to not tightening up the holder enough but that was the only mishap of the day.

I qualified 6th on the grid in the A final. A clean start by everyone meant there was some good racing ahead. I got past Gavin Clinche when he hit a barrier, I then set out after Chris in 4th place. Got a slight shock when Mark Burgess dropped down behind me after being caught on a barrier. Tried to keep him behind me but that man knows how to put pressure on a guy!! Finished 5th which I am really pleased with.

Another good meeting, numbers were slightly down due to the distance which is a shame. Next event I will be racing at is the Summer Shoot out chesterfield.

Here are a few pics from the event (forgot my camera again!) and a video of the A final.

Ardent Summer Series Round 4

I competed in the fantastic Ardent Summer Series Round 4 on sunday. The track had been changed since the last event and the lovely sweep was no more :( A rather challenging chicane was at the end of the straight and it took me a while to get used to it. Good turn out though, there was 12 GTs there split of 2 heats.
Times were looking ok with a 28 lapper which put me third in the A final. Fasted lap was a 12.25, still cant seem to break into the 11 second laps at ardent! Setup hasn't changed, using slight more additive on the fronts. I am going to have to look at ways to save some weight. My car comes in at 985gms and the limit is 930.
1st final went ok, finished 3rd with another 28 lapper.
Second final not so good, got took out first corner which moved my motor. I fixed it just to get some practice in. Ended up 4th over all so not too bad but could have done with extra points. Here are a few pics from the event thanks to Robert Clark. Took some cracking pictures!!






















I did manged to break another bumper!!! So out came the Nylon 66 Sheet and one got made!!
Doesnt look the prettiest but it will do! Better than paying £18 for a new one.
I may cut it down even more to allow the foam to absorb more of the impacts.









Jobs for before the next round:

- Clean up the bumper
- Clean the shell.
- Look at ways to save weight without spending a fortune.

Chesterfield AMC Shoot out Round 1

Well the Summer shoot out kicked off last weekened and I had a great day. Qualified on pole and won the A final, couldnt get much better than that!! Did have a slight scare in the A final when I grip rolled at the end of the straight which let Vince catch right back up to me!

The car was perfect in every way, haven't changed my setup yet. Did have a small issue where the plastic caster bloke decided to strip the screw threads and came loose. Will be after a alloy block soon. 

Heres a few pics from the day:

Video!!

Thanks to Stewart Craig for filming this,

First BRCA WGT National

Well the first BRCA WGT and F1 National ran on the 8th of May 2011 and what a day it was!!

Good racing and a good laugh. There was a decent turn out for the first event, 26 WGT drivers. I was placed in the lowest heat as I hadn't competed in a BRCA event for a while!

First run had a slight crash and issues with the motor moving. Had to replace the washers under the motor screws. I have some Lunsford Fat Boy screws and washers on order so looking that should cure the issue.Second round allowed me to put in a 27 lapper. 3rd round and the motor moved again stripping the spure gear. 4th and Final qualifying needed to put in a better time. A bit of a flakey start and it looked like I wasnt going to improve. Drove like hell and ended up with a 28 lapper which got me 9th in the A final, really please with that!! In the pics below I have included the final qualifying times, check out how close 9th, 10th, and 11th were!! Really happy with the setup, using Hupos setup and dont see any reason to change it, car was perfect for me!

http://www.teamcrc.com/crc/downloads/setups/GX10_Hupo_2010Birds.pdf

The A final was an interesting one. Bit of a messy start for other drivers meant I was up to 4th at the end of the first lap. I then proceeded to cock up and crash my way to last by the 3minute marker. After that I got my brain/thumbs in gear and drove my way back to 9th then had a great battle for 8th which saw us swapping places lap after lap. I ended up 9th but really happy with my days racing!!

A few pics from the day below, apologies for the camera phone quality I forgot my camera!

My Car

Well this is the Car I will be racing in the GT Series.
I have already competed in two summer series events.
It is a Calandra GenX 10 that I picked up second hand.

Running 1s Lipo with Futaba 3VC radio gear, Tekin RS Pro and Redline 10.5 Motor.
Using the RCDynamics booster.






With the original GenX10 the batteries/lipo were meant to come out of the bottom using a removable tray. Because I am using 1S lipo I am just taking it out of the top with the 4 screws. The new LE has a lower top desk as well I believe. I have added foam padding to the top deck to support the 1s lipos.





I had a rather bad accident that cracked the rear pod plate. When I replaced the rear pod plate I bought another motor mount (Part No CAL-3340) to bolster up the strength of the rear plate. There is also a new top plate (CAL-1763) which adds more strength, this has arrived this morning and I shall be fitting later.





One flaw I found with the car is the front bumper. Carbon fibre isn't too good in a crash, I have already broke one and replaced it. I am currently working on making some out of Nylon66, this is more durable and flexable in a big crash. I did have one cut out but gave it to Phil Sheepie at the last Ardent summer series so he could carry on racing. It worked fine for him on his RC10R5 so should work well on any car. The material only costs pennies so I would recommend if you need to replace your bumper replace it with Nylon66.





Another thing that surprised when it broke was where the main chassis connects to the side links. After a big crash the ball stud bent with the screw 45 degrees in to the chassis cracking its mounting. I was shocked about this as I would have thought the side link would have popped off before doing such damage. I had to fix this trackside so out came the dremel and a bit of fibreglass!! I managed to get the ball stud, mounted and straight but thought that there was a major weakness in the chassis. I am surprised that CRC didnt leave that little bit of carbon fibre in just for strength.

As you can see I cut out some carbon fibre to fibre and super glued it in. This strengthened up the chassis and allowed me to keep on racing. I have since done the same on the other side. 

I have a new chassis coming and will be doing the same with that just to make sure it doesn't happen again.


I will be preparing my car for the first national this weekend so will try to post some updates about it.
Cheers for now!

Welcome Post

Hi,

Welcome to my blog, thought it was about time to start one.
My name is Chris Blakey and I will be posting info about GT10/World GT Pan cars.
I have been racing RC cars since I was 15, started in mardaves and tried many different classes from tourers to micro and most recently 1/12th. I have now picked up a Calandra GenX 10 World GT(WGT) or GT10 and will be competing in the BRCA nationals and Ardent Summer series. I intend to post tips and tricks to help newcomers as I think this class has real potential to grow and be a fun and competitive class with close racing.

Cheers
Chris