James
31-05-2006, 09:34 AM
Well, the PRECC on-road enduro on carpet is over...
phew!
How did it go? Interesting..
Toby was first up in 540 for his 30 minutes of concentration. Dave and I put his car in the pit lane and off he went, only then did we realise his car was SLOW! Bad motor? possibly. Letting him run for around 15 min's before changing his cell pack, we decided to bring him in and do the swap. Off he went with the new pack and the car was almost twice as fast as before! (bad cell pack?) At this point Team Ryper is about 10 laps down from the opposition and in fourth place as a team overall.
Meanwhile, I'm in the pits prepping my XRAY. Some pre-race testing showed the car to be oversteering in one direction and understeering in the other! (wtf?) tweak? no. An out of whack rear hub. I changed the rear hubs back to the plastic ones and the toe was fixed. Some quick 'dialing' by dave the XRAY master and she was all good. Would this setup work? I dont know. I couldn't test it.... racing was in progress and I was up next!
On go the tyre warmers and a fresh pack.. I headed up the drivers stand and waited next to Toby for the siren. The siren sounded and Toby cut one more lap. Dave was ready in pit lane to remove Toby's car and put mine down.. The exchange took place and off I went..
I'm unsure how many laps Toby put in... I'll check the results when they are available.
Tyres took a while to come up (damn you old tyres), and after a while I was in the 'zone'.. There was a lot of activity on the drivers stand during the driver change over... (relay style) it was hectic, I was just trying to concentrate on my driving..
Some great racing was had against Joe Hall, as usual, with his super smooth driving putting me to the test, we goofed around for a while until it was battery change over time. In goes the 2nd battery pack after about 10 mins, and booyah, the car leaped out of pit lane with a whole new breath of life! Joe had a few laps on me, lapping me a few times, however only after the 'stock' segment did we find that his laps were not being counted due to the wrong transponder number being on the entry form, and the computer not registering laps.
2nd battery change over and it was time to knuckle down and just get the laps in. And so I did. The 30 min mark fast approached and I could hear Dave making his way to the drivers stand ready for the hand-over.. I kept cutting laps. The siren sounded for the change over and Dave screams out 'keep going'... The driver that's currently racing is allowed to go for as long as they want after the siren, a good idea if the car is still at good speed and consistant. After a while Dave shouts out *pit pit*... I put and Dave's car comes belting out of pit lane, fresh body shell and all...
I cut 126'ish laps in 30 minutes. Which is an average of 21 laps per 5 minutes. Which is poor performance generally considering I usually put in an average of 24 laps in a single 5min 'stock' race. I did have the car geared down a little to prevent the motor overheating from the 30 minutes of abuse however...
I started to leave the drivers stand and 'limped' my way off, finding my left foot was a bit sore from the 30 mins of standing... must have been standing mostly on my left side whilst racing, odd!
Ben (Team Ryper pit Bitch and Marshall) is chanting and cheering from his marshall position throughout the race, providing much needed support to the team drivers :)
Dave cut lap after lap battling the high level of traffic and pit lane 'exiting' traffic.
Dave smoothly drove his segment of the race with only a few collisions and 'hack's'. Seven minutes remaining in Dave's leg, and we'd calculated that even if Dave was to finish the race at this point, Team Ryper would still take the win, with a 30+ lap lead over the 2nd place team.
Dave cut 132'ish laps in the MOD leg.
All in all it was a fun night, with some great racing that really makes you concentrate. After a while you start to get tired, and watching the car go around and around becomes a strain on the eyes.. I think the key to these events is definately keeping off the walls, and away from the other cars, more so than trying to be super fast.
Had Joseph Hall's transponder been in order, it would have been a very close result. With Ryper potentially still winning but only by between 5 to 10 laps. And only due to Aaron's car bombing out in MOD with around 8 mins remaining..
The next PRECC Enduro is at the end of the year.
phew!
How did it go? Interesting..
Toby was first up in 540 for his 30 minutes of concentration. Dave and I put his car in the pit lane and off he went, only then did we realise his car was SLOW! Bad motor? possibly. Letting him run for around 15 min's before changing his cell pack, we decided to bring him in and do the swap. Off he went with the new pack and the car was almost twice as fast as before! (bad cell pack?) At this point Team Ryper is about 10 laps down from the opposition and in fourth place as a team overall.
Meanwhile, I'm in the pits prepping my XRAY. Some pre-race testing showed the car to be oversteering in one direction and understeering in the other! (wtf?) tweak? no. An out of whack rear hub. I changed the rear hubs back to the plastic ones and the toe was fixed. Some quick 'dialing' by dave the XRAY master and she was all good. Would this setup work? I dont know. I couldn't test it.... racing was in progress and I was up next!
On go the tyre warmers and a fresh pack.. I headed up the drivers stand and waited next to Toby for the siren. The siren sounded and Toby cut one more lap. Dave was ready in pit lane to remove Toby's car and put mine down.. The exchange took place and off I went..
I'm unsure how many laps Toby put in... I'll check the results when they are available.
Tyres took a while to come up (damn you old tyres), and after a while I was in the 'zone'.. There was a lot of activity on the drivers stand during the driver change over... (relay style) it was hectic, I was just trying to concentrate on my driving..
Some great racing was had against Joe Hall, as usual, with his super smooth driving putting me to the test, we goofed around for a while until it was battery change over time. In goes the 2nd battery pack after about 10 mins, and booyah, the car leaped out of pit lane with a whole new breath of life! Joe had a few laps on me, lapping me a few times, however only after the 'stock' segment did we find that his laps were not being counted due to the wrong transponder number being on the entry form, and the computer not registering laps.
2nd battery change over and it was time to knuckle down and just get the laps in. And so I did. The 30 min mark fast approached and I could hear Dave making his way to the drivers stand ready for the hand-over.. I kept cutting laps. The siren sounded for the change over and Dave screams out 'keep going'... The driver that's currently racing is allowed to go for as long as they want after the siren, a good idea if the car is still at good speed and consistant. After a while Dave shouts out *pit pit*... I put and Dave's car comes belting out of pit lane, fresh body shell and all...
I cut 126'ish laps in 30 minutes. Which is an average of 21 laps per 5 minutes. Which is poor performance generally considering I usually put in an average of 24 laps in a single 5min 'stock' race. I did have the car geared down a little to prevent the motor overheating from the 30 minutes of abuse however...
I started to leave the drivers stand and 'limped' my way off, finding my left foot was a bit sore from the 30 mins of standing... must have been standing mostly on my left side whilst racing, odd!
Ben (Team Ryper pit Bitch and Marshall) is chanting and cheering from his marshall position throughout the race, providing much needed support to the team drivers :)
Dave cut lap after lap battling the high level of traffic and pit lane 'exiting' traffic.
Dave smoothly drove his segment of the race with only a few collisions and 'hack's'. Seven minutes remaining in Dave's leg, and we'd calculated that even if Dave was to finish the race at this point, Team Ryper would still take the win, with a 30+ lap lead over the 2nd place team.
Dave cut 132'ish laps in the MOD leg.
All in all it was a fun night, with some great racing that really makes you concentrate. After a while you start to get tired, and watching the car go around and around becomes a strain on the eyes.. I think the key to these events is definately keeping off the walls, and away from the other cars, more so than trying to be super fast.
Had Joseph Hall's transponder been in order, it would have been a very close result. With Ryper potentially still winning but only by between 5 to 10 laps. And only due to Aaron's car bombing out in MOD with around 8 mins remaining..
The next PRECC Enduro is at the end of the year.