Over the weekend I made a trek 4 hours west to check out a new to me track called RC Fun Park and Hobbies at the Tower. While there was snow on the ground you could still see the awesome facility they have going on with an oval, outdoor offroad track, rock crawling course and more. But what I came for this time was the indoor offroad track set in another building behind the well stocked hobby shop. First impressions were that I loved the pit area. Two stories of pits with tables against the outer walls and down the center. I don't know, it just gave me the log cabin feel and I loved it.
As we got onto the track I just ran AKA Clay typos straight away. I was told the track seemed a little drier than usual for so early in the day but the clay tires were still working well. I opted to run both of my WRC buggies at this race and this time focused on my Nitro buggy for most of practice. Things I did/tried were I moved the upper arm full forward for less caster and thus more initial steering response for this tight indoor track. Another thing I did was really limit the droop quite a bit. This track had no large jumps, so having the down travel wasn't important for that. I went from front/rear shock length of 106/125 and ended up at 103.5/121. This kept the car a bit flatter and didn't roll around as much giving it a bit quicker motion through the corners. Also helped it to rotate a bit better around the tight hairpins.
As qualifying got underway I decided to add in some AKA Ultra soft typos and I was able to get basically the same lap times with them. The main feel difference between the ultra soft and clay on this track is if anything the ultra soft is a little less twitchy or aggressive and seemed to lock in the rear a little more. Whereas the clay had a little more 'free' feeling to them around the track and had a bit better forward drive. After qualifying was over I was able to take the TQ in Nitro buggy with my WRC SBX.1 and qualified 2nd in Ebuggy with my WRC SBXE.1
To cap off the day we had the A-mains. A 7 minute main for electric was up first and I got into the lead on the first lap making an inside pass. I held the lead with lots of pressure from behind until about 1 minute to go when I got caught up in traffic and fell back to 2nd which is where I would finish.
In Nitro buggy we had a 15 minute A-final. I started on pole but it didn't last long as I reached the top left corner I clipped the pipe sending me upside down and back in the pack. I worked my way back through and up to 2nd but Jones was flying and I would take home bridesmaid honors.
Overall a really fun day of racing. Loved the facility, great people involved. Big thanks to the Bourdon's for the ride to the event.
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