Trip 2 of 4 for me to the Tiltyard in 2021 is in the books. This time it was for the Tilted Worlds event. The layout is kept the same all year as far as I know due to it being a one man show, but what a show he puts on! The track has such a nice 'flow' and you really have to find that flow and ride the wave to traverse this track fast. I was able to crack the 29 second barrier with a 28.9 in Ebuggy and thus I have further goals to shoot for my next two events of attendance for the FX of Nitro and USRC events.
We had some practice on Friday and got into 3 quals of rocket round on Saturday and single 30min and 10min A-mains for Nitro and Ebuggy respectively. On Friday the track was a little wet when I arrived due to some overnight rains. I threw on a set of SSLW Chainlinks just to re-acclimate to the track and they felt solid overall and allowed me to see that my set-up was still rocking from my first event there this year.
As Saturday qualifiers got underway I was flirting with consistent low 30 and high 29's lap times which in the 6min qualifier gave me a potential for 13 laps. In Q1 of Nitro buggy I got a 12 in a 6:03 with a pretty clean run but looking at the laps I saw if I ran a close to perfect run I could get that 13. Well in Q2 of ebuggy I matched my Q1 of Nitro buggy with a 12 in a 6:03. In Q3 I needed to lay it down but nitro buggy was a little rough at the start and it took a late race charge to just win the heat but my Q1 time held the rocket round TQ. In Ebuggy though my WRC SBXE with Tekin Power was on it. Mid and low 29's out of the gate and I was solidly on a 13 lap run. That is until 2 laps to go I landed the second half of the double double and shut off. Turns out my negative wire came unsoldered on the battery and that was that. The elusive 13 lap run will have to wait until the next event! But My Q2 time would still give me the TQ and thus a double TQ for the event.
Sunday came and we had the 30min Nitro Amain up first and it was interesting. I was running Soft Zip front and Catapult rears which I ran in my Q3 runs. Before that I was running all Catapults in soft. The Zips seemed to help mellow the front just a bit more and give some more corner speed on this choppy track. However the Catapults I was using were very old rubber that I have had laying around for years. So I wasn't confident in my glue job and thus told Will my pit guy right before the race that he should go back to the pits and grab the other set of catapults I had been running in the qualifiers just incase they came unglued. Well at the start I had a good first 1/2 a lap and then just rolled over in one of those choppy corners. On this track it is known that one crash could be up to 5-15 seconds depending where you do it at. The marshal hustled best he could and I maybe lost 5 seconds and was back in around 7th and pushed back up to 3rd by the 2nd lap. Within another lap I was in 2nd and about 5 seconds behind Paul in the lead. Paul was on a mission and was running a very clean race. I paced him for a while making a couple mistakes and he just stayed clean. After the first pit stop though I took the lead back but then began to notice my left rear coming undone. I relayed the info to my pit guy over the mic and had him prepare a tire change on the next pit stop. I drove a bit more cautious and had about a 7 second lead when I came in for that second stop. After that fuel stop with tire change I was not looking at around an 18 second deficit and it was thus time to turn up the pace. I pushed a bit harder where I could and began chipping away at time. Before my next pit stop I was about 5 seconds back and closing and I was called in to pit but said I wanted to go one more lap because I wanted to make Paul more nervous (if he was?). Now after that round of pit stops were out of the way I closed in, Paul made his last stop and I took the lead from him by about 4 seconds as I needed to make one more stop. It was up to Will to keep me out in front and he nailed the final stop, possibly his fastest ever and I got out in front and pulled away to victory!
Final race for me was the ebuggy final. Running that same set of AKA Soft Zip/Pults that I ran in Nitro I set out at the start and my Tekin powered Ebuggy was feeling good. I had a good start and pulled out to a nice lead and planned to just keep it clean. I was able to stay out in the lead and pull away to a nice victory to take the overall double TQ and Victory at the Tilted Worlds!
Extra notes on Set-up below:
-Option longer Steering Arm plates
-Aluminum Front and Rear Chassis Braces
-One Piece Engine Mount
-Steel Pillow Balls
-VRP XV3 Pistons
-LCG towers. (On Rear tower have one hole drilled lower than #4 position. Same distance lower as the holes above are apart from one another)
-Front Shocks have a 2mm uptravel limiter on the shock shaft.
Ebuggy set-up is same as Nitro with these changes:
-6000 Shorty LiHV battery place towards back (see photo near top)
-VRP pistons 8.2 (700) front and 8.3 (700) rear with red springs (one stage stiffer)
-Aluminum front chassis brace only.
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