Your shining moment

[Neil C]

Marcus's excellent description of his kart incident with a competitor and his mother gave me the idea for this post.

I imagine anyone that races, or used to race, has a moment or two they consider most memorable.

What is yours? It may not be a great win, but perhaps a small personal victory or accomplishment.

Mine is turn 2 at Brainerd Intl Raceway (BIR). This track, in northern Minnesota (USA), has a front straight over 1 mile long, a right hand banked turn 1 (flat-out in most classes), another short straight, then a right dog-leg turn 2. If turn 2 could be taken full tilt, it would mean you would be at full speed for more than half of the 3.2 mile track!

FFord pilots talked about taking turn 2 flat-out. I never doubted the better ones could, but I doubted most that said they did. I always felt the need to blip the throttle to throw off just a little speed before the apex.

Then one time during practice, either I felt good, or the car did, and I decided to go for it. On a flying lap, full speed out of turn 1 with no cars in front of me, I forced myself to hold my foot in it. I remember hoping the corner workers on the outside of the turn were alert.

To my suprise, I sailed through the turn at full bore. What I realized is that the slight drift of the car scrubbed off the 200 rpm needed to get through!

Never again did I let off into 2, except in the wet, which is a different story. I probably took nearly a second off my lap times, and I was now flying into turn 3 ahead of drivers I used to follow.

It didnt make me a champion, but now I could smile knowingly when the conversation turned to nailing turn 2 at BIR.

Your turn.....

[marcus]

well mine was about the middle of last year..during a heat race at my local kart track..only a small field of about 8 or 9 and I was starting 5th..my teammate was second on the grid and he has been club champion 3 years running and the guy everyone wants to beat..because this was my first year in racing i wasnt up to pace with the front runners but I wasnt to far behind..I made the best start i have ever made jumping from 5th to third when my team mate stumbled with a wrong mixture setting I pounced and got into 2nd..now the leader was right there and I was on him in a flash ..I couldnt believe it when I looked behind to see my teammate right up my clacker and I was a bit ittimidated by this and was waiting for him to sail past..but to my amazment I was able to hold pace with them and had the best race I have ever driven not one mistake ..perfect lines , not braking to early or to late not one ounce of opposite lock through the entire race...at the end the 3 of us were only seperated by about 1 second and i managed to hold off my teammate (who was not impressed ) to have my best finish to date a 2nd..that first win surely must be just around the corner..may not seem like much but my confidence grew from this and now i know i can run at the front and deserve to run at the front on merit and not by the luck of the draw.

[KC]

You may not consider this type of racing to be wat you have in mind. But I placed third in the Tamiya Championship Nationals with a radio control race car. I think it was the best series of races I have ever done in the ten years I have competed with 1/10th scale race cars. I had a better than even chnace of winning it and the resultant payed trip to Japan for the World Championship.

The car I raced can be configured as a front wheel drive chassis or rear wheel drive chassis. I opted for the rear wheel drive setup with a classic Renault Alpine Rally body. Most of the cars I raced against were front wheel drive Mini Cooper S bodied cars. The rear wheel drive setup worked extremely well with superior acceleration from the corners, but gave some back in corner entry speed. If you get a chance, check out your local RC racing, especially if you have a group dedicated to racing scale appearing touring cars and F1s.

[DAVID PATERSON]

I had a close look at these recently at the Brisbane Motor Show. These R/C guys are putting in effort and funds that wouldn't be out of place at a full size club race meeting!

[Maisie]

My partner and I race RC cars competitively. A decent kit (rolling chassis) costs at least £200. Decent radio gear at least £2-300. Speed controller, upwards of £100. Tyres, £10 per pair. Inserts and wheel about £10 per pair. Bearing in mind you need at least 1 set of wets and 3 sets of slicks for different track temperatures, we've spent about £250 just on our first sets of tyres for the season, and we're already needing more. Motors are about £50 each. A good set of batteries costs £50, and you need about 6 sets each for practice, 4 rounds of qualifying and a final. Then you need a good charger to get the best from the batteries - again this costs £100 - £150. Servo, at least £50. Receiver if you need a different one, £50. Bodyshells, paint etc, dependson how seriously yu take the spray job. Add to this any fancy new bits that come out to make you more competitive (and a lot of parts are made of anodised aluminium, titanium or even carbon fibre or graphite and the cost soon mounts up) and that's without breaking anything ... and you could've probably bought a race-ready big car for less. However, when your car looks this good and you get so much fun out of it, plus an opportunity for close racing in the sunshine on a Sunday, who cares?

[Peter Mallett]

It seems that Prodrive has been taking tips from you and Chris. If the recent improvement in form is anything to go by.

[KC]

The race kit I race this weekend consisted of a 4wd 1/10 scale touring car with Peugeot 406 Coupe body. The kit ran around US$250.00 complete including full ball bearings. The radio was around US$180.00 with an optional high speed and torque servo at US$120.00 . The electronic speed control is an older unit at around US$100.00. We typically use one set of slick rubber tires with a molded inner liner and they are permanently mounted to the wheels wqhen its hot as Sunday was. Track temp was 152F on surface, I have a couple of different compounds I run when its cold. These set me back around US$40.00 for the entire set. Batteries are the heart of an electric car and can cost from US$20.00 for toy packs to over US$100.00 for professional race packs. I use the mid level US$50.00 to 60.00 packs. I have four sets of packs for the tourer. I also ran an F1 car painted to resemble DC's McLaren. It is by the cheaper car to run as it uses rubber slicks, a very cheap electric motor and lesser battery packs. Very fun stuff. Of course other equipe like battery chargers, soldering iron, etc. aren't shown here. All in all I own 5 RC race cars and probably have around US$3500.00 invested over the last three or four years of racing on the pavement. That is by far much cheaper than any form of full size racing in America would cost.

BTW, cool paint job on your Mondeo Maisie.

[This message has been edited by KC (edited 30 May 2000).]

[DAVID PATERSON]

We had a reverse grid race on Sunday, first time we've had one of those. I was 4th on a 20 car grid and mangaed to stay there for several laps, in fact I was still 7th on the last lap, when a Mini Cooper S dived down the inside of the tightest corner on the track and an XU-1 Torana outdragged me down the straight and beat me by 0.1s. Still, ninth ain't too shabby.

[This message has been edited by DAVID PATERSON (edited 31 May 2000).]

[Neil C]

If I understand, David, you qualified 17th fastest, yet managed to hold off all but 5 cars that outqualified you?

If that's correct, not shabby at all! Was the race all one class, or mixed classes?

[DAVID PATERSON]

The race was exclusively for Historic Touring Cars, but in two different divisions, for pre '65 and '65-72 models. Each division is further divided into capacity classes.