2008 World Championships - Part 1 of 3
CML Team Manager Dave Duggan shares his experience of RC racing at the highest level with his race diary from the 2008 1/8th Off-Road World Championships held last week in Charlotte North Carolina.
My travel companion for this trip was to be Matt Benfield, editor of Racer magazine. Matt and I arrived in Charlotte on Saturday evening just in time to take a short look at the track and then get to bed.
The Farm II. It looks great when the sun is shining!
On Sunday morning we met up with Mick and Neil Cragg and Craig Drescher and we heard of a small club race about 45 minutes away which we decided to attend to get some engines tuned and allow Neil to get his thumbs working. As it turned out a large section of the worlds entrants turned up to the Nitro Valley Raceway which is basically in somebody?s front yard. Their were cars parked all over the guys lawn and drivers were using their rental cars as pit tables, all very amusing and it was also a good chance to catch up with some of our overseas friends before the main event.
The track itself was very tight for 1/8th but good fun all the same and it gave everybody a good start to the week.
A large group of us went out to the ?Fox and Hound? pub that is local to have good evening before the event where we met up with Scott Hughes and Daniel Adams of Proline and Jimmy Jacobsen.
Monday 15th
The morning was taken up with sign up and technical inspection, which was a long and laborious process. Matt had to pay $50.00 for his Media pass which given that they will be promoting the event and thus all of its sponsors, seemed to me to be a little rich.
Now, unlike most international races where you pit by country, this event the pitting was by team. There was also a marquee for the few private drivers that were in attendance.
Scenes from the Team Associated camp.
The level of manufacture backing for this event is something else, you just don?t get this level of investment and product support at the electric races. There must be at least 20 or so air conditioned cabins that manufactures of cars, tyres, engines and fuel have set up at the track to support their teams, and Proline had over 7 pallet loads of tyres & wheels delivered, to the track, which were housed in their cabin.
New stuff? from Proline we have the new Revolver tyre which looks really good and should come in as the track grooves up through the week. They also have this available in the new wider size which they also have in Bowtie.
OFNA are the title sponsors of the event and as the US distributors of both Hobao and Hong Nor cars they had air-conditioned pit areas set up for both. Graham Alsop set up pit in the Hobao hut and got got into conversation with Jermey Kortz about how to get the best out of the new Hyper 9 that he will be running at this event. Graham has been testing the car a lot back home but not racing it, this was to his debut with the car and Jeremy was really helpful in giving his set up for the car getting Graham up to speed.
Graham's RB powered HoBao Hyper 9.
Neil had received a care package from Associated in which their were some really nice aluminium axles and standoffs from Swedish company GHEA Racing and some great suspension blocks from M2C racing that had his name engraved in them.
Into the afternoon and we have 1 round of practice to get everybody up and running. The slots were 20 minutes but what transpired was a 3 minute warm up followed by a 10 minute heat as per qualifying. In these initial runs it was Mike Truhe who put up the best time, but it is not a complete picture as a lot of guys were not running the full 10 minutes as a heat, instead coming in and making adjustments as they went. Neil had a disaster after suffering a radio failure which resulted in a runaway after only 1 lap, this could prove to be a real set back as we only have 2 more practice runs in which to learn the track and improve the car. Graham got off to a steady start by making a conservative run to make sure he learnt the track and got a start, a big positive was that he was easily able to make the 10 minute run without a pit stop which I didn?t see anybody else achieve.
The fact that each round of either practice or qualifying will take over 5 hours to complete is a bit of a pain as it results in so much hanging around. The only real complaint I have with the venue is that the watching areas for the track don?t really offer a great view, and it is quite hard to properly watch the races as the track is so big it is hard to keep the car in sight.
After a very long day at the track we retreated for food and Neil was able to try out some 75mhz radio equipment that Ryan Maifield has lent him. The hotel car park will be the test track, hopefully most of the residents will be racers and the noise wont bother them! The weather is also making it more tiring as it is very humid, around 80%. Although the temperature is quite nice, hovering around the late 20?s.
Tuesday 16th
Weather. That is the only word to use for today. We awoke to find that is was raining and it only got worse.
The track for the first heat of practice on was actually faster than it had been yesterday, and Travis Amezcua set a really good pace in his timed 5 minutes running a fastest lap of 41.8. The next heat up was 7 which had Neil Cragg and Jon Hazelwood in, there was a short delay for a crystal clash and that wet the track enough for the times to be 3 seconds a lap slower! Neil actually drove a good heat and did a time that would eventually see him be 8th in that practice round.
Somewhere under all that mud is Neil's RC8.
That said the rain came down so heavily shortly afterwards it made the rest of practice a complete non event, and completely useless for any set up information. Most people were struggling to keep smiling as the pits were a swamp and everyone was soaked. The local shops who sold wellington boots and rain coats did a roaring trade, but for everyone at the track it was a nightmare. Lets hope the weather improves for tomorrow?
Mud.
Check back tomorrow for part 2 of Dave's race report.
The Farm II. It looks great when the sun is shining!
On Sunday morning we met up with Mick and Neil Cragg and Craig Drescher and we heard of a small club race about 45 minutes away which we decided to attend to get some engines tuned and allow Neil to get his thumbs working. As it turned out a large section of the worlds entrants turned up to the Nitro Valley Raceway which is basically in somebody?s front yard. Their were cars parked all over the guys lawn and drivers were using their rental cars as pit tables, all very amusing and it was also a good chance to catch up with some of our overseas friends before the main event.
The track itself was very tight for 1/8th but good fun all the same and it gave everybody a good start to the week.
A large group of us went out to the ?Fox and Hound? pub that is local to have good evening before the event where we met up with Scott Hughes and Daniel Adams of Proline and Jimmy Jacobsen.
Monday 15th
The morning was taken up with sign up and technical inspection, which was a long and laborious process. Matt had to pay $50.00 for his Media pass which given that they will be promoting the event and thus all of its sponsors, seemed to me to be a little rich.
Now, unlike most international races where you pit by country, this event the pitting was by team. There was also a marquee for the few private drivers that were in attendance.
Scenes from the Team Associated camp.
The level of manufacture backing for this event is something else, you just don?t get this level of investment and product support at the electric races. There must be at least 20 or so air conditioned cabins that manufactures of cars, tyres, engines and fuel have set up at the track to support their teams, and Proline had over 7 pallet loads of tyres & wheels delivered, to the track, which were housed in their cabin.
New stuff? from Proline we have the new Revolver tyre which looks really good and should come in as the track grooves up through the week. They also have this available in the new wider size which they also have in Bowtie.
OFNA are the title sponsors of the event and as the US distributors of both Hobao and Hong Nor cars they had air-conditioned pit areas set up for both. Graham Alsop set up pit in the Hobao hut and got got into conversation with Jermey Kortz about how to get the best out of the new Hyper 9 that he will be running at this event. Graham has been testing the car a lot back home but not racing it, this was to his debut with the car and Jeremy was really helpful in giving his set up for the car getting Graham up to speed.
Graham's RB powered HoBao Hyper 9.
Neil had received a care package from Associated in which their were some really nice aluminium axles and standoffs from Swedish company GHEA Racing and some great suspension blocks from M2C racing that had his name engraved in them.
Into the afternoon and we have 1 round of practice to get everybody up and running. The slots were 20 minutes but what transpired was a 3 minute warm up followed by a 10 minute heat as per qualifying. In these initial runs it was Mike Truhe who put up the best time, but it is not a complete picture as a lot of guys were not running the full 10 minutes as a heat, instead coming in and making adjustments as they went. Neil had a disaster after suffering a radio failure which resulted in a runaway after only 1 lap, this could prove to be a real set back as we only have 2 more practice runs in which to learn the track and improve the car. Graham got off to a steady start by making a conservative run to make sure he learnt the track and got a start, a big positive was that he was easily able to make the 10 minute run without a pit stop which I didn?t see anybody else achieve.
The fact that each round of either practice or qualifying will take over 5 hours to complete is a bit of a pain as it results in so much hanging around. The only real complaint I have with the venue is that the watching areas for the track don?t really offer a great view, and it is quite hard to properly watch the races as the track is so big it is hard to keep the car in sight.
After a very long day at the track we retreated for food and Neil was able to try out some 75mhz radio equipment that Ryan Maifield has lent him. The hotel car park will be the test track, hopefully most of the residents will be racers and the noise wont bother them! The weather is also making it more tiring as it is very humid, around 80%. Although the temperature is quite nice, hovering around the late 20?s.
Tuesday 16th
Weather. That is the only word to use for today. We awoke to find that is was raining and it only got worse.
The track for the first heat of practice on was actually faster than it had been yesterday, and Travis Amezcua set a really good pace in his timed 5 minutes running a fastest lap of 41.8. The next heat up was 7 which had Neil Cragg and Jon Hazelwood in, there was a short delay for a crystal clash and that wet the track enough for the times to be 3 seconds a lap slower! Neil actually drove a good heat and did a time that would eventually see him be 8th in that practice round.
Somewhere under all that mud is Neil's RC8.
That said the rain came down so heavily shortly afterwards it made the rest of practice a complete non event, and completely useless for any set up information. Most people were struggling to keep smiling as the pits were a swamp and everyone was soaked. The local shops who sold wellington boots and rain coats did a roaring trade, but for everyone at the track it was a nightmare. Lets hope the weather improves for tomorrow?
Mud.
Check back tomorrow for part 2 of Dave's race report.
