After weeks of preparation of our rocket-like machines, it was time to hit the track. For the maiden run we opted to visit the Guinness World Record track at CATZ-Sports in Hamburg/Stapelfeld again. To be honest we both were pretty nervous after all the effort, time, blood, sweat and tears we spend on the preparation of our Mini-Z's.
Instantly after our arrival at the track we prepared our cars for the first outing. The first impression: The track has a very good grip-level and it was easy to control the cars. See a video of the current track as it is used for the Guinness World Record attempt at the end of this blog entry. Flo took a 50T motor and I took a 42T. For this track, I had to reduce the throttle end point of my transmitter to 55%. 100% speed was too much and I found it very hard to control acceleration. Flo drove 100% speed and had nearly the same speed/acceleration than me.
We both drove the TRP Mosler body there which seemed to be very good balanced on this track. After some initial runs, the feeling for this tiny cars got better and better although I am only used to larger 1/12 and 1/10 scale cars. It was interesting to see that Flo was able to match my speed although he hasn't drove RC cars for more than 2 years! We raced until half 12 in the night and at the end of the day we both proved to be some of the fastest drivers on the track! We improved our laptimes run by run and at the end Flo came back to his old performance and beat my best laptime by 0.3 seconds!
We tested a lot of different off-set wheels, toe-in steering plates and different front springs. As a resume I can say that front wheels with less off-set (hence less smaller track width) make the car less aggressive when cornering. At the beginning, our cars made side-rolls at the end of the long straight. We then went for softer front springs and the traction roll problem was history. Also cornering was improved when using softer springs as turn could be driven much tighter and faster with softer springs. At the end we used the softest of our spring sets and the handling was perfect.
After driving the TRP Mosler the whole day, I changed to the McLaren F1 Yellow Corn body to see what it could do to the handling. The McLaren body is much longer compared to the Mosler and on the track it felt like a brick in the corners. And the body leads to traction rolling at the end of the straight. Instantly I lost my admiration to this beautiful body. Bye, bye, McLaren, it's time to leave. My new love is the fat Mosler. Short. Quick. Strong. And with the best character a man can wish.
It was a great day out there with great battles between the Flo and me on the track. We learned a lot and I now really look forward to the big day next weekend.
Video courtesy of Racer's Videos
So long, Michael
