This poor car has sat and sat for a year with no real play....so sad. Until yesterday, at the DMV RC Takeover at RFK Stadium
It was a great turnout, and Jay Rock has got something big going down in ole DC for sure! Most of the focus was on drag racing, which I suspected from past event videos, so I just took the Invader and one of my bashing TMaxx (Predator). I never even fired the TMaxx up, lol. There were plenty of trucks and some ramps set up for bashing, but everyone was pretty wound up with the drag racing.
I spent a few days in front of my house getting the Invader dialed in a bit. It was struggling with traction at times, if I punched it from the start, it was spinning out pretty bad. At times it was getting sideways after a good launch when it hit the power band. The street was kind of narrow and too much traffic at the time, so I didn't get a good full speed pass in, but I was satisfied that it was running straight and that the tune was decent enough.
There were lots of different types of racers here. Some 1/5 scale gassers, couple of nitros, some pro-mod/pro-stock no prep style, some F1 cars running foams, buggies, even a guy running a nitro Revo with the same OS .21 that I had.
People were pretty fascinated with my loud little nitro pro-mod car for sure! There was a little admiration, some others trash talking nitro, lol, but all in good fun. I did a few test hits away from the track, and was satisfied that all was in order, so it was time to race.
First up I paired up with a Gen 2 Camaro no prep car. Horn sounded, and I hit it with about 1/2 throttle at first then punched it, and the Invader was off and screaming. Ran a pure, A to B clean hit, definitely got out on the Camaro before he lost control. People were kinda shocked at how that nitro got down the track it seemed. It was definitely a good hit, sadly my GPS was uncharged, but I'd say it was somewhere around 3 seconds. Only issue I had was that my radio range with the Flysky G3 was poor, I was cutting out at 200 feet, so I had to run down to get my car. (Also turns out my hump pack was pretty low on juice). I recharged and it had more range, but still not great beyond 200 feet. (later tested, and not sure why I was having problems, maybe some interference?)
Next up was a stock Losi drag car, and I had another great run, my best one I think. I got him pretty good, and now everyone knew my name, lol. I was really happy with how this thing was running, though I knew it was running pretty rich, I really hesitated adding more power, it was getting A to B in a perfect line, and winning races. I considered leaning out the mid-speed needle, but changed my mind. Why mess with a good thing? My launches were pretty straight, I was doing pretty good with the half-throttle blip to get it going and then hitting it hard, and it was sticking.
I had another good hit against (I think) a Traxxas Drag Slash (might have been a custom Slash with a C10 body, not sure). Same thing, somewhere around 3 seconds or maybe a little less, but I was noticing something, which was I was getting out pretty fast, especially in the 30-70 foot range, but I was hitting my top speed with at least 30 or 40 feet to go. Anyway, I was 3-0 at this point.
My luck would change...
I raced my buddy who I came with, he had a stock Felony.
I got out on him pretty good, really smooth launch, and just pulled out hard in that power band, but he ran me down on the big end and edged me out. I watched this video about 50 times last night(I tried to download, or link it no such luck, I'm going to try and get some videos of my hits sent directly to me). Used a stopwatch app to try and time it - looks like about 2.9 seconds. Definitely I was hitting my top speed weeeellll short of the finish line. Bummer, but that's something I can work on - I am running 20t/72t currently. I will switch to 22t/70t and see if I can't move that needle about 30 or 40 feet down the street. Will definitely play around with this some, and use my GPS data to get that thing hitting top speed at the finish line.
I raced another Felony against a young fella, and it was the mirror image of this race, with me jumping out, and getting run down. I was still super consistent though.
Last up I challenged a 1/5 scale gas powered top fuel dragster that I had already seen run and thought it would be a fun race. He was definitely fast, but his hits were a bit inconsistent I think, traction issues, despite the huge meats on that thing. This one got everyone excited, seeing some ICE machines roaring in the burnout area, and getting ready to settle a grudge (not really, haha). I had another really strong start, but at 50 feet I started losing traction and the car started veering to the center. I drove that sucker though, and got it straight and finished strong. It was a really, really close finish, and I thought I had won, but my buddy who was standing at the finish line said he nosed me out. Once again, he got around me on the big end.
Thoughts...well, I was super happy with how the car ran overall considering this was the first time I actually raced it, nearly 2 years after building it. I was 3-3, but could have easily been 6-0 with better gearing in theory. Every race I lost I got run down after jumping out strong. I will change out the gears next week, and tune for some more power, and get some times. If anyone in the area hasn't been to one of these events you should go. It's casual, people having tons of fun, there's people barbecueing and grilling, there's stuff for kids, raffles and prized, and not a drop of egos or bad blood. Also, I think wanna build an RJ Speed nitro funny car now over the winter
I think the "stay at home" order is going to be lifted where I live tomorrow, so I'll be able to head over to the parking lot where I test without getting arrested now 
