Wrench Hits the Track

[WrenchHead]

Hey All; Well had another great weekend of RC racing. This time out the JConcepts SuperCup Series went to the East Coast of Florida in Ft.Lauderdale at BCRCS track at Mills Pond Park. Wow what a track. Tons of traction and a killer design and tecnical layout. Took me all day to dial in the upper back section. Finally in my last main I started to hit it right lap after lap. Have to give props to the local club crew who preped and supported the JC crew. Man what a hospitible crew, Moved some cars to make room closer to the tack for us as well as checked up on us to see if we needed anything at all. Dude in the trailer next to use put a speaker out by us for some jams,had his air hose moved over so we could use it. Heck when we were loading up he even pulled out a light bar and hooked and powered it up so we could pack and load in some light. AS far as the racing goes I didn't set any records,but had a great day. Learning a new track is never easy but the layout made it even worse. Wish I had a job with vaca days so I could take a day off before a race and get a practice day. Maybe someday.I did accomplish something I set out to do.Make every practice session and every heat and every main without breaking anything and try to get through every round with no more than 3 marshalings. And I did it.Well just about. I had a few extra marshallings needed in the mains.
So onto the results. I made the B-Mains solidly in all 3 classes. With a record 185 entries we went back to C-mains in most classes. I qualifyed in the top 5/6 in all 3 classes in the B-mains. I got 6th in the Pro2 Stock B-Main and 7th in the Pro2 Mod B-Main and 8th in the Pro4 Mod B-Main. Was running as high as 3rd in Pro2 Mod till the announcer said my name and placement and I went all goofy nervous and dropped to 9th after some crappy marshalling and crash timing on my part. A slow lazy marshal was to slow to cover his corner and another marshal had to leave his corner to go flip a few cars in another corner. Of course I go all top 3 happy and crash in the empty corner. I shouted to no avial since no one was there to hear me. Finally returned and flipped me over. Oh well that is racing.There is always next month,right. OK then here are the pics we took. Not any vids this time. Just never thought about it. Enjoy. l8r,w.

Pit Pics

Finished up after dark and the track is even harder at night. Luckily I didn't have to deal with it in the dark.

 

[HPI-Killer]

Wow that's great nice job and great pictures

 

[HPIguy]

Wow, that's one awesome track. Congrats wrench, three top tens in four races is pretty dang good.

 

[Racer 1966]

That's a sweet,well manicured track! Sounds like you did really well to me given the number of entries and being your first time there. Congrats!

 

[T Rapture]

The Mills Pond track has been around for a long time. I used to run nitro trucks back about 15 years ago. Very fond memories. Now, indoor air conditioned S/C tracks in S Florida rule, especially in the summer when the temp. is in the 90's.

 

[Wolfgang10]

Those pictures remind me of that old school arcade game where 3 or 4 people could race "monster" trucks. The view was strictly from above and there was a wheel to steer and a single pedal underneath every steering wheel.
Hilarious
Makes me wish a real track was closer to me.

 

[savage ray]

Man that's a sweet track. Everyone in my area just wants to race truggies, can't find anybody that's wants to short coarse. And the track is no where near that size. I'm jealous ! Good job.

 

[WrenchHead]

Hey All; Well back to the east coast for some RC Action. JConcepts SuperCup Spring Series Round #3 at Coral Springs RC Raceway. Long weekend short story. Struggled all weekend almost. Friday got there and all setup abd got a battery in with my Pro2 Stock rig and all it did wa plow through the corners with little steering action and feel. Got back to the pits and a shock was leeking. So I opted to put it up and burn a battery through the Pro4 Mad 4X4PE and was not hooking up at all and was sliding around.Good thing I have been using the TT01 Drifter the last few weekends.lol Also I atributed some of my problems to old tires. And I started to have some crappy steering feel towards the end of the battey pack. Turned out to be a cracked steering servo horn.So I tossed that on the bench and got the PRO2 Mod rig out for some laps.Also found a Puffy Lipo in the truck when I went to remove it for charging. Truck was much better than my Pro2 Stk but still had some serious handling problems to end all. After getting in some decent laps I felt a bit better. Came back in and found a stripped servo horn on that rig as well. So after a ton of wrenchin I got in a few more practice sesions. Had to run to the LHS once they started to shut the track down to prep it for Sat. Scored a couple servo horns and a new Race Pak Thunder Power 65C Lipo 2cell.Oh and some Tire glue since I left mine in the freezer at home. Scored some tires from Jason and crew in the JConcepts trailer. Got 2 new sets of rear tires to go with my new rear 12mm hex drive conversions.A set of Double D's in green and a set of Subculters in green.And a new set of rims and tires for my 4X4PE.This time I went white on the rims.Looks better than the black ones.Glued tires after dinner till 1am with a 6:30 wake up call. Uggggggg

So Sat comes around and I have no better luck in my practice sesions. Qualifying heats weren't much better. I Q'd 5th C Main in Pro2 Mod, 7th C Main in Pro4 Mod, and 9th B main Pro2 Stock after 2 rounds. I tryed brand new tires in the second Q's but then I traction rolled everywhere. Even did a Wheely off the line in Q-2.lol never did that before. Had some fun in my races but would love to have done better. Maybe someday It will come to me. I had another leeky shock after Q1 in Pro2 Stock.Different shock this time. I ended up 3rd in the C Main fighting for the bump till the end and lost in Pro2 Stock. Got a 4th ib Pro4 Mod after a rather fun time of drifting on new tires on a dusty track thet they said they were going to blow off before eack class of trucks. Someone forgot about us. Oh well I am in for the pionts and the paractice to get better. And I finished 7th in the B Main in Pro2 Mod after a fun run. So far so good I am in the top 7 in all 3 classes in my pionts standings. It is a best 3 out of 4 anyways so I can afford a off weekend.Well after all that here are the pics.l8r,w.

 

[T Rapture]

Thanks for posting the pictures. This track brings back fond memories as well. Way back when we built the on-road track at Coral Springs, we had off-road going with on-road at the same time. We would change each week to even numbers and odd numbers on the crystals. Every once and a while, a newboy would screw things up by turning on his car in the parking area. OUCH!!. We had an 1/8 nitro buggy fly across the on-road track once. Another time, I just hit the back straight with a 1/10 nitro sedan and some idiot turned on his radio, hit the throttle, and my sedan went straight down the straight, hit the corner, and FLEW OVER the fence. It was a Kyosho, and nothing broke.

 

[WrenchHead]

Hey All, Well we finally had the last race of the spring series at Basher RC raceway in WPB on the east coast. Wife and I drove over for the day and came back that night since my brother was in town for the weekend. We would have gotten a room and stayed over but I did want to spend some time with my older bro. I was expecting to do better since I went there after our race last month and got some practice time in on the track and got some setup info.I even got to pit upstairs in the VIP section,Thanks Brian for the hospitality you guys ROCK. But my shoulder was bothering me all day and my mind wasn't in the game so to speak. But I went and had a good time with my friends and got some pionts. Since it is a best 3 out of 4 seires all I had to do was score better than any of my other race weekends and the lowest score was tossed out. Turns out this was my lowest scoring weekend and it was tossed out. Oh well there is always the fall series later this year I will be competing in. Anyways I had a fair to middlin set of qualifiers and only managed to make the C main both 2wd classes and the B main in the 4wd class. My final results were Pro 2 stock 7th C main,Pro 4 mod 4th B main and Pro 2 Mod 3rd C main. All in all it wasn't a bad weekend I didn't break anything and made all my qualifiers and all my mains and didn't have to buy anything like spare /broken parts or rims and tires.Also it was my first weekend with a Sponsor,My brother Wes decided to toss me all my needed cash for the weekend down to even my gas money. Only downside to the whole weekend was a speeding ticket from our friendly State Troopers. 69 in a 60 worth $128 and 3 pionts on my license. Oh well updates are done for a while till I decide what race is next. I might go to the Short Course Nations next weekend in WPB at Bashers if cashflow and wife permits.lol Thanks for all your support fellas and encouragment. I am still green at this but I am learning and staying motivated as well. Enjoy the pics.l8r,w.

One of my buds Eric gearing up for Buggy Main

Pit space

 

[w bill]

Looks like a good time next time wait till you get to the track to practice those state troopers dont appreciate a good holeshot.

 

[WrenchHead]

Hey All; Well last weekend was the first annual South Florida Short Course Nationals at RCBasher Raceway in West Palm Beach. Well after a last last minute decision to attend I went ahead and did the dirty deed and attended the 2 day event. I had a blast. But my qualifying didn't go to well since I hadn't touched a truck or pulled a trigger since last months SuperCup spring series finals held there the prevous month. I hadn't even cleaned or prepped my SC rigs since I decided to go on Thursday afternoon for a race held on Sat. And after work on Friday we had a family dinner at my brother in laws house so I didn't even get home to pack my rigs till Friday night at around 11:30 pm and had a 5 am wake up call. So after the long drive (with no tickets from the Po Po 5.0 this time) got there a tad late. But I didn't have to regear anything since we raced there last month. But my qualifiers were pretty much my practice sessions since I got 1 pack in each rig in practice before they closed the track to prep it for our qualifiers. We were going to run 3 qualifier sessions but since things moved along well they opted for 4 instead. Man did that help me out. But the carnage was to insue. In blew 2 shocks out in the SC-10 in different locations and in different qualifiers. Then in 4wd mod I kept popping a ball cup and the marshals kept forgetting to slide the drive shafts together. So that was a wash after only 2 mins. And then in my next Q session I blew an Idler gear in SC-10FT trans and had to do a major tear down and rebuild so missed yet another Q session for stock 2wd. So after all was said and done I made the C-main in both 2wd mod and stock and the Bmain in 4wd mod. We raced on Sunday so I had time to rebuild my shocks in the hotel room after dinner on Sat. night. But was fresh and ready to go on sunday for the mains. So the mains came and I was hoping to do a bit better but I got a 4th in the C main in Pro2 Mod,a 6th in the C main in Pro 2 Stock and a 7th in Pro4 Mod in the B main. Still learning my setups and am thinking of getting some "Race Grade" ESC / Motor combos before the start of the Fall Supercup series starts. Also thinking of dropping Pro4 SC since all the "pros" are picking up that class with the release of the new rigs from Losi and AE. I am looking at maybe running the 2wd Stock Truck class with an AE T4.1 since hopping from 2wd to 4wd to 2wd is screwing with my head and driving technics. Well that is about it so here are the pics. I have some vids as well and will get around to downloading these later on. Thanks for all the support fellas. l8r,Wrench.


Picks of the entries all lined up. I do NOT want to marshal turn one for that start.lol

Few action pics the wife got for me.

Team JConcepts drivers rigs. Daimom B,Felix L, JR M, Jeremy H,Paul W

Close up of Factory Associated Driver JR Mitch's SC-10 FT and SC-10 4x4 Race rigs. Man this guy can drive and one hellava nice dude as well.

 

[Lessen]

That's one helluva nice facility.

 

[T Rapture]

You bet, an air-conditioned indoor track in S Florida is the place to race. Hopefully, they will start a Sat. afternoon race scedule for the late summer.

 

[WrenchHead]

Hey All; Well after a bit of a summer break was back at it last month for the ROAR region 4 races at Coral Springs RC track. Was to be at the Assylum but someone dropped the dime on the track and it was closed down and seems it will not reopen. All in all it was a good weekend. I have decided to drop Pro4 SC in favor of 2wd Stock Truck. I want the consistancy of running 3 2wd classes instead of jumping back and forth from 2wd to 4wd. So I got a killer deal on a AE RC10T4.1 FT and got it all prepped up in time for the races.First time out with the new rig and qualified right away for the A-main and scored an 8th place. Made the B-main in both 2wd SC classes and finished 7th in stock and 9th place in Mod. Had a little rain on Sat morning but after the track crew did a great job we got out Q's in. Small case of sunburn on friday in practice since it was all cloudy and didn't seam that hot.OK then on to the good stuff.the pics.Enjoy.l8r,w.

---------- Post added at 7:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 7:32 PM ----------

Hey All; So after not even looking at an RC in 3 weeks since my last race I got a call from a friend who wanted to check this track up the road in Sarasota a few guys built at there garden center they own. It is not a clay track just a Florida dirt surgar sand track well laid out and watered inbetween every round to keep the dust down. We went up just to get some stick time since the SuperCup series doesn't start up again till the end of Aug. for the Fall Series. Well we got up about 8 car loads of people and went up the just play. We got in 2 rounds of qualifying and were about to start the mains when mother nature figured the track was to dry and decided to water it down for us. And us as well. Our pit area flooded out in matter of seconds and we were about washed away. We tryed to wait it out but we got just enough break in the rain to mad dash load up abd get on the road home before all heck broke loose. It was 3 pm and black as night out. I did pretty well and even TQ'd Pro 2 Stock SC class.Got 3rd in qualifying in 2wd stock truck and 6th in pro2 mod SC all in the A Mains. Would have loved to get the mains in but heck had a good time anywho. Well here are the few pics I got to click off. Enjoy.l8r,w.


they ran a new class 2wd SC Buggy.only 2 rigs but looks like a fun class.

After the Monsoon the track was not giving up the watering holes. They are going to tear it all out and add a drainage system and a clay surface in a few weeks to get some of the Florida series to come on out and play there.