The Fall Classic…

Yesterday was the Fall Classic, and there was a great turnout for the race. The biggest classes were 8th Scale Buggy and Truck Open I believe, with good showings for the other classes as well, although Nitro Monster seems to be dwindling if from what I can tell. Overall, everyone seemed to have a fun day, and I didn’t see or hear of too many things going wrong with people’s cars/trucks.

There were a couple LiPO batteries lost in the day, one of Mike B’s packs had an issue, and puffed up followed by Mike F’s Lithium Manganese?? pack puffing WAY up later on as well. Mike B. did some quick solder work, and put together two new NiMH packs for the main, and still took 2nd with those. That goes to show that speed maybe what is on most people’s minds (myself included), but it as Jay always says “slow is fast”, especially on out tight little track.

During the first heat I noticed I was controlling the truck very well, went the whole heat with only 1 time being marshaled. Heat 1 I got a 10/5:36, heat 2 was a 10/5:32, and heat 3 was a 10/5:29, slowly but surely I am getting more control and more skill with the truck, and the track. I have also been playing with the speed control settings between each heat, slowly opening up power with the throttle curve, and taking down the punch control as well. I noticed early on in the day that I would be pulling the throttle all the way back going into the table top, and not getting the speed I wanted to clear it. I think a little more tuning and it’ll be in a good spot for me finally.

I had a little hang up from the start, but managed to make up all the distance I lost and catch up with the pack in the main. I stayed right behind Mike F’s Summit for the most part, and managed to overtake him at one point for a bit, but lost the 3rd place spot to a mistake somewhere on the track, maybe the table top again. I couldn’t quite get around the Summit, and made a huge mistake later in the race thinking I could jump over it at the table top, instead I landed on top of it, my apologies Mike F. My final result for the main, which lasted 10 minutes, was a 17/10:06. I was just under 3 seconds away from Mike F in third with his 17/10:03. Mike B. in second finished with an 18/10:04, and Herb took the win with an uncatchable  21/10:29. I did manage to shave another 3 seconds off my best lap time, I can now run a 30 second lap too.

The rest of the day was great, a lot of great drivers were out, and saw some great races. Mike F’s wife took care of the food for everyone, burgers, hot dogs and even pulled pork (which was excellent). Tracy made a ton of cookies, chocolate chip, peanut butter, and cookies with peanut butter cups in them. I am sure everyone else liked them too, there were not many left at the end of the day.

I took as many pictures as I could. I learned the difference between an amateur photographer and a pro is probably the level of preparedness between the two. I thought I had an empty flash card for photos, and I was wrong. So I tried spending time cleaning off the photos I could with the laptop, and did not finish in time for most of the mains. I still managed to take a lot of pics though, and they’re in the gallery as always. Take a look, and comment on them if you want. I’m going to run through them this week and clean up the ones that came out best, and I’ll post them later this week. Pics from the Falls Classic.

See everyone on Saturday for the next of the Fall Series races.