This weekend was really busy yet exciting and fun. We had a lower turnout than normal at the track but still had about 6 in TC and 8 in 12th.
My car wasn't feeling very good at the start of the day. I don't know whether it was me moving it back and forth in the car but it felt nowhere near what it was last weekend. I went ahead and tweaked the chassis, remeasured everything, etc and it ended up feeling better but not great. Perhaps it also was a change in the traction of the track - who knows.
My lack of speed was a constant issue all day which made it difficult to run with the other drivers. By the main, I had to replace my 17.5 with a 13.5 just to keep up in the straights. Yeah, crazy power by the Tekins. The car obviously felt much different compared to the obviously much slower 17.5. The car was not as balanced as it once was as it dove harder into corners and carried more speed. After getting used to the 13.5 and finding out that running negative expo on the steering was bad, I was finally able to figure out the car.
The first main was rough for everyone. I grabbed the two spots ahead me as many went wide into the sweeper but was quickly given some love by another racer :). This forced me back into last where I on;y continued to receive love taps. Thats racing I suppose!
To make up for the crummy main, we decided to run another main. This main was much less traumatic and I was able to put down some tight lines to keep others from passing. I didn't win but it felt great to realize how much I've improved this season. I can't wait to keep practicing and get even better - I have a long way to go but I'm happy to see improvement :).
As far as setup goes, I wasn't able to test very much because I had to spend a lot of time getting the car and my driving working properly. Although the KO has been a good ESC and I'm sure that they will come out with another software update that will bring it up to the Tekin, the speed and punch difference is so big that I can't ignore it. I don't think it will be a ton faster as far as laptimes go, but I want to get used to the modern speeds instead of testing and getting used to something a lot slower only to get back up to speed whenever KO decides to release the new software.
I did test removing screws from the front of the top deck. It gave the car slightly more steering throughout the corner. I also tested some rear toe. I went down to 2 degrees of negative toe which helped the car turn faster laptimes and gave it great corner speed but also made it difficult to drive. Forward traction and consistency definitely suffered with this change. Perhaps next time I will use the 2 degrees but use something else to give more forward traction - the best of both worlds? I dunno we will see.
Results