Florian Joos Xray T4 Stock and Mod Race report EWS and Longwy

Before I write these reports I thought it would be good to just have a summary of how far things have progressed over the last few years.

Exactly 3 years ago, in November 2015, Florian decided he wanted to spend more time on R/C car racing. Back then, he was 12 years old and drove a Tamiya TRF419. With the help from the R/C racer we improved the car a lot (like here with the low damper conversion) and he started to get better and better. 

Because of his growing interest, I had to improve my skills as a mechanic as well, something that didn’t always go right :)

Last summer however, we went to the IFMAR world championship in South Africa and Florian grabbed a podium in 1/12^th scale modified. It is true that some of the favorites were absent, but it is and will remain a great performance. This really boosted his confidence and since then he achieved some great results. 

He won the ETS warmup in stock, and ran the invitational race in modified as well. During one of these races, he kept Marc Rheinard at bay for the full 5 minutes. During this fight, you could also see Marc’s talent, because he never touched Florian even once during his numerous passing attempts.

Another big boost for Florian was the possibility to join the Team Xray Junior team. His first race as an Xray junior was the ETS, where he finished in the C main in both stock and mod classes.

Because of Florian’ s eager to race, we travel to some bigger races instead of running club races. There is nothing wrong with club races however, because you can hang out with your friends and just have fun racing and discussing R/C cars. Both Florian and I agreed that we always have to race in the most difficult races in order to improve his skills. Thanks to the support of my wife and daughter we are able to fulfill Florian’s dream.

Two of the races both of us like to attend are the Essex Winter Series in the south of England and the Longwy Winter Series in the north of France. Both of these races attract the best local racers. The race in Longwy also attracts some very fast German drivers, so competing there is always a big challenge. Here are race reports, set-ups and details from the last two events that I raced.

EWS 11/11/2018 Race Report and settings

As always, Florian was entered in two classes, touring stock and mod. The weapons of choice were two Xray T4 2019 cars, of which you can see the build report in the previous articles.

The EWS races are a single day event. With a bit of planning, Europeans can make the journey in a single day as well. We left at 2am. Took the 4.45 am ferry in Calais and arrived in Thundersley when the track opened at 7 am.

Florian was seeded in both fastest groups. When I looked at his car in free practice, I noticed it was quite fast, but because the timekeeping didn’t work for his heat, I couldn’t tell in which position he was. In mod he was going quite fast as well and finished in P3 after the practice round.

I will later compare the EWS spec tire (Sweep 28) to the Volante 28 tire which we used in Longwy and the setup changes we made for both tire types.

In stock, Florian had an amazing Q1 run as he TQ’ed that one. In Q2 he took P2, Q3 P3 and Q4 P6. By then I should have known that it was time to use another set of tires as his pace was going down.

In the single final, he lined up in second place behind ARC driver Colin Jackson. In the beginning, Florian could follow Colin’ s pace but as soon as Zak Finlay started to attack him, Colin took an easy victory. When Florian made an error, Zak took the second place. Florian was hunted down by Tony Broad and Michal Tiit, but he just couldn’t defend his position anymore. At the end of the straight, his car had snap oversteer and he had to settle for fourth. Florian was quite disappointed, but he did a great job to qualify in second place.

Immediately afterwards, he had to race the modified final in which he qualified in P6. Florian had the pace to be higher up the ranking, but we assume he had a bad set of tires. In Q1, Q2 and Q3 he complained about sudden oversteer. I tried everything to calm the car down and used a very easy setup, but the problem remained. Nonetheless, he managed to grab a P6 in those qualifiers. For Q4, I decided to buy a new set of tires and the problem was now sorted. He had a great run and finished Q4 in 4^th place, behind Kyle Branson (3), Olly Jeffries (2) and the imperial Elliot Harper who won all 4 qualifiers with relative ease.

In the final, Florian’s car was under-steering a bit and was easier to drive. Unfortunately, while running in P6, he clipped a kerb and fell down to P10. While lying in P9, he chased Chris Ashton hard, but unfortunately Chris traction rolled and landed on Florian’s body. With this flat pancake, Florian could only salvage P8. It was interesting to see however that, once used to drive his damaged car he ran within .3 of his fastest laptime, which he set just before the crash.

Xray T4 2019 stock set-up EWS RD2

Xray T4 2019 stock set up EWS RD2

LWS 18/11/2018, race report by Florian

The Longwy winter series is pretty cool as well. The track and atmosphere are quite similar to the EWS races. The organizers and drivers are all so friendly that it’s amazing those clubs are in two different countries!

What is nice about the LWS is the free practice on Saturday. Once the track is set up, open practice starts at 4pm and you can practice (with timing) until midnight !

My dad adapted the cars to the Volante tires and again, the stock car remained almost the same. He just changed the ride height and that was it.

After Q1 (despite being in the second fastest group), I was in P2. I opted to try the Montech Racer Leggera in Q2 and used that body for the rest of the race.

In Q2 I lost some time due to a backmarker and dropped to P5 overall. For Q3, my dad made some adjustments to my car (FR block 1 down and out) and this made the car even better. I was able to challenge for the TQ spot, but missed out by 1 second or so.

In the finals I had some great battles with Jacques Libar, Alex Kunkler and Valentin Hettrich. In A1 I finished in P2. In A2 my motor fan touched the ground in a fast chicane and it sent me into a spin. I lost 3 places and finished in P5. This final was won by Alex Kunkler, who started 3^rd on the grid.

In A3 my car was simply amazing and I could chase Jacques Libar for the entire race but not pass him. I had to settle for P3, but I was really happy with that result.

For some reason or another, modified is so much more difficult to find a good setup. With the stock car, my Dad only changed minor things, but the mod chassis needed a lot of changes. As you can see from the setup (Which was what we ran it in the last final) he changed the rear toe-in, springs, Ackermann, top deck and body. I started in the finals from P6 and managed a P4, P5 and P6 in the finals to get a P6 overall.

In mod, I decided to run the Protoform Type S pro-lite to get more steering and that also helped a bit. The biggest change for me was however the World Championship top deck. It seems to give a bit more in corner steering. In order to compensate the lack of corner entry steering, we used 1.25mm Ackermann.

Volante vs Sweep

We found that these tires have really different characteristics. In stock, you can get away with the same setup, but in mod, you really need to work on the car to get the most out of the tires.

The Sweep tires seem to have more initial steering and a bit less rear grip. The Volante tire is the opposite, with less steering, but more rear traction. We therefore reduced the rear toe-in in the mod car to 2.5 and still had enough rear end grip. In order to get more initial steering, we increased the Ackermann and used the Type S bodyshell.

In stock, the only thing we did was to use the Montech racer body instead of the Bittydesign M410. It seemed to give him a bit more corner speed. Ideally we should have compared it to an ULT Bittydesign, but we didn’t have one at hand.

Overall, we are really impressed with the performance of the T4 2019, both in stock and mod. The car is really amazing and responds very well to setup changes. It is also a very strong car. Florian couldn’t avoid a car spinning in the fast chicane and hit him head on. I thought his car would be badly tweaked, but he soldiered on as if nothing happened :)

Here are the set-ups we used at LWS

Xray 2019 T4 Stock set-up

Xray T4 2019 Mod set up

Looking forward to racing again soon, in the meantime thanks to the following
Special thanks to:
#Teamxray
#Rcconnect
#Hobbywing
#PowerHD
#GensAce
#Avid
#HiroSeiko
#7075it
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