ZooRacing Anti feedback and Micc Rnd2 report

Let's set things straight from the start.. The second round of the excellent Micc was probably one of the most disastrous race meetings I can remember.. not a lot of exciting action here, I suppose it is cathartic to at least get it written down ;)

It didn't start well, in the first practice sometimes the car would act very strange around the corner.. sometimes towards the apex, sometimes on the apex or out of the corner. The problem was that it would only happen occasionally. First I thought it may be tape or something stuck under the car.. but it was really strange I had never experienced anything quite like it in all my years of racing. 


After practice I looked at the car and it all seemed perfect. However I stripped the diff, checked bearings etc, even though I had done a full rebuild whilst preparing for the event. As expected I found nothing that was at fault. I was really bemused, so I gave the car a very safe setting for Q1 so I could maybe eliminate any anomalies.

In Q1 I drove very cautiously.. the car felt ok but I was still quite nervous after how odd it felt in the practice lap.. Also as the practice was compromised I used this qualifying round to learn the track. Slowly dialling the car in, pushing harder to find lines.. as my confidence was building,  the car glitched again at corner leading onto the straight.. I found it hard to actually go straight.. it calmed down and I finished the session..

Q2 came around quickly after another thorough inspection, including fitting a new servo-saver (Although the one that was installed felt completely fine).. I went out and decided I would push harder this time, and the Tamiya TRF420X was planted.. the car soaked up everything I threw at it. I was feeling confident with the car and it was handling great now the cornering oddities had gone, it must have been the servo saver.. or so I thought. 

I picked up my car excited to see my time, unfortunately the smile soon disappeared when I noticed that it had only registered 3 laps.. I checked my car and the transponder was flashing away.. I really had no idea what was going on. I was also really frustrated as I knew I had a great run, overtaking some of the other drivers in my heat... but there is nothing you can do if the transponder isn't registering. 

I checked the plugs in the receiver, they seemed fine, but I had been doing some re-wiring to make things really tidy.. so I pushed down all of the plugs to check it was fine.. everything lit up as expected.. maybe the plugs had just been loose?

Q3 again started fine, This time I seemed to be registering laps, the pace was good, then suddenly the car veered out of control, rolling onto it's roof and I could tell that something had gone wrong.. once marshalled and placed back on the track the rear of the body was moving around. The RCMaker internal body posts had broken in the hard collision so I just retired from the race.. (As a side note, these internal mounts are great, I had experienced a very hard collision at a local club recently and it had cracked, so I had repaired it with superglue whilst waiting for a replacement part). 

The ongoing disaster of a race meeting already meant that I would be a little out of place for my final position. However with two qualifiers counting towards the final position, and the pace of the car I hoped I could register a decent time to at least save the day.  I swapped in a new rear diff, mounted the rear bodyposts, and  checked all the electrics, ran the car in the pits.. everything felt free and smooth.. 

Q4 the car was good to start off with, then it just gave up steering all together and slammed into some kerbs.. I thought I had broken the car as the steering was acting very strangely.. so I pulled over. A marshal picked it up and the steering then seemed to work so they popped me back down and the car wouldn't steer at all.. another retirement. 

As expected this put me in a lower final than I would normally expect, with only one tentative time banked after a whole days running.  Time for some lunch a la Burger van..

The final was fun, racing always is. I weaved through the field and had fun picking off the drivers. I soon realised the laps were not counting but just enjoyed putting in the laps and also racing against a friends son who has really developed over the last year. Despite being at the front (As would be expected when so out of position, I still came last because of the timing issue). 

No trophy, but a consolation mince pie

After the final I had isolated the issue, it was the receiver.. it seemed like it had a fault on the board. If I pressed on it one of the channels would cut out, sometimes very briefly, sometimes for a second or so and in some cases they would seemingly stop completely (Transponder / Motor Fan).  So at least I can swap that out for this weekends EWS international. 

So disastrous from a race results perspective.. however I still actually enjoyed it. It was good to catch up with other friends, although I spent most of this meeting wrenching and not socialisng :( I also met a few Tamiya fans who had come along to watch the action. You never know there may be more Tamiya's at the next event. 

The Micc event itself was also really enjoyable, they put on a fantastic day and their hard work really pays off for a great day out, and it is really appreciated by myself and other racers at the venue. 

At least I have found the issue, so that is a good thing as I have 3 days of racing this weekend at the EWS international.. I love that event and this is the first one since the pandemic. 

My Tamiya TRF420X was also really good. The set-up was nice and easy to drive. The track grip was really high, however the chassis took it all in it's stride. When the electrics were not fighting me I could push the car really hard and it would just respond quickly and be very neutral and carry a lot of corner speed. 

The ZooRacing Anti was new to me today. I hadn't ran it before and I was a little cautious as I really like the Wolverine. I had heard lots of good things about the shell so I wanted to give it a run. 

The large flowing track with it's few tricky hairpins was an excellent test bed.  I instantly noticed the Anti's  strength when driving around the high speed flowing parts. The Anti would provide me with as much steering as I wanted with the rear being completely settled. 

Compared to the Wolverine I would say that this shell is noticeably less aggressive. It still provides steering, but doesn't have quite the bite into the corner, and feels a little more stable around and out of the corner.  It's also a good looking shell, and the blue pearlescent paint really made it pop. 

Next Up.. the EWS.. Let's hope the gremlins don't come along as well.