So, I have these shiny new Tamiya parts in my car, and I'm trying out a real spool in the car. The track hasn't changed since last week - it's the third week for this layout, which should give me a good comparison since I've only changed the one way out for a spool and tamiya CVD's up front (saving about 18g of rotating mass along the way).
First qualifier starts out, and I'm hearing that I'm setting the second fastest time after about 10 laps! The car was definitely different - I don't think it was faster than usual, I just think other folks were having more problems. So, on lap twelve, my car is a little wide going down the straight, and I go to cut in for the sweeper and the car follows one of Newtons laws of motion - something about a body in motion staying in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Well, that force was not the steering as it should have been - The steering did absolutely nothing when I turned the wheel. The force that did act on it was the outside wall of the track. It acted loudly and mercilessly on the front of the car.
When I assessed the damage, I found that the lower M3x5 screw holding the TC5 steering post in place was missing and the whole steering assembly was flapping in the wind. Also, the front body posts were both broken off at the shock tower. I searched and searched my spares box, but only had one body post spare with me. It took up until my second qualifier was about to start to get another solution rigged in place since I had to figure out what might work, and Ryan was really busy up front with working on ordering parts for someone and fixing someone else's nitro car.
I dropped the car on the track just as the second qualifier was about to start, only to hear that I lost a tooth or two on the spur in the crash as well. I didn't want to hold everyone to to take the time to change it, so I was going to just give it the old college try, and managed to get a whole lap in before it stopped completely. I pulled it off and changed the spur and got back on track to turn another 3 laps before time ran out.
I qualified dead last that night, and was in the B Main for the first time ever in VTA. Ironically, Matt snagged the final spot in the A due to this, so I still haven't raced against him in a main!
The B main was boring and uneventful. I stayed put when the tone went off and waited until everyone was almost to turn one to take off - it may have looked like a dick move, but it wasn't arrogance so much as expecting a pile up in turn one. Sure enough, by the time I got to turn one, two of the cars had wrecked and I slid right past them, and was on Bob's tail for the lead. I stayed behind him for the remainder of the lap as I couldn't make it around without risking wrecking us both. I passed him on the inside on lap two and never looked back. I even managed to avoid Tom's green 'Cuda the entire race, regardless of his best efforts, and turned an okay time of 24/5:09 being that I was over-geared. The spur I threw on was 5 teeth less than I was running in qualifier #1 and I didn't have the gears I wanted, so I left them on the car for the main.
My fast lap for the night was only an 11.7, which is down .2 from last week, but I also didn't have a chance to get in the zone like I did last week. This coming week will be a new layout, which should bring the traction down and require different gearing, so we'll see if I can put it in the top three or not.
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