Race week #2!

The next friday I went racing - it was the start of a points series, and I fretted making five minutes with my packs as I hadn't received the 4200's I ordered yet. When the drivers meeting starts, they announce that races will be six minutes!

I charge up the 4200's for the first qualifier and get out there on a new layout and run a fairly good qualifier, holding back on the throttle being worried about run time. The car is oversteering pretty fiercly with the new tire and spring combination with the TC pattern applied. The 4200 still has full power and plenty of runtime left at the end of th race.

I swap out the rear springs for a softer Kawada spring and get my best 2000 mAh pack ready to go. I run a good qualifier for the first 4.5 minutes when I finally board the car and need marshalling - I lost a good 10-15 seconds, which is a full lap and then some on this track. It didn't really matter, I completely dumped on the last lap and had worse overall numbers than the first qualifier, but my lap times were improved and the car felt better.

I get the 4200 charged for qualifier three, and disable the current limiter on the speed controller when I'm offered someone's spare LiPo battery to run! I get the wiring redone with some help from Terry, get the pack taped down (it's a standard stick type 2s LiPo), and make sure the car runs with it, which is seems to do. I don't get a chance to get any test laps until my qualifier starts... Unfortunately, switching from NiMH saddle pack to LiPo stick pack causes three changes that in combination spell disaster:
1. The car is lighter
2. The car has a higher center of gravity
3. The weight is now on the outside of the chassis

Needless to say, I was flipping the car coming out of any high speed corners unless I drove slowly. I drove slowly, and the lap times showed it, and I also had a weird steering glitch - that blue wire = FET servo = Powered directly off the battery. The servo was getting too much voltage and freaking out under high current draw (i.e. full throttle). I wound up flipping the car four or five times, one time right off the track, breaking a rear body post in the process, using my last spare to fix it.

The main came, and the 4200 was charged and ready to go. I qualified third for the B main based on my first qualifier. The race was fairly uneventful, I finished where I started, but improved on my qualifiying time by almost a full lap. I won't find out until late next week that I've broken the battery hold down piece on the left side of the car...