First night of Racing 1/12th scale.......................

[RYY]

All,
Well that was an interesting curve ball that got thrown at me last night.
By curve ball I me learning curve.  All in all it was great, frusterating(as I am sure some of you were aware of my level of frusteration) but great.  I would like to thank everyone who helped out geting the night together.  I would especially like to thank everyone who took time out of their already hectic night to lend, a hand, a tool or some advice.  Just to let you know whether I appeared to be paying attention or not, I learned a lot with a whole lot more to learn.  All that can be said is after finishing my first(almost whole) outdoor season sitting solidly in the "C" main, starting the 1/12 scale season in the "E"Main leaves a whole lot to be desired.  Sure am going to miss the tuesday night practice/test and tunes.  
Again thank you to everyone who helped out, with the night and especially to those who took time out of their schedule to help others(new and veteran).
Very thankful,
RYY

[Grinder]

12th scale is definately a different beast to be sure!  I unwisely and unsucessfully decided to run with the broken wheels the car came with which gave me a grand total of less than 16 minutes of driving time.  Oh well next week won't come soon enough

Now that we have our batteries, motors and all the gear is already at our venue we should have more time to get more racing/practice in.  Looking forward to getting some more track time in!  Now if I can just figure out how to get my car to turn the same both ways...

[Blake]

On a regular night, the track is usually open for about 45 minutes of open practice.  Usual schedule is the following:

4PM: Show up and setup the track.
5PM: Track is open for practice.
6PM: First round of qualifying.
7PM: Second round of qualifying.
8PM: Third round of qualifying.
9:15PM: Mains.
10:30PM: Cleanup.
11PM: Done.



Blake

[Blake]

For the record, I thought that ALL the newcomers did AMAZINGLY well last night.  These guys were "thrown to the fire" so to speak:

Chris Avison
Cody Loughran
Jammin Jim (2nd 12th Scale race with IROCC)
Keith Anderson
Ken Nguyen
Kurk MacKay
Ryan Young

All these guys did themselves very proud on their first 12th Scale night!  Adapting from lazy Touring Cars on twelve foot lanes to twitchy 12th Scale cars on 6 foot lanes is not an easy transition!

This Saturday the heats will arranged based off points so people will be racing in heats full of comparable drivers.  Plus, we won't have to worry about tuning motors, building batteries, or trimming bodies.  The track will be open for a 45 minute practice session where you'll have a chance to get some valuable track time.  You'll also be able to use this time to get your car un-tweaked so that it'll turn equally in both directions.  If anyone needs help with this then just come and ask me (or any other veteran) and we'll show you how to use the tweak board.  Further, we'll run the usual three rounds of qualifying instead of the two we ran last night.  So, that'll give you even more track time.


Blake

[Blake]

All in all I thought it was a great first night of racing!  The facility is really quite good.  The warmth was great, we didn't blow any circuits, and the parking wasn't too horrible.  If we get the place until 11:30PM, and iron out a decent storage system then we'll be golden!

Oh, and great job everybody on the cleanup!  That was very impressive!

Now, let's hope that they're just as happy with us.  I'm a little worried about the noise we made, the condition the bathroom sinks were left in, and the fact that our dolly is way bigger than I made it out to be when negotiating the temporary hallway storage....

Anyway, I'm sure none of that stuff would really be a show stopper so it's not a big deal.


Blake

[Blake]

Oh, and one last thing:  Last night we had 29 entries which is a modern day IROCC winter racing attendance record!


See everyone this weekend,
Blake

[jamminjim]

Thanks Blake for the kind words.  I was impressed with the turnout and cleanup effort.  For the record I "hate" 1/12th scale. (lol)  My problem was new car blues unfortunately and I have already sorted out about 1/2 dozen of the problems that came up.  Maybe I'll do better next time out.  I do have a question for anyone that can tell me where I can get info on how to tune a 1/12th scale car.  I have a tiny bit of residual info from the "old" days but residual info tends to be unreliable.
Thanks again and I'll see you all next Saturday.
Jim

[cyrrus]

Hey Jamming.

Go place to look for info or ask question,  besides our Irocc Vet's.  I would check out Rctech.net.  then go to onroad.  then go to 12 scale.  Ask away. there always ready to answer your

Hope this help.  

And I'll see you all next Weekend.

[RC51]

Hi, all.

I have an idea: we could meet for Pizza or a coffee and run a small workshop where we would simply bring one car, tweakboard and the requisite tools. Anyone could ask their questions and some of the interested veterans could show a few tips. This way we could socialize, keep it light, break bread, and learn without making things more zany in the 45 minute practice session. Any takers?

Phil

[Blake]

That's a great idea Phil.  I'd be happy to attend tomorrow or Wednesday evening at BP.  I know some stuff about chassis setup but Craig and Tom are really the most knowledgeable in the topic I would say.


Blake

[Grinder]

I'm definatlely down with that.  Not sure how soon I can do it though.  Nicola just flew out to Kelowna to see her dad in ICU and I've got five of the six kids so any extra ciricular activities are on hold for now...  keep me posted though...

[jarrodH]

id be in if i hada car, hopefully the new kit comes in at shaver for next weekend

[RYY]

To echo Jims comments; thank you Blake, for your tender loving words of encouragement. I could definetly use a tech session however due to firehall commitments I am unavailable everynight this week with the exception of Friday.  How about meeting early on Saturday?  We could meet with questions already prepared and hey I would even offer my foul driving car to be used as the set up/tune up test subject.  Any thoughts.
My hope is the various parts I need to order will be available by next saturday!!

RYY

[RYY]

To echo Jims comments; thank you Blake, for your tender loving words of encouragement.
RC 51 (Phil); I could definetly use a tech session however due to firehall commitments I am unavailable everynight this week with the exception of Friday.  How about meeting early on Saturday?  We could meet with questions already prepared and hey I would even offer my foul driving car to be used as the set up/tune up test subject.  Any thoughts.
My hope is the various parts I need to order from the Shaver shop will be available by next saturday!!

RYY

[cyrrus]

Hey I'm down with that.  Sound like a good Idea actully.