DC F1 Enduro...Long Post

It was a great day to be racing Mini-Z's...actually, it's always a great day to race Mini-Z's so that's a terrible way to start this post.

When I walked into the hobby shop I was totally floored. I knew they were doing renovations but I did not realize that they were pushing out towards the back of the store. I thought they had purchased some space adjacent to the shop and would setup the track in another section with just a single doorway or something. The way it is you can see the new area from every part of the store. The shop will benefit from every single passer by. If you look at the pics below, you can see where all of the isles start.

Setting up the track. You can see the product isles on the right.

Setting up the track from the opposite angle. You can see the product isles on the left.

I rolled in around 12:10 just a few minutes after Arch with my car full of RCP. The guys helped me unload and 5 of us started building the track. We had it all together by 1:00 and by the time we got our pits setup and got some food it was about 2:00 before we started driving. We had to change the layout a little bit due to space constraints but it flowed very nicely.

imxler8d showed up a little after 3:00 and we got the qualifier started just before 4:00. I was having some problems with my AD F1 shutting down and I don't think I've solved the problem yet but I have some ideas thanks to this thread.

First, here are a few things that I think I did well.

• I had all of my batteries charged and laid out.
• I replaced my tie rod and knuckles with new ones before the race.
• I tried to drive pretty smooth without too much aggressive acceleration. I figured the AD board would put me at a disadvantage for battery usage. I was able to get about 20 minutes of driving before the steering started to get a little twitchy.
  

A couple of things I learned

• Check ALL of your suspension screws: After some heavy crashing with a few cars, the machine screw on my disk damper loosened up and my car handled like complete crap. I had to pit the car, remove the body and tighten the machine screw. I am glad I didn't lose the screw completely.
  
• Tape, velcro or glue your transponder. I don't usually have a problem with the transponder coming out of the wing but I've never broken a wing before. With the wing broken I couldn't keep the transponder on the car without tape.
• Practice enduro driving with your enduro batteries. I can't really blame myself for this. I usually race short events with my Intellects and do my local racing with the Sanyo 1000's. I think my batteries may have had something to do with my car shutting down during practice and once or twice during the race. I practiced with the Sanyo's on Tuesday but I don't think the track was large enough to create the same drain on the batteries and drop the voltage enough to shut the AD board down.
  
• F1's are not built for sustained abuse. Most of my problems (core tag, suspension screw, etc) came from getting mixed up in too many accidents. Big tracks lead to big speeds and bigger wrecks. Even my HFAY car took a bit of a beating. I am going to have to check the H-plate, chassis, suspension, and tires for any suspicious cracks.

Here are a few more pics from the event. You can view the entire set here.