Speed World Trophy Race Mar 27 2011

This past Sunday was the ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ second trophy race at Speed World. There was an excellent turnout, with 10 or 11 heats of 2WD & 4WD buggy, 2WD & 4WD SCT, and Micro. It was a bit of a long day, but we got in three rounds of qualifiers before the mains so it's all good. Especially seeing as my 3rd qualifier was by far my best run of the day. My first 2 qualifiers were pretty terrible, and I kept accidentally hacking a few drivers in my heats. (Especially Bruce Morley and both Bowden's. too, I think. Sorry guys!)

The last 2WD qualifiers split the 16 drivers into 3 heats instead of having 2 heats of 8. That's probably why I did so well in my last qualifier. That day I seemed to be having more problems navigating through traffic than I usually do. With less traffic to contend with, I managed to squeeze in 3 extra laps for this qualifier. That tells me both how bad I did in quals 1 & 2, and how well I ran in qual 3.

I'm happy with my fastest lap, although I really would like to have made it into the 12 second club. As for average lap times, I am quite happy with my top 10 laps being around 2.5 tenths off of my fastest lap. My top 20 could have been better, at almost 8 tenths slower than my best. With that being said, my 22 5:10:715 was good enough to qualify my 4th overall. Not a bad place to be!

The qualifying order was:

1- Leonard Schinzano
2- Dave Lyons
3- Bill Jones
4- Tim Sanderson
5- Aaron Lee
6- Todd Waite

I managed to hold onto my position for what seemed like the first half of the a-main, but that's when she all went down hill for the tsan! I felt myself run out of steam, and quickly fell to the bottom of the line. I knew I stood little chance of keeping on pace with Len, Dave and Bill, but it seems at the moment Todd and Aaron are definitely the 2 biggest thorns in my side! I tend to be able to hold them off in the qualifiers, only to have them routinely beat me in the mains. Great racing guys!

Here are the A-mains from Sunday. Enjoy!

2wd SCT A-main

4wd SCT A-main

2wd Buggy A-main

4wd Buggy A-main


[/Tim Sanderson]

2WD SCT a-main - mar 25 2011 @ Speed World

Here was the 2WD SCT a-main from March 25, 2011 at Speed World in Hamilton, ON. Calvin Mercer was looking to win the main, when his slipper gave out with 1 minute left in the race.

Final results: 1 Mike Cole 2 Steve Newstead 3 Craig Verburgh 4 Joe Ferguson 5 Calvin Mercer

For these, and all Speed World race results, visit the results page found in the links section, or by clicking here: Speed World race results [/Tim Sanderson]

Speed World March 18 2011

This past Friday was the 2nd installment of the Speed World point series.
The results for all of Friday's races can be found here.
The new larger track (or Speed World 2.0 as some were calling it) is great! The track itself is quite a bit larger, not to mention there's at least as much pit space. (if not more) The track is quite a bit faster... despite being a larger track, lap times are only a few tenths longer than on the original layout. A good lap time is a mid-to-low 13 seconds.
Here was the 2wd A main. Thanks again to Calvin Mercer for recording the race for me as I raced.


Results for this race:

1) Bill Jones
2) Todd Waite
3) J.B. Catricala
4) Tim Sanderson
5) George Bousioutis

I'm definately looking forward to next Friday!

[/Tim Sanderson]

tsanrc.com

You can now get to tsan rc by simply typing www.tsanrc.com into your browser. The old blogspot address will still get you to the site, although I am not sure for how long.
Update your bookmarks!

Speed World March 14 2011

I went to Speed World Hobbies in Hamilton again today, along with Jeff Eveleigh, Dave Lyons & fellow Super Pit co-founder Bill Jones. I've been meaning to try out some new tires for while now, and today did just that. Instead of Schumacher yellow mini pins, I tried out a set of kit tires that came with a Tamiya DB-01. Martin Pillmajer has been using them with success on his Durango 4WD at Motor City Raceway, so I figured the next time I needed to change my tires on my RB5, I'd try them too.

They worked awesome! They had great traction on the carpet right from the start, although at the start, they were no good at all on the 'ice' section of the track. However, after quite a few laps to scrub the tires and work them in, and a change to how I tackled the ice, I was able to stay on pace and not spin out. Mid-to-high 13 second laps was a good average, although I did hit several 13.3's as my best lap. I think these tires go for about $9 or $10 a pair. If these tires wear as well as I think they will, I think I may be using them exclusively for a while.
Here's a couple of videos... The first is a simple compilation of today's practice, while the second one is the 2WD A-main action from Friday night's points race.
Enjoy!

[/Tim Sanderson]

Speed World Hobbies, Hamilton

Yesterday, fellow Super Pit Co-Founder Bill Jones (right) and I (left) spent the afternoon at Ferraro Super Quads & Speed World Hobbies in Hamilton, Ontario. They have recently opened up an indoor carpet offroad race track, and this was the first chance I've had to check it out. Although it is a little on the small side, I was very impressed with the use of space. The jumps are very well made. I remember thinking to myself that they looked rather FastCats-esque, then when I talked to Mr. FastCats himself, John Catricala, he said they called him while they were building them. There's a table top, a double-single, (that can be tripled if you're willing to take the risk) as well as a couple of singles, and some little bumps that can be doubled if you hit them right.

My fastest lap time was something like 13.3 seconds, although for me mid-to-high 13's were a good average. The hobby shop is quite impressive, stocking lots of parts for things like Traxxas and Team Associated. Unfortunately however, no Kyosho parts. :( I found it very easy to aggressively push myself lap after lap, something I haven't been able to do since running at FastCats.
They will be running a points series in the very near future, and as long as it doesn't conflict with racing at Motor City, I'll probably take part!
Here is a video of Bill and I doing a few laps on the current layout:

While I was recording Bill's laps I couldn't believe he was turning mid-to-low 12 second laps. I couldn't believe how fast his laps were. That is, until I watched the video again later, and realized that part of the track was knocked out of the way, shortening the overall track for him. :P That being said, like always, his average laps were at least a few tenths quicker than mine.

I'm definitely looking forward to running at Speed World again. This week Rob Porto and I are going again, and I'm sure Bill will come along too.

[/Tim Sanderson]

Motor City Raceway Mar 5 2011

Saturday march 5th was yet again another great day at Motor City Raceway. It had been 6 weeks since I actually raced carpet offroad... 2 weeks ago I wasn't able to make it out to Oshawa, 4 weeks ago I broke a CVD during early morning practice.

I came to the track with a few different layouts I had worked out on paper, and chose one to try out. It turned out to be a pretty decent layout, we just need to come up with some more jumps. Personally, I'd like to see a triple, or even another couple of table tops on the strait away. This serves to both slow racers lap times down, and awesome-up the carpet off road experience. (who doesn't like a big triple or quad to sail over?) Because the jumps have to be torn down after every race day and stored at the school, they need to be fairly mobile. I have a couple of ideas for collapsible jumps that could be easily carried and stored on site. I'm going to work on some small scale mock ups this week to see if the ideas are as good as i think they are.

I only managed to finish one qualifier, and it wasn't even a very good finish, 17 laps I think. A lead came off my motor to knock me out of round one, and a broken shock top knocked me out of the 2nd qualifier. I was having a hard time getting through a couple of rumble sections with my car. It was very difficult to keep my car from being bounced end over end. Partly driver error, and partly poor setup. Seeing as I qualified right on the cusp of the A and B mains, I was given the choice as to which one I wanted to run in. Going by how my qualifiers went, I figured I should stick to the B main. Also, I'd be able to record the 2wd A main with Chet Kelsey's camera. However, before the main, I beefed up to a 3b piston + 35wt oil in my front shocks. What a difference this made! I could cruise over the rumbles much quicker, without getting bounced around too bad. I wound up winning the B main with more than 2 laps on the 2nd place driver. I'll have to check the results, but I think my finish would have put me somewhere in the middle of the A main. [EDIT] My time would have put me 5th in the A-main [/EDIT]

I've ordered myself a Creative Vado HD camcorder, but won't receive it for a couple of weeks. I had to borrow a camera to catch the action. Again, thanks to Chet for letting me record the the A mains with his camera, and thanks to John Stewart for recording the 2wd B main as I raced. Here are the videos from march 5th: (results will be posted a little later in the day)

2WD A MAIN


2WD B MAIN


4WD A MAIN


SC A MAIN


1/8 E BUGGY A MAIN


[/Tim Sanderson]

Kyosho Rocky

This is just a quick little post to show the latest vintage Kyosho buggy soon to be added to the tsanrc garage:

It's a Kyosho Rocky, minus the body and electronics. Judging from what I can see in the picture, it looks to be in pretty decent shape. It's coming from Washington, so I don't expect to have it for several weeks. There's at least one guy online that makes a reproduction Rocky body, so I will most likely try to paint it as it looks in this old promo:

**UPDATE: CLICK HERE FOR MORE ROCKY PHOTOS**

[/Tim Sanderson]