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]