Speed World Wed Apr 27

I went by Speed World this past Wednesday in order to scrub/break in my new rear Schumachers before this weekend's racing. Also, after all the setup changes I've made to my RB5 over the past couple of weeks, I thought I'd try running my slim yellow mini pins on the front again.

As you can see, I've had to trim off the outer 3 rows of pins just to make them usable on Speed World's very high-bite carpet. A few weeks ago they still had far too much traction for my old setup, even with the 3 rows trimmed off. I had to drive very cautiously just to keep from rolling in the corners. I had to make sure I was completely off of the brakes before entering a corner too, otherwise I'd roll for sure. My low/mid speed cornering was awesome, but any time I made up was easily lost by rolling over every once in a while. So back to an old set of stagger ribs for a few weeks.

However during those weeks, I'd made some big changes to my setup, including roll centre, ackerman, shock oil/springs and mounting positions etc. When I tried the tires again, almost all my traction roll problems were gone. Not only has my low speed cornering greatly improved, I can still power through corners like the sweeper and hairpin corners with little threat of roll over. Haza!
Here are few laps from Wednesday's practice:

[/Tim Sanderson]

Wheel Salvaging

Seeing as we had the day off on Friday, I thought I'd get around to doing a few things I had been meaning to do for a while. One of those things was salvaging some used wheels I had in my tire box. I had several matching pairs of worn out Schumacher tires that were no good on the track any more. Using some old lexan scissors, I cut the rubber off of the rims, leaving only pieces of the tire's bead glued to the wheel. I even managed to salvage a few sets of inserts that were in good shape.

The easiest way to remove the rest of the rubber from the wheels is to buy yourself a seal-able container and a bottle of acetone. I bought the Acetone from Rona, and the container from a dollar store. First thing you want to do is make sure the acetone you bought doesn't melt your container. The first time you do this, you may want to do it outside, so if it melts the container, it doesn't wreck your wife's/mom's kitchen table. If the container hasn't melted, pour in some more acetone. You only need enough in there to partially cover the rubber on one side of the wheel, in this case, only a few mm's. Drop in the wheels, put the lid on and let them sit for a few hours. The rubber literally falls right off the wheels. In some cases, I didn't even have to peel off the rubber, it was already floating in the acetone. Flip the wheels over, and do the same for the other side.

Now all that's left is to clean them up with some soap and water, and you've got yourself some good-as-new wheels!

CAUTION: Be aware that some wheels may not like this process... Some wheels have been known to melt when exposed to Acetone. Nylon wheels should be safe, but other 'cheaper' plastics may not fare so well. It's safest to test one wheel, before you throw all of them into the acetone.

[/Tim Sanderson]

EC Euro's 2009 Bilbao 1:10th off-road FINAL "A1" 2wd

Here's another awesome track from Bilbao, Spain in 2009. This one's outdoor and (mostly) AstroTurf. I love how they incorporated the hill on the side into the track. I could, however, do without the dirt section before the straightaway. (but hey, that's just the carpet guy in me talking ;)

[/Tim Sanderson]