Fastest clock time at the end wins.
The race will be run on the recently-used technical track. The Safety Car will take the inside lane against the Class A cars running on the outside. There will be slight banking in the corners.
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| This is turning into one of my favorite small layouts. There's no fast way through it, although it will reward daredevil driving in parts. It is quite sneaky, however, and the second you think you have one corner figured out, the next one bites you. |
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| Race Day |
RACEDAY:
In order to make this a fair race, considering I'm using the thumb controllers, I'll be running warm-ups of just about 100 laps for each car prior to the race. That way I'll get used to it and will be able to work with each car. I plan on playing it safe across the board, and if one of them gets lucky and passes the Safety Car, then great. The SC will be set up for pretty high speed travel, and since it's only worth bonus points, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be easy to get them. Standard race points [5/4/3/2/1] will be given, but there's always the possibility that a car could run away with the championship with a good race.
All cars were cleaned and tires sanded. I noticed last night after running the cars for awhile that the Alfa had a raised bump in the middle of one of the rear tires. I hadn't noticed it before, and it wasn't due to anything under the tire, but looked more like a blister. The only way I can imagine this would happen, since the tires never get hot enough on the track surface, would be when I last sanded them. I was using a rather strong grit sandpaper, and I suppose it could have had something to do with it. I came across some lighter grade sandpaper last night. I sanded the tires down and got rid of it, and decided to sand the other cars as well to put them on an even platform.
This race will also be the end of the pod float experiment. I have worked with pod float enough to believe that it isn't helping the car in any way on these short tracks. Body float is more than enough separation to stop vibration, and the pod float simply loosens the rear end, which I don't need. This will be looked at again when I have a larger track, but for the rest of this series I'm going to keep the pods snug to the chassis.
Team Orders:
[none]
RESULTS [Race 11 of 20]:
Car Time Offs +/- Laps Against Drone Points [w/bonus]
Alfa #2 5:43.09 0 14 5 [19]
Shell #8 6:04.33 0 7 4 [11]
Gulf #11 6:09.93 0 6 3 [9]
Audi R18 6:17.83 0 5 1 [6]
Safety Car* 6:15.64 1 2 2 [4]
[*primary drone car. The Safety Car will race against the R18, set to the pace of the SC]
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| Absolute and utter dominance today. No other way to put it. I attribute a lot of that to its ability to maintain an overall top speed, since the Carrera thumb sticks didn't allow for much in the way of trigger technique to shine through. |
Halfway through the Alfa's race I stumbled in my laps against drone count and started over. I wanted to eliminate the first run issues I have been having in every race, where the first car run inevitably is run in the roughest start conditions. So in fairness I ran it again. This was prior to running any of the other cars, so there was no advantage to it. I cleaned the tires and ran the race.
Carrera thumb sticks are tricky, as you can't control quick accelerations like you can with the SCP-1. But since that was being used for the drone controller, every car had to adjust to the thumb stick. As I knew that any offs would immediately take a car out of the running, I played it a bit safe and stuck to a faster overall speed for the cars as opposed to trying to milk every ounce out of it every lap. That would have produced too many offs, as I found out while running practice laps with each of the cars.
The Alfa, however, did have the ability not only to run fast, but to gain speed as it went. It picked up the pace and turned in much better lap times for the bulk of the race. I suspect this was largely due to repairing that bubble on the rear tire that I had discovered. Not having a perfectly flat tire patch on the track caused a bumping sensation which I'm sure was triggering a loose rear end through the turns. Passing the drone car was effortless and didn't provide the slightest competition. I was surprised by the end, and while checking the individual lap times, I noticed that the Alfa didn't have the slow start that the Fords had, which is why there's such a discrepancy in the drone laps totals. The Alfa did have a significant slow down towards the end of the race, as I played it a little safe as I felt I was pushing it a little hard. It gave me a few warnings in the corners, so I held back for about the last 40 laps or so.
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| The overall leader has now changed, as the Alfa wrestled the points away from the Shell Ford. |
I was this close [>.<] to taking the magnet out of the R18 for this race, and had it turned in a better time, I definitely would have afterward. It was 8 seconds behind the 3rd place car, and that was with a magnet, and that's just not fast enough to qualify. It would have had to soundly beat the Fords in order to qualify for the promotion to Class A, and I just don't think that's going to happen at this point. In doing so, I would essentially disqualify the Safety Car from all further competition. That would be okay if there was another Carrera car to run in its place, but I don't have one.
Team Standings
Alfa #2 31 19 50
Shell #8 36 11 47
Gulf #11 27 9 36
Audi R18 13 6 18
Safety Car 11 4 15
The Alfa made the biggest jump in the standings, coming from a 5 point deficit to take a 3 point lead over the Shell Ford, which put in a very respectable showing. The Gulf Ford is still underperforming, and this was after a complete teardown and rebuild just the other day. I think it's ultimately suffering from not having that single spacer that it needs. And for whatever reason, it feels like it needs a little weight, even though the Shell Ford doesn't feel that way. The #11, unless seeing some form of magical transformation, is pretty much out of contention for the championship.
The Fords kick ass. It's just that the Alfa kicked even more ass. It owns this track, and makes me want to buy another one to race against it. Once I get a few more cars, I'll be able to separate them into proper classes. I supposed I can do that now, and just call Class A cars "Classics" and call Class B cars "Modern", but that's not specific enough to my case. Until I have enough cars of a certain type than can run without magnets, they'll continue to be A and B classifications.
Great race and a fun structure, even though I had to use the thumb sticks. It makes me seriously consider getting another Slot.it controller, however.
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