Getting to know Lola

 I finally have a Lola. I still don't have a Porsche 930/10, but that might not be so far off. But I have a Lola! That's great!

So because of the McLaren Elva, a need appeared. There's isn't any conceivable way I can see any of the other cars making a challenge against the Elva anytime soon, so I needed to look for a competitor. And that's where the Lola comes in. 

Those old Can-Am cars are so sexy.

The chassis on the Lola and the Elva are identical. All the parts are the same. Same motor. Same tires. Gears. Check. Yesterday when I took it on its pre-tuned ride, it felt like it had every bit of energy the Elva has, even though everything was pretty much new.

Today I sanded the tires down to slicks and worked with the ride height a little bit, as well as loosened the pod a little for kicks. About a quarter turn every screw. I still need to work more on ride height. The Lola isn't quite behaving like the Elva in that respect, and it needs a little bit more attention. Once I got it out on the track in its fully-tuned state, it was a twin of the Elva. They both run like the devil.

Of course, now that I have two cars of the same brand, I'll be able to test them independently and reach conclusions faster, as well as experiment without having to keep a lot of notes of changes. Sure, neither car runs exactly the same, but I an at least tell the effects of a loose/loose setting over a med/med setting without having to do all the testing on one car. It speeds things up and gets you to your goals faster. It also gives you the opportunity to treat each car differently from one another, even if it's just over a slight adjustment or two. 

Two cars might end up needing different things to run fast, and they might take separate paths from each other. That's bound to happen, as we're dealing with small machines here. No two are alike. That's what makes this so much fun. I may have just gotten the new champion, or I may already own it. Who knows. 

This is a shot before any work was done on the car.  It's important to sand away the tread on the tires and get them down to a nice wide slick. Better contact patch, better grip.

The car has a 21.5k sidewinder motor, mounted at a slight angle so it would fit inside the works. It comes with an 11/32 pinion/gear system standard. All of this is pretty much the same in all the other cars I own. NSR, Slot.it, same basic specs. One way where Thunderslot wins is that it includes any and all screws needed for adjustment in the car, unlike Slot.it, for example, which gives you places to add screws to do things, but they don't supply the screws. It's nice to have a car where you don't have to order something right away to make it run right. With that said, Thunderslot cars also come with Torx6 screws for the body and pod mounts. but luckily I had a Torx 6 driver lying around. If not you will have to buy one of those.

The front end comes with everything needed to adjust ride height. It comes from the factory wheels-up, but can be driven in either a 3-point or 5-point style. 

Two things that concern me: first, the roll bar is very loose and not installed very well. I glued it yesterday and that seemed to help, but it still feels flimsy and pushed a little far forward. The second thing is the mirror placement. It's pretty much glued right to the windshield. So a hard hit could do quite a bit of damage.

The Lola tuned right up and will be a fine competitor for the Elva. That's going to give a nice solid one-two punch for the races. I'm going to be doing a head-to-head challenge between the two in a few days here. I'll need to run the Lola for awhile and shake the bugs out. Make sure I've got it where I want it before starting the clock. The first thing I'll be checking is the pod and body float settings and see what works best for either car. It's doesn't take much to get the pod a little loose, and I'm curious what the effect will be. 

I'm amazed at the Thunderslot cars. The really are very well made. And it's not like they're so crazy fast that they're going to fly off your track. On the contrary. It's one of those cars you try out and it just does everything so well that you can't get over it. You spend your time with your jaw slack and your mind asking you how this is possible. Since I got them, they are the only race cars that are racing right now. Everyone else is on a little vacation. They are just too much fun. And I know they're going to spoil me. It's already happening. But that's okay.