Post Sexy Car Notes

 There were a few cars I wanted to take a look at after the Sexy Curves Speedway Scramble. Some were underperforming, others had issues that needed to be addressed. 

Rothmans Porsche 917K #9

Although the Rothmans car ran decently, during its race I noticed a squeak in the corners. Definitely mechanical, might have been coming from the axle. I checked for tire rub but there was none. I lubed/oiled and reset the pod to a medium-loose position. The car was pretty dry, so I might just lube/oil each one as I come across them. Some of them have only had their initial job done. Others have gone a long time without a checkup. 

Lucky Strike Porsche 917K #4

The Lucky Strike car had two things going on: the same squeak the Rothmans Porsche had, as well as a slight chatter around the turns. I checked to see if there was any tire rub, and there was. It only happened when the car was cornering on the right side. I loosened the body screws a little as well as the back end of the pod. That solved the problem. Lube/oil.

Gulf Porsche 908/3 #1

The fact that I had to run this car four times to get a result is why it's here today. I crashed twice, and when I crash I reset the race. Gotta run a clean race to count. So, I ran a third, more conservative race, which had the 908 finishing dead last by a good margin. But since this was the first car through the track on race day, it didn't really get a chance to set a good pace. I knew it could do better...or better yet...I knew I could do better. So I raced it one more time and accepted the result I got. 

Still, I brought it in. The tires look good, so no worries there. I did a lube/oil, reset the pod a little tighter [for whatever reason the pod is quite loose], and did a general tighten up and setting of all the screws. The body is still pretty loose, but not like before. The pod went from loose to medium. 

McLaren ELVA #47

I brought the Elva in out of caution for bringing the Gulf Porsche in. I got them both around the same time, and they've had roughly about the same attention paid to them, the Elva maybe a little less. So I wanted to give it a general tuneup to be safe. The tires are in good shape, and it ran very well, so just some lube/oil and that's it.

Other Car Notes

I noticed a few cars that needed work. I have some tires to work on, especially on a few of the cars that seem to be always around the lower-third of the pack. The Ferrari needs a sanding job, as does the Gulf GT40, strangely enough. There's another one in there showing treads, and I'll need to find that and take care of it. It could make the difference on a lot of these cars. 

So all cars will be going through the first of the year checkup. I'm starting that process now. Since I'm back to racing on the floor, I have to step up my tuning game. Each car, regardless of last checkup, will go through another in the next two days. Then on New Years I'll be running an endurance race. Not sure the track design yet, but I'm already thinking about running something I've already done, just modifying it with 4/15 track pieces. Not sure how many cars will run, but I'd like it to be all of them if time allows. Now that I have the lap counter I can run a lot more efficiently, so doing a 200 lap race wouldn't take all that much longer than doing a 50 lap race....well, except the laps, of course. 

The prep and changeover/start time when racing has gone down to practically nothing. Before I got the lap counter, here's how I did it:

Make a list on my phone with car names, entering each time as you get them.

Setup my phone with a stopwatch, or run some often-clunky software that is supposed to recognize and clock your car as it goes by [often not working and slow to setup]. 

COUNT laps out loud. [I can't even tell you how distracting it is to count laps as they go by. The larger the track, the more mistakes. Repeat numbers, skipped, all kinds of stupid stuff. And I know it affected lap times.] 

Car finishes, stop stopwatch, enter number on list.

Now with lap counter:

No list needed.

Put car on the track, push button to start race.

Race until finishing beeps signal end of race.

Take picture of car/time/laps.

So that ends up saving me minutes of setup time between cars. I was surprised how fast I was able to get all my cars through the last race. So doing an endurance race will only add a few minutes per car to the overall session time. Oh, that'll include crash-and-burn rules, too, so that should add to the fun.