Nats day three: First qualifying sessions

The qualy sessions today were plagued by bad weather and timing glitches. We managed to get just 2 runs (12 minutes driving) from 13 hours at the track.

But despite the lack of track-time, I enjoyed today heaps. We were set up across from some funny dudes from Melbourne: Sandy Iavazzo, Jordan Cullis, and Oscar Piastri (11-year-old prodigy who won the Australian 13.5 titles at the age of 9!). They were all running mod, Sandy with a TC6, Jordan with a TCXX, and Oscar with an Xray. These dudes were properly fast. By the way, Sandy tells me that Jilles Groskamp now builds his shocks with a lot of rebound.

Jordan lost his mind when he discovered I owned a set of original HPI silver springs. He wanted to give me $50 for them, and says they’re somewhere between a new HPI silver (black coating) and a HPI pink. I let him borrow them for the event, but I don’t think I want to part with them.

For my first heat I had laid my shocks in (2nd hole on the back, 3rd hole on the front), and swapped to HPI silver springs all round. No good. The rear was washing out through the sweepers, and the car was scatty coming onto the front straight. I was lapped by 3 people and managed just 15 laps in 6m 0.743s.

For the second heat I reverted to my previous setup (Tamiya blue springs, somewhat vertical shocks) and the car felt better again. This setup makes the car very soft. It doesn’t have the edginess of a real fast car, but at least I can drive it, and push a little. This time I managed 7th place with 16 laps in 6m 3, and a best of 21.4s.

I know there is some more pace in me. Time to get to sleep. Good luck in qualy Alonso.