G
SS pro
- Thread starter TRE
- Start date
TRE said:
Don't forget that the longer the track, the greater the time difference between a "hit" and a "near miss".
Everyone was invited live! Saying that's not fair is like those with no track saying it's not fair to race against guys with tracks to test on. Every one is welcome! There will be a few changes in the future of a few things that need addressing.
cygnus said:
- Nov 24, 2011
- 3,903
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Quicktimederby said:
I couldn't have said it better. Thanks
Kinser Racing said:
This statement was in no way meant to minimalize what Minions did. It was awesome! Congrats!!!
Apologize for the brain dump below.
I’m still a little in shock. I went down there and my goal was to make the finals. I’m extremely happy but also very lucky, I realize. I’ve been thinking about it the whole drive home. The long track was very interesting to see in person. The cars would really separate from each other around the 40ft mark or so. In the BASX finals, everybody expected the times to go down but instead they went up. I’m not sure why. I’m sure the guys with more experience know. My understanding is that cars are slower in the prelims usually because riding next to bigger cars can push more air your way and riding next to wiggly cars can make your car wiggle more. In the finals everyone is small and thin and stable so everyone is faster. But this time it was the opposite. My thought was that perhaps because the track was so long, the faster cars could eventually break away and had more time by themselves in clean air. In the finals, the cars were neck and neck most of the way so they had to fight the dirty air longer. I’m not sure dirty air is the right word. Turbulence? The other interesting thing was the time differences. What would be maybe a thousandth or two difference on 42’ track seems like it could easily translate to a hundredth or more on a 62’ track. Just a pure guess from me.
I’m not sure why the 62’ track liked my cars so much. I have definitely been getting faster. I have more confidence in my drilling and in being nice and clean in my prep. I think that got me to the mid 2.98x the last couple months. Making sure all the surfaces that touch anything are very slick also helped. But my cars were pretty big. At least 9/16” or 3/8” tall and 1 ¾” wide. Lately I’ve been trying to make them thinner and narrower, at least in the front. ¼” thick at most. I think that helped me get sub 2.98. I think that’s why those lasercut ladder style cars can be fast. Very thin. This probably isn’t news to anybody, but it’s just one of those things I overlooked before. I have been doing a lot of research on aero dynamics (which is very confusing and counter-intuitive as it is new to me, but a ton of fun). I’ve also tried getting creative with weight in the back so I can get more weight back there and still be thin. I’m not the most creative person. I look at the things laserman, bracketracer, down4derby, and a bunch of you guys are doing and it just blows me away and also turns light bulbs on. I still feel like mostly a copycat, although things are clicking now and I have a few new ideas I want to try out.
All my cars had John’s oil and nothing but Jig on the axles. I saved a brand new can of jig since last year for this event. I’ve been trying different ski waxes on my wheels as well as the usual legend/red rocket. I thought for a long time there must be some secret prep that was the key to speed. I haven’t found it. My cars all had different preps, and last month the results were opposite of this month. I use legend as a base coat, let it dry overnight, then red rocket, let it dry overnight. I’m not sure if it’s any faster than two coats of red rocket done the same way and to be honest I’m not sure if two coats of legend done the same way is faster or slower. If any one of these is faster it is less than the std dev of a car and a small variable among so many, so it is hard to tell. It will take a long time and in the end may not be worth it so don’t ask me because I’m not an expert at it. If I had a track, I could do more testing, but I need to buy a bigger house before I can get a track. Either that or move back to the farm and find an unused potato cellar.
I’m not sure why, but I don’t think QT, Pony, and Spacewalker were up to their usual speed in SS. QT was working so hard for several days to help setup the venue I kind of felt he just didn’t have the time to invest as much in his racing this time. Just a guess. I heard Spacewalker’s car was very fast at the tune time and we were all very surprised and bewildered when it did not run well. It is rare for a spacewalker car to take a day off so I dodged a bullet there. I think Pony is one of the fastest racers around too, and I don’t why his car did not perform as usual. JDB was very fast. It was so close, could easily be the opposite result if re-run. A few ten thousandths of a second at 63’ is nuts.
I sat right at the 42’ line most of the time and I noticed many times my car was behind Kinser or JDB or John and it would somehow catchup in the end. At least it looked that way to me. So I have some work to do this month if I want to stay competitive with these guys at 42’. For instance, I read that thread and I know my wheels still make that ticking sound if I hold them up to my ear real close while they spin. It bugs me and I have not gotten rid of it yet. I think the reason I was able to catch up the last 20’ of the track was because I overloaded the rear with weight. I can't be sure, but my best guess right now. Some of my cars were at the normal 5/8”, some at 37/64”, some at 11/16”. I was trying different ways to pack more weight in the back using different sized cubes. Sometimes ¼” cubes, sometimes 3/16”, sometimes plates. All 3 of my SS were different and did pretty well, my winning car had the back wheels furthest to the back out of all of them, but 2[sup]nd[/sup] car was pretty close. My winning BASX car and my winning SS car both had brand new wheels. I’m pretty cheap and use my wheels for a long time, so to me that is likely the biggest factor. The new wheels I won as a door prize last month. Some of my cars had delrin washers, others had friction plates, others had teflon washers. I know I’m violating the rule of only varying one thing at a time, but I get too excited to try new things. There are some slight aero differences between the cars that I’m trying that are hard to see. Still gathering data.
Now, I could imagine some of the people that are struggling with speed right now rolling their eyes when I say I got lucky. Maybe in the right place at the right time is a better phrase. I have been at this for a couple years, and I’ve somehow got myself motivated to go out in the garage 3 or 4 nights a week after the kids are in bed and work for a couple hours. I won’t be able to keep up this pace for years on end. But at the same time I didn’t invent 99% of the techniques and products I’m using. I have benefited from a lot of racers helping me and being patient with me. DD4H, 5Kids, Spacewalker, GravityX, bracketracer, WK, BSB, Pony express, Ca$h racing, and the list goes on. Everyone has been extremely generous and kind. I think this is a familiar story for most of us. Unfortunately, I will probably never be able to contribute to the forums and give back as much as I’ve received. Maybe in the distant future, right now I work all day at a computer and when I come home it’s the last thing I want to see and I have a lot of young kids that wear me out.
Oh I wanted to mention my first tuning experience. I was there for a ½ hour. I pulled my first SS out and ran it down. Took me while to figure out how to use the track LOL. My first car ran around 4.432 I think. A couple guys told me that is very fast don’t touch it. So I put it back in the box. Next car ran 26. Everybody said, for sure don’t touch this one anymore that is super fast. I didn’t believe them but I put it back in the box. Third car ran a 25 or 26. On this one I decided to ignore them since I already had one that ran 26. I reduced the steer an inch or two and ran it again and it ran 17. Then I put it back in the box because of the look on a couple guy’s faces. Then I pulled out my BASX car and asked what a good time was, someone said 65. My car ran a 55. I’m not sure if anyone saw that one, but I silen
tly put it back in the box and my head started spinning. I didn’t believe them but I had a little bit of hope at the same time and it made it hard to sleep or eat. After that I pulled out my SP car and man that thing was slower than my BASX. I ran it several times and adjusted steer, and it just wobbled and wobbled. Finally I gave up and went home. I took it home, and noticed the DFW was wobbling when spun freely. So I did my best to re-prep it and I took a spare DFW axle I had and re-prepped it too. It spun a lot better after that. I set the steer on the tuning table to a pretty safe steer and I think it turned out okay. It could be the wheels were too old, I’m not sure. More work to do there. Like many of you it appears, I have some cash hidden away in a paypal account that I may need to buy some new SP wheels with. I admit I laughed out loud when I read that thread and all the people still wanting to use paypal.
Anyway, I hope the guys that are struggling keep a good attitude.
I’m still a little in shock. I went down there and my goal was to make the finals. I’m extremely happy but also very lucky, I realize. I’ve been thinking about it the whole drive home. The long track was very interesting to see in person. The cars would really separate from each other around the 40ft mark or so. In the BASX finals, everybody expected the times to go down but instead they went up. I’m not sure why. I’m sure the guys with more experience know. My understanding is that cars are slower in the prelims usually because riding next to bigger cars can push more air your way and riding next to wiggly cars can make your car wiggle more. In the finals everyone is small and thin and stable so everyone is faster. But this time it was the opposite. My thought was that perhaps because the track was so long, the faster cars could eventually break away and had more time by themselves in clean air. In the finals, the cars were neck and neck most of the way so they had to fight the dirty air longer. I’m not sure dirty air is the right word. Turbulence? The other interesting thing was the time differences. What would be maybe a thousandth or two difference on 42’ track seems like it could easily translate to a hundredth or more on a 62’ track. Just a pure guess from me.
I’m not sure why the 62’ track liked my cars so much. I have definitely been getting faster. I have more confidence in my drilling and in being nice and clean in my prep. I think that got me to the mid 2.98x the last couple months. Making sure all the surfaces that touch anything are very slick also helped. But my cars were pretty big. At least 9/16” or 3/8” tall and 1 ¾” wide. Lately I’ve been trying to make them thinner and narrower, at least in the front. ¼” thick at most. I think that helped me get sub 2.98. I think that’s why those lasercut ladder style cars can be fast. Very thin. This probably isn’t news to anybody, but it’s just one of those things I overlooked before. I have been doing a lot of research on aero dynamics (which is very confusing and counter-intuitive as it is new to me, but a ton of fun). I’ve also tried getting creative with weight in the back so I can get more weight back there and still be thin. I’m not the most creative person. I look at the things laserman, bracketracer, down4derby, and a bunch of you guys are doing and it just blows me away and also turns light bulbs on. I still feel like mostly a copycat, although things are clicking now and I have a few new ideas I want to try out.
All my cars had John’s oil and nothing but Jig on the axles. I saved a brand new can of jig since last year for this event. I’ve been trying different ski waxes on my wheels as well as the usual legend/red rocket. I thought for a long time there must be some secret prep that was the key to speed. I haven’t found it. My cars all had different preps, and last month the results were opposite of this month. I use legend as a base coat, let it dry overnight, then red rocket, let it dry overnight. I’m not sure if it’s any faster than two coats of red rocket done the same way and to be honest I’m not sure if two coats of legend done the same way is faster or slower. If any one of these is faster it is less than the std dev of a car and a small variable among so many, so it is hard to tell. It will take a long time and in the end may not be worth it so don’t ask me because I’m not an expert at it. If I had a track, I could do more testing, but I need to buy a bigger house before I can get a track. Either that or move back to the farm and find an unused potato cellar.
I’m not sure why, but I don’t think QT, Pony, and Spacewalker were up to their usual speed in SS. QT was working so hard for several days to help setup the venue I kind of felt he just didn’t have the time to invest as much in his racing this time. Just a guess. I heard Spacewalker’s car was very fast at the tune time and we were all very surprised and bewildered when it did not run well. It is rare for a spacewalker car to take a day off so I dodged a bullet there. I think Pony is one of the fastest racers around too, and I don’t why his car did not perform as usual. JDB was very fast. It was so close, could easily be the opposite result if re-run. A few ten thousandths of a second at 63’ is nuts.
I sat right at the 42’ line most of the time and I noticed many times my car was behind Kinser or JDB or John and it would somehow catchup in the end. At least it looked that way to me. So I have some work to do this month if I want to stay competitive with these guys at 42’. For instance, I read that thread and I know my wheels still make that ticking sound if I hold them up to my ear real close while they spin. It bugs me and I have not gotten rid of it yet. I think the reason I was able to catch up the last 20’ of the track was because I overloaded the rear with weight. I can't be sure, but my best guess right now. Some of my cars were at the normal 5/8”, some at 37/64”, some at 11/16”. I was trying different ways to pack more weight in the back using different sized cubes. Sometimes ¼” cubes, sometimes 3/16”, sometimes plates. All 3 of my SS were different and did pretty well, my winning car had the back wheels furthest to the back out of all of them, but 2[sup]nd[/sup] car was pretty close. My winning BASX car and my winning SS car both had brand new wheels. I’m pretty cheap and use my wheels for a long time, so to me that is likely the biggest factor. The new wheels I won as a door prize last month. Some of my cars had delrin washers, others had friction plates, others had teflon washers. I know I’m violating the rule of only varying one thing at a time, but I get too excited to try new things. There are some slight aero differences between the cars that I’m trying that are hard to see. Still gathering data.
Now, I could imagine some of the people that are struggling with speed right now rolling their eyes when I say I got lucky. Maybe in the right place at the right time is a better phrase. I have been at this for a couple years, and I’ve somehow got myself motivated to go out in the garage 3 or 4 nights a week after the kids are in bed and work for a couple hours. I won’t be able to keep up this pace for years on end. But at the same time I didn’t invent 99% of the techniques and products I’m using. I have benefited from a lot of racers helping me and being patient with me. DD4H, 5Kids, Spacewalker, GravityX, bracketracer, WK, BSB, Pony express, Ca$h racing, and the list goes on. Everyone has been extremely generous and kind. I think this is a familiar story for most of us. Unfortunately, I will probably never be able to contribute to the forums and give back as much as I’ve received. Maybe in the distant future, right now I work all day at a computer and when I come home it’s the last thing I want to see and I have a lot of young kids that wear me out.
Oh I wanted to mention my first tuning experience. I was there for a ½ hour. I pulled my first SS out and ran it down. Took me while to figure out how to use the track LOL. My first car ran around 4.432 I think. A couple guys told me that is very fast don’t touch it. So I put it back in the box. Next car ran 26. Everybody said, for sure don’t touch this one anymore that is super fast. I didn’t believe them but I put it back in the box. Third car ran a 25 or 26. On this one I decided to ignore them since I already had one that ran 26. I reduced the steer an inch or two and ran it again and it ran 17. Then I put it back in the box because of the look on a couple guy’s faces. Then I pulled out my BASX car and asked what a good time was, someone said 65. My car ran a 55. I’m not sure if anyone saw that one, but I silen
tly put it back in the box and my head started spinning. I didn’t believe them but I had a little bit of hope at the same time and it made it hard to sleep or eat. After that I pulled out my SP car and man that thing was slower than my BASX. I ran it several times and adjusted steer, and it just wobbled and wobbled. Finally I gave up and went home. I took it home, and noticed the DFW was wobbling when spun freely. So I did my best to re-prep it and I took a spare DFW axle I had and re-prepped it too. It spun a lot better after that. I set the steer on the tuning table to a pretty safe steer and I think it turned out okay. It could be the wheels were too old, I’m not sure. More work to do there. Like many of you it appears, I have some cash hidden away in a paypal account that I may need to buy some new SP wheels with. I admit I laughed out loud when I read that thread and all the people still wanting to use paypal.
Anyway, I hope the guys that are struggling keep a good attitude.
G
Guest
Guest
Minions, glad to hear we're using the same products. Thanks for sharing. Sounds like you're a natural, congrats on the multiple titles- you are awesome!!!
Ivin, I enjoyed the read, a little lengthy but still well worth every word written. Lots of good advice. I'll certainly be reading it again soon to catch some of the things I missed. Many words of encouragement spread throughout, take heed racers. I've seen Ivin struggle early on, but his persistence has pulled him through to bring him to where he is right now. I was glad that he was able to be present for his Nationals wins.
Congratulations on your wins! Well done!
Congratulations on your wins! Well done!
Ivin, I saw that silent move of the BASX car. I laughed as you put it away and I watched that Grin on your face. It was great meeting you Ivin and I wish the best of luck in the future. Glad you and your family made it home safe and sound. Take care my friend.
Minions - Thanks for sharing your Nationals cars build and racing experience. Congrats on the wins. Inspiring and extremely helpful!
Maglev
PS: does anyone have a reverse conversion factor to guesstimate the time our cars would do if it were a 42' track. Wish we had another timer at that mark - would be helpful to monitor progress on the regular 42' length monthly league races.
Maglev
PS: does anyone have a reverse conversion factor to guesstimate the time our cars would do if it were a 42' track. Wish we had another timer at that mark - would be helpful to monitor progress on the regular 42' length monthly league races.
Ivan, you and your cars are top notch! Thanks for racing with us and putting us in are places! Don't get to comfy though, now you have a big X on your back. Keep at it!
much Congratulations Ivin! The hard work and effort paid off and it was even sweeter that you were there live to see it! I cant think of anything else that could be better....EXCEPT winning even more in the future! Looks like a lot of us have some catching up to do!!!
- Nov 24, 2011
- 3,903
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Ivin! I didn't see your post and somehow missed it. I don't know how that's happened a few times but it has. Thanks for the long post man! That was really cool of you to share. /images/boards/smilies/thumb.gif
G
Guest
Guest
Hi Minions,
I missed your post too.
Thanks for sharing your info, and for the shout out.
Best of luck with the races.
I missed your post too.
Thanks for sharing your info, and for the shout out.
Best of luck with the races.
Me Three!! WT heck!! Thanks Minions you give me inspiration and hope. I can only hope to have that kind of experience some day!!
Congrats and thanks for the awesome post!
Congrats and thanks for the awesome post!
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