MR-03: 2 Weeks Later...

Has it been already three MR-03 race days? Wow! I am truly enjoying this new car. It sort of has re-awakened my love for RC Racing again. I never lost interest in the business and design part of Reflex , but I'll be honest when I say that I have been burnt-out of Mini-Z Racing on an personal level since Portugal back in 2007. This past 2009 was in part, a sabatical for me since the KO Grand Prix.

Thank goodness for the MR-03! This car has such good feedback an precision, it reminds me of my years of 1/10th scale racing, when I used to race exclusively because it was my hobby. This was before any sponsorships or travel or Atomic Mods or Reflex. It was before Mini-Z really took off as a racing class. It's just such a purist's car.

As a result, I know once again find myself working on my car in between race days (something I haven't done since my days when I first starting running Mini-Z), fiending for the next track day. Last week, I even went to practice during the week... :o

Anyways, enough of my rant on nostalgic RC Times. The MR-03 is now here and the reality of it is that it continues to impress.

After my first race day, where I raced Modified Touring against Jacob, I have had to race Stock Twice due to lack of entries in Modified. My first weekend out in stock, I did not even have a motor to race with. I ended up borrowing an old style PN 70 Turn from a buddy of mine and switched my car to a 94mm wheelbase and a Ferrari F430 body to make it more suitable for stock racing.

What can I say, the car was very graceful and composed in the shorter configuration. In qualifying, eventhough I was a little bit down on power vs some of the other cars, I was able to set the Top Qualifying position in each of the three rounds, round number 2 being the quickest, where I ran 40 laps in 5:05. This was a little over two laps quicker than second place qualifier.

In the main, I took the holeshot and built a comfortable lead. About 12 laps into it, I made several mistakes on the same lap and this allowed Jacob to take the lead for about 4 or 5 laps. I pushed the car hard, and after a couple of quick laps, I managed to squeeze inside Jacob and take over the lead again. Slowly I built up a comfortable half a lap lead that seemed to stretch a bit and then see itself reduced, when I would bobble, and graze a wall or two. With about 1 minute left, I had a couple of slow laps which allowed Jacob to close in with striking distance. This was the first time I had Jacob on my bumper, and I did not feel nervous. The car was so composed and well behaved, that I sort of knew I was not going to allow for him to make a pass on me. Jacob attacked for the last 2 or 3 laps, looking for an opening, but I never flinched, running clean, defensive lines quick enough to keep him from passing me, and conservative enough not to make a mistake. At the 10 minute mark, we crossed the line freight-trainin, myself with 78 laps in 10:03.93 and Jacob with a 78 in 10:04.08, yes it was that close!

With the result, I was even more motivated. I knew the car was not yet perfect, plus the motor was sort of slow, so I knew that along with another couple of small changes, I could probably cut 0.2-0.3 seconds per lap.

So this leads us to this past weekend. During the week, I did several things to my 03. For one, I prepped a proper stock motor so that I could get up to speed with the other stock cars on the track. I also lightened my AutoScale Ferrari F430 Test body and prepped one of my older lexus SC430 bodies to compare.

During practice, I used the Lexus exclusively. The car was nimble and agile, and the motor was a screamer. I was even able to gear down 1 tooth to a 12 tooth pinion to get more punch in the infield and still had as much or even more top speed than the other cars. In the first qualifier I managed to run a 40 lap run with several mistakes during the run, my fast lap had also dropped to a 7.15 or so, which was 0.15 faster than my previous fast stock lap. This lap time, was approaching Jacob and I's modified times.

After having run the Lexus, I decided to try the Ferrari. The Lexus was great, but I wanted to compare actual times between the two bodies. I thought that the car was going to lose a bit of time on laps. (You see, a race-prepped SC430 weighs in at about 32 grams, an F430 at about 36.) To my surprise, the lap times were identical on quick lap, but the car became so much more predictable and consistent with the Ferrari. My fast lap this time was 7.14, but my overall time dropped to a 41 laps in 5:05. This time was faster than our Modified qualifying track record and 1 full lap quicker than with the Lexus.

I found that with the Ferrari I was more comfortable hugging the corners. The Ferrari slides off the RCP barriers when you come into contact with them, where the Lexus will dig into them and spin. The Lexus also tended to lose front grip when going over bumps where the Ferrari would just soak them up. This has much to do with the fact that the F430 has so much more weight over the front than the Lexus. This could be fixed with perhaps a softer front spring, but I was already running the PN Red springs, which are the softest available. :o

In the last qualifier, I had another great run with the Ferrari, bringing the TQ time even further down to a 41 5:04. Second place Jacob was a little over a lap behind, with a 40 5:07. My fast lap improved to a 7.13, which was also the fastest lap of the night. It should be noted that I ran a set of Orion 900's in this heat, in contrast to my typical R1 or Orion 750 mah batteries. They were a little down on power, but I guess not enough to make much of a difference.

For the main I was really focused. I knew my car was the fastest by about 0.3 seconds per lap. This allowed me to focus on passing car in front of me instead of worrying about who was chasing me. This has always been my racing philosophy "Pass Everyone" is what we call it; wether it is a lapped car, or a position battle, my goal is to pass as many cars as I can for 10 minutes straight. This is what I did. From the get-go I managed to pull away. Lap after lap the gap increased steadily. After about 25 laps, I had managed to lap the 2nd place car. I was so comfortable driving the car in tight areas, through traffic that it was almost surreal. Although the driving was not as clean as in the qualifiers, I still managed to stay out of trouble decently and ended up taking the victory by a little over 2 laps. My overall time was 80 laps in 10:06.84, nearly 2 laps faster than last time. :)

Our club is now going on Holiday break. Believe it or not my next official race will probably be the Tekin 1/28th scale nats in San Jose in January. I guess my next MR-03 Racing Report as well as some pictures of the car will come sometime after then... I should have some of our prototype parts available by then as well...