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Serpent race report

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Published on Wednesday, 15 May 2013 08:11

Written by Jan Larsen

Race report from the 2nd round of the Danish 1/8th electric nationals.



TQ, fastest lap (track record) and win! Here’s how it unfolded…

Contrary to round 1, I actually had the possibility of getting some practice done at the track this time. Driving a good 100+ laps (I rarely get that opportunity) meant I had developed a good setup, so my confidence level was high heading into the race. My main competitors also signed up for the race with some additional fast guys thrown in for good measure, so I was bound for a challenge.

The race setup used meant 1 timed practice of 7 mins, 4 quals of 7 mins and 3 finals of 10 mins.

Practice went well, just a matter of getting used to the car after having raced 1/10th the previous weekend. Comfortably fastest, 0.011 sec from the computer cutoff time which had to be readjusted afterwards…

Qual 1: 1.9 secs faster than my closest competitor on a single laptime and more than a lap in front on the total time. To say I was surprised with my pace is an understatement, but nevertheless I was extremely happy starting out with a decent qualifying run.

Qual 2: I timed the run over the line to begin my heat poorly which meant I got stuck behind slower cars for much of the heat. That, coupled with a few silly but costly mistakes meant I still got 1st for the round, but only by a few seconds. A round to forget even though the result was great.

Qual 3: Keeping up with the ever drying track meant I readjusted the rear camber back to -1 from -2 which I had started out on in the beginning of the day. Other than that I made no adjustments all day. The car was perfect as it had been all day and the result was another 1st for the round and thus overall TQ for the finals.

Qual 4: Having the luxury of TQ’ing with a round to spare meant I could try out some things, mainly learning to jump a fairly large, difficult jump after the start/finish straight in order to avoid competitors overtaking me in the air at the start of the finals. It worked, right until the nut holding the front shock on the shock tower magically disappeared. That spelled the end of the qualifier for me. All nuts were replaced and applied loctite afterwards to prevent further issues.
Final 1: Good start, got through the first few corners and jumps to clear the pack and immediately settled in for a steady, error free cruise for the next 10 mins. Driving at 95% focusing on keeping the tires on the dirt worked out beautifully, convincingly taking 1st, lapping the entire field. Perfect race.
Final 2: Almost a carbon copy of race 1. Good start again, clearing the first few corners and jumps without getting into trouble. Halfway in, the 2nd place guy caught trouble and retired which meant another steady, controlled, error free cruise to the finish to seal the overall victory.

Final 3: The race started out just as planned like in race 1 and 2, but this time I made the only big mistake of the entire weekend. I put it on the roof in a location where it took the marshal a lot of time to get to me. Lost about 10 secs and coupled with a few more smaller mistakes meant I never caught the leader as I ran out of time. At least my mistake meant a Serpent 1-2 on the podium, so in hindsight it wasn’t too bad afterall.

With the car working better than ever before, I’m very confident heading towards the future rounds in the championship.
As usual I’d like to thank Serpent and the Serpent DK team manager Dan @ Vinderup RC for the valuable, continued support!

Until next time!
Jan