CRE Raceway…
This year there was a new event, perhaps to become an annual thing that was to be held at the CRE raceway in Winnipeg, Canada. The race was put together through the Serpent US and also Serpent Canadian distributor. They also just so happen to distribute Nova Rossi in there prospective regions. I was invited to the event as a competitor and to represent Serpent in an evolving market.
I had never gone to Winnipeg before, so it was a new place, new track and a lot of new faces. The track was built next to a family fun center that had go karts, batting cages and all sorts of other fun things for families to do. Naturally this was a great location due to the potential spectators and or faces that have never seen RC racing before. The track was a medium size track that used dark rich riverbed clay. The traction was amazing and the dirt was extremely smooth. Whether the track be wet or dry the surface had all sorts of grip. Some of the cars were grip rolling at the end of the main straight and in a few tough turns. The track also had a large variety of obstacles which included a dragon back section, triple step-up, whoops and even a off camber turn or two.
On practice day the traction was superb and all the Serpent cars were working really well. At this track my car was pretty new and I had created a new base setup to see where I could progress it to. A lot of the times, when I feel like I run into a wall, I start over and see where I can take the ar in a new direction. Overall my car had really good steering and traction. The balance was good as well as how well it performed through the uneven parts of the track. I really only messed with shock fluid and camber links for this trip. I found that on this surface in the rear, the best camber link was 3-b, while I liked the shocks in the B hole on the arm in both the front and rear. I ran pretty standard oils found on a lot of my setup sheets. I this time was running our new diff gears and had to run a lot different diff oils. 9000 fr, 12000 center, 6000 rear.I thought this worked really well for me. After our first day of practice, I felt the Proline blockades in m3 compound were the best bet and were really gripping the dirt well.
At the end of practice or at least near the end, a monsoon ripped into town and completely flooded the track. To say the least the track was completely under water on Saturday and we could not even qualify. The weather was to be better on Sunday and we decided that we would try to run the event all in one day on a shortened schedule.
As we arrived on Sunday the track actually was in decent shape overall, but in one area they had to eliminate one flooded section. The track surface was eroded away and now you could see lots of rocks and actually made for an entirely new racing surface. With the erosion, the track still had amazing traction, but now was really hard on the tires. You were going through a set of blockades in under 15 minutes of usage. I had to switch from m3 to m2 compound, for better wear resistance.
Overall, my qualifiers went ok, the first and second were a bit shady, and then finally in the third it seemed I had the new layout and track condition down.
As we went into the final, I had tq’ed and Paul Ciccarello was 3rd in the buggy class. Paul actually tq’ed truggy.
The truggy final started and Paul was off like a rocket, he led most of the event until he had a mechanical issue that forced him to retire from the final.
In the buggy final my setup was literally perfect, I ran the 30 minute final with less than 5 mistakes. The Cobra was really handling well in the final and could have probably driven itself. Many of the drivers were struggling with over steer, while my car was perfectly glued to the track. I led the final start to finish and was happy to see the event and all of our teams hard work pay off.
I want to say thanks to Neil and John for all there hospitality and for driving Paul and myself around all weekend. You guys have a really great thing going up there and I wish you the best.
Sincerely,
Billy Easton