Ig "breaking" in his LST 2 truck engine at ideal temperatures.

Sat. Feb. 10, 2007.

We had a great day today. Although his ESC died, Ig got his Nitro Losi 1/10 in the mail. Steve's lowered-down suspension and with new tires Mayhem kicked *** and cartwheeled about 15 times without injury, John's Turmoil flew off the jump about 30 feet right into his hands and later on did NOT blow the engine and will be ready to run tomorrow.

Boy did I need my Eric today! While cranking for another run, there was zero compression, and after Steve took the head off my engine and found everything good (and the piston going up and down when cranked) he kindly backed me up at HobbyTown as I went in for the grim news. We were ready to demand they take it back or something. There we dealt with Joel, "Mr. Buggy" from trailer park racing, who kindly explained my 1-way bearing was dirty. Sure enough, after looking into the bottom of the engine (I've seen both sides now) the 1-way started grabbing again. (Earlier with the the head off and no compression it didn't slip). Probably if I'd just turning the bearing backwards a llittle by hand with the starting shaft it would have started working just fine.

Coneheads Steve and Eric filling the Revo body full of snow.

From 2/25/07:

A tremendous warm and sunny day for racing fans at Milton Sat. 2/24/07. Shawn and John brought buggies and Ig and Steve had Monster trucks. (Shawn also showed us his 60 mph 4WD street racer but didn't bring his 'good' buggies because it was too cold). We mourned the loss of Eric to house cleaning. Cliff and Cam got Steve to join them in flying Cambat once, but he wisely chose to 'land' off field and put an end to distractions from racing. Flyers and racers courteously gave each other exclusive periods to run in and it seemed we were all in the same club once again.

(cont'd)

Shawn looks down on Ig's new LST and shakes his head at our ignorance. His years of experience produces gems of great advice in his non-stop commentary. See the movie where that little truck sprays him with mud head to toe!

. . . As far as I could figure it, we all won at least one race of 5 laps. We followed Shawn's idea of incorporating the downfield gullies into the track and then we learned to drive all over again. Terrain definitely took the place of the unused jump in keeping the track interesting. We expanded our regular track in size but kept the counter-clockwise direction and hourglass geometry: outside first mark, then out, in, out, out, in and then long straight. There was enough distance to go flat out for a couple of seconds. It didn't take long for all of us to learn how to avoid flipping over- mostly.

Steve's equipment catalog is growing as he rebuilds his Mayhem. Again.

. . . Ig tweaked his springs and stopped pitch-poling over whenever he used the brakes. Steve had new servos and clutch springs and John switched to a new servo and tires at the field. Shawn's blown out engine sometimes took 3 people to start: he held it on the mis-adjusted starter box, I held the shaky glow igniter and Steve milked the throttle. Despite the cartwheels, collisions, flips and rolls nobody was put out of action until late in the day. Shawn was a big help in diagnosing mechanical hiccups, funny noises and passing on years of racing experience amidst his continuous monologue.

About 4pm Steve's clutch went again, and after unpacking a parts tray with collected bearings, springs, bells, and bolts he and Shawn got to the bottom of the problem. Minutes after Steve left John's buggy made that high pitched scream and it was soon revealed that he needed clutch bearings too. But as the sun went down Ig was still going around and around . . . Sunday next day was a disaster of sleet and cold.

John's Turmoil with custom brass wing (not home-made)

At least Saturday 3/30/7 was warm and although Steve's spur gear didn't come in he brought the turn marshal team and made the most of it, flipping trucks back upright. Eric replaced his built in starter with a pull cord (and a skinned up right hand by the end of the day). Ig's LST 2 ran flawlessly despite his constant suspension and engine tuning. But we only had a few actual races over 7 hours due to various snafus. My Turmoil started well in the morning but by 4pm my engine was blown with a deep score mark down the whole cylinder: after 4 burnt-out plugs and no compression- but an ebay LST 2 motor is now on the way for $109 delivered.

I was over at Ig's freezing next afternoon and we decided to try our street tires on the 1/10 electrics on asphalt. I guess we should have called Steve and Eric but off-road tires would have been scrubbed bald . . .

I don't know if it was the 35 degree windy cold- the tires had good traction for straight ahead but if you slipped sideways you'd spin out- and spin and spin and spin. It was a little different where the bright sun was shadowed. Boy we had a blast- it was all in the braking before you get to a turn, then you coast around it. We turned down throttle and brake travel and used a real smooth 'wavy' trigger motion. It took a while to get the hang of it but we were really evenly matched. There were only 2 turnovers and no breakage at all. The batteries lasted forever, and we had to take breaks because the racing was so continuous. We were in a parking lot with floor mats for turning marks and used our usual hour glass pattern about 80' long. Maybe lengths of old fire-hose could be angled to make good turns.

This will be big fun for summer nights under the lights! Don't sell those electrics- get these:
Proline-1-10-Speed-Hawg-II-2.2-Truck-Tire