The XRAY Touring Car Team ventured down to Aldershot for the latest round of the BRCA Championship, with the Team raring to go we were looking forward to an exciting weekend.

The Aldershot track is very popular and has, like many tracks, an element of local knowledge, and this time we had a bit of that on our side – so we were looking forward to pushing the competition all the way, and picking up some decent points for the Championship challenge.

The Team have continued to work on new style set-ups for the T3 chassis and “lightweight Lipo regulations” brought in this year, and now just before the mid point in the season that hard work is turning into on-track performances so it was great to see the strongest qualifying results in both classes by the Team – and set to continue to the end of the year.

The 10.5 Class has evolved into a super tight class and Speed Control technology is directly effecting the capabilities of drivers to push to the front of the Grid, and equally effecting poor results when Speed Controls and motors bring all the hard work to nothing with none finishes!!

RC Disco has recently claimied the distribution rights to the famous Tekin brand, and the Tekin RS / RS Pro Speed Controls are arguably ‘up there’ with the best availible, and although not an XRAY Team Driver himself, Jonny Bowden (The Defending British 10.5 Class National Champion) choose to run the RS Pro to great effect to take Pole Position and go on to take the Win on Sunday at the first time of using the Speedo!!  The comments reported back are along the lines that Jonny’s car was so fast it could’ve be forgiven for thinking he was running a Modified motor such is the efficient Timing Advance from the Tekin Speedo!!  Hmmm, i’ll look forward to trying those settings in my car…… it’s a world away from when we used to simply ‘Gear Up’ to go faster ha ha!!

Over in the Modified Class, and local XRAY boy Glenn Westwood clocked his fastest run around the Aldershot track closely followed by Phil Chambers & Stefan Chodzynski to put in the XRAY Modified Class’s best result so far. Glenn in particular was pushing for the Win come Finals day, and was unlucky to end up 2nd Overal in what was reported to be a slightly ‘messy’ series of Finals on the tight and technical layout.  Better luck next time dude!!

All in all thou, a great weekend for the Team down at Aldershot, well done guys.

For the official Report and some great action photo’s on the www.brca.org site, check out the link – Here

For further info and details on the TQ / Winning – Tekin Speed Controls click – Here

RC Disco

Our friends over at http://www.neobuggy.net/modules/news/ have reported on a great race result for the Tecnopower Engine from the Swedish Cup race over the last weekend.

Top 5 Result
1. David Ronnefalk – – Kyosho/Orion/AKA – 68/45:22.654
2. Andreas Edvinsson – – XRAY/Tecnopower/AKA – 67/45:20.053
3. Daniel Reckward – – Mugen/RB/Tourex – 67/45:23.770
4. Marcus Sandberg – – XRAY/OS/AKA – 66/45:01.559
5. Henrik Nilsson – – Losi/Orion/AKA – 66/45:02.431

See link for further details – http://www.neobuggy.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=8635

For further details on Tecnopower and availability Check the following links:-

http://www.rcdisco.com/gallery.php

http://www.tecnopower-motor.com/

Sunday the 18th was Round 5 of the UK National series, the venue being Clanfield which is now a regular in the national calander.

With the very dry weather the UK has experienced over these last few months has led to bone dry tracks which are hard to prep, this led to a slighlty bumpy surface to what we normally expect from Clanfield but still a great track.

The usual suspect would represent Xray UK in Ralls, Sawyer, Hazelwood & Williams, a slight twist to normal with a bit of arranging our recent Euro’s finalist Jerome Sartel & team mate Davy Bales made the trip from France to sample what the UK had to offer.  Unlike most other national series which is a 2 day event here in the UK its all pushed into 1 day which means little to no practice & a very busy day, its very regimental & runs like clock work but leaves no time.

Davy was plagued with radio trouble for practice & the first round so his event did not start to Rnd 2 when he could then learn the track so was up against it all day.  Bren had solid runs in Rnd 1,2 although the bumpy track caused a marshall for each run costing a top ten finish each time & dissapointing as it would relegate him to 21 & pole in the C.  Jerome & speaking with him found it hard to adapt to this rapid learning of a track which is the norm in the UK to go 20th overal. Many where shocked with this but shows our system can be very tough.  Reece topped the pile with some solid runs to go 6th overall, Jon solved an interferance problem being a broken PT wire to take 8th
overal & our Welsh Wizard Ben Williams took the 10 place making it 3 Xrays straight into the Main..  Bren battled through the C with some big names to take 3rd & a bump
into the B to join Jerome.  For the B Jerome tried a setup experiment for the now rough track which worked for him & from 10th on the grid worked his way slowly through the field to the 2nd spot & a well earned bump up spot. Bren had a good run to work his way to the 8 spot & some good points for his championship campaign.

Jerome used to a delay in the French system was forced to rush a 30 minute relax period into 7 minutes hive of activity just making the start. From the tone the race saw some poor driving with Reece taking the brunt of it & was bashed to last. Jon also took some of this but found some holes to run 6th for a long period til the bumpy track caused a steering bolt to fail. Jerome the wildy Pink Panther was now upto speed with the track & plugged away to take 4th overall. Reece after the bad start collected his composure to battle back to 8th & good point for his campaign. Ben had a good race to finish where he started.

For Xray a good result for the weekend & 4 cars in the main, Jerome commented on how hard he found it as an event with the depth of competition & the speed you have to learn the track in such a short time. 

With plans for a return later on in the series it will be good to meet up with old friends again.

Results of top final

      1 Darren Bloomfield 48/30m 6.36  Losi Eight NovaRossi

      2 Simon Willetts      48/30m 9.23  Kyosho MP9 Orion

      3 Elliott Boots         48/30m 23.66  Mugen MBX6 RB

      4 Jerome Sartel       47/30m 23.63 Xray 808 RB

      5 Richard Taylor      47/30m 24.46  Losi Eight Losi

      6 Tony Truman        46/30m 8.64  Associated RC8 Reedy

      7 Chris Doughty      46/30m 16.92  LRP S8BX LRP

      8 Reece Sawyer       46/30m 25.84  Xray 808 OS

      9 Graham Alsop      46/30m 37.51  Hot Bodies D8 RB

      10 Ben Williams      45/29m 59.69  Xray 808 GO

      11 Richard Barton    44/30m 30.87  Losi Eight 2.0 Losi

      12 Kevin Brunsden   43/30m 0.13  Durango DNX408 RB

      13 Neil Cragg          38/25m 40.37  Associated RC8 Reedy

      14 Jon Hazlewood    28/18m 19.62  Xray 808 OS

XRAY 808-2010 Spec – Team Setup Sheet

http://forum.teamxray.com/xform/index.php?act=view&ID=1357&setup=xb808

July 16th 2010 saw the Team travel the 235miles south to the Large Brooklands track in Kent.

Saturday

Practice was frustrating for both Mark and Richard who both bearing failure on their Nova Rossi .15 engines, both were had concerned it was the length of the track straight and the engines were over revving.  Both Decided to fit their Novarossi 353 .12’s in to thier Xray NT1 cars which were more suited to the high speed track. With team mate Lee Stokes help all three spent time finding a good gear ratio and clutch combination and were soon on the pace of the fastest cars.  Lee’s Novarossi 353s was simply stunning in its speed and power and was one off the fastest cars on the straight.  The Team now had a good set up on their cars and were looking forward to Sunday qualifying and final.

Sunday

Round 1
Lee was first away and placed himself 8th overall in the round and setting the fastest lap in his heat
Richard was second in the GT class and was only 1 second off the FTD; Mark was down in 9th place after an incident with a back marker put him off the track

Round 2
Lee again did a good run to take 11th in round
Richard took second in round again and Mark ran out of driver talent and hit one of the unforgiving kerbs breaking a rear wishbone.

Round 3
Lee was again 11th in round and was pushing hard to improve his time.
Mark got a good clean run to take 2nd in round with a screaming engine suffering from a late gear change. Richard this time managed to clip one of the full size road kerbs and broke a wishbone.

Round 4
Lee stokes was 9th in this round but did not improve his over all time. He ended up qualifying third in the B final.
Richard failed to make the start of the heat so sat it out knowing he was in the main A final. Richard qualified 4th overall Mark had an untimely engine cut and made the Heat but failed to finish his timed 5 minute run. Mark qualified 3th overall just piping Richard by 2 seconds.

Finals
Lee’s final was the first final to run On the start Lee held third place as was on the leaders bumpers, unfortunately a trip into the scenery saw damage to Lee’s car and he retired from the final leaving him 9th overall.

Richard and Marks final was the last one to be run. After lap 3 mark moved into second spot by lap 28 Richard had taken the lead followed by Mark, by lap 61 Mark managed to take the lead from Richard and they finished the final in that order. Both team mates were only one lap apart and Richard was nearly 3 laps clear of the third place driver.

So we had the GT class drivers of Mark and Richard with thier Xray NT1’s on the top two podium steps.

XRAY NT1 Spec here – http://www.rcdisco.com/part-info.php?partNo=XR330003

The latest round of the fantastic 8-10 Off Road Series took us to the Junction 12 dirt track near Warwick… or Junction 12 of the M40 if you’d rather!!

J12 as we call it recently hosted the BRCA Nationals race so the track had been prepared for that by Les Reeder and his merry crew. The all dirt track, although a bit dusty, was in great condition, and with a scorcing hot weekend ahead the track was looking good for some close competitive racing!!

On Saturdays practise is allowed and the (top layer of) dust was quickly removed by the cars/trucks running and the track settled down for the rest the weekend and was looking/feeling great…

Les was keen to ’save’ the track so limited practise from lunchtime through til 5pm = plenty of track time for most… but then it depends if a certain XRAY Team Driver blows his engine up and really wanted more time to run an engine in on track!! Track closed bang on 5pm, so you’ll just have to run it in around the field buddy!!

Anyway, we should move onto race day, but before we got there we had a nasty suprise early Sunday morning for those who stayed on site as we had a small fire to contend with… amazingly the on site Burger Van decided it was going to have a gas leak and promptly caught fire… not that i noticed sleeping away in my Tent a mere 10m away, i slept like a log, you’ll have to try harder to get me up early on a Sunday than that!! I should point out no-one was hurt and the Burger van, i’m told, will be back in action sometime soon – good to know!!

Well onto the racing, and rolling toward the end of the 8-10 series now and points are becoming super important, and our attendance to achieve the all importnat required 4-point-scoring-rounds would be completed by the end of this round and only the ‘Final’ double points round at Frankly left after this one – so racing was quiet serious.

It was quiet obvious from Qualifying that certain drivers had raced recently at the Nationals here, or had put in some time with practise the previous day as the pace had improved from the Nationals and Qualifying was tighter than some had expected.  I think the Top 3 in qualifying would’ve qualified straight into the B Finals at the Nationals only a few weeks before so the standard is getting serious in the 8-10 series which is great to see..

After Qualifying, which is best 2 rounds from 3 to count, it was:-

So after a tough day qualifying it was just left for the Finals, first up we needed to collect one of our XRAY drivers who decided he wanted more track time by qualifying in the D Final so he could bump up all the way to the A Final along with the rest of the XRAY Team of Greg, Leigh and Carl…. come on Milan you can make it buddy!!

The Final was pretty decent for the first part where the Top 5 / 6 drivers kept it clean and on the track and were giving it a good go up front swapping places and generally having a good old battle.  The track is wide and therefore a dive down the inside, or some experimental lines on certain sections can pay off, however wide off line and you will quickly get into the thick dusty area swept away the previous day, and time can be lost just wheelspinning out’ve there!!

Just before the 1st pit stops and the Top 6 had dropped down to a tight battle between the Top 4 and the scrap continued between myself (Greg), Steven, Carl and Corky, however at this stage Steven was showing good pace and i was already considering ’settling for the points’ if i needed to – 2nd place is better than a lot of other places, and points are making prizes at this time of year – although there was still alot of racing to be done!!

Steven was the first to suffer and had a engine ‘flame out’ which was really unlucky as he was a couple of seconds ahead at the time, but the race (between us) was looking like lasting the whole 20 minutes until that happened, and in reality at that stage as i say, Steven was looking strong, if not the quickest out there… Unfortunate as that is, it is part of our racing and for whatever reason Steven’s engine cut, it did cut and that usually puts you right out’ve contention, and at that stage after a few pit stops now i was clear out front and had a decent gap to 2nd and so i started to relax and try not to make any mistakes for the rest of the race and just concerntrate on bringing my car home with no drama’s!!

Approaching the last minute of the race i thought i knew i had a clear lead, however Corky had kept his pace up and was litterally a few seconds behind as i started my last lap, out the corner of my eye though i could see that noone else had crossed the timing loop after me (before race control called to finish your laps) – i was through and i knew i couldn’t lose…. and promptly crashed on the table top trying a larger than normal celebratory jump!!  Kinda shows we generally drive as fast as we can all the time, so when you push it harder all you do is end up crashing….

I should give a special mention to Milan who after trying to make really hard work of the day racing ended up an excellent 3rd place overall, so well done buddy you did make it after all!!  And an unlucky Steven Childerhouse who had the cut when running strong up front pulled back to a very credible 4th… i’m sure there’s plenty of racing to be done at Frankly, and i cant wait!!! 

Greg’s Winning – Tecnopower’d XRAY 808-2010 car

A Final Results

A Final – Top 3

Greg Hill

Rob Cork

Milan Dragojlovic (I might just call you Milan in the future its much easier)

Cheers – RC Disco

Thanks to Race Central for putting on the event and for the Tech Chart / Images – www.racecentral.org

Alternative Report is found here – http://www.racecentral.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=48

Thanks to – www.neobuggy.net for the images

Sunday the 11th of July saw Rnd 4 of the UK SRS series, the venue was Herts
which over these last few years has grown into one of the best dirt tracks
in the UK.

The hot dry weather over this last month has baked the surface
rock hard so it does not wear or deteriorate, but leaves a flat surface
that is very predictable & great to race on although gives a high tyre wear
but is a small price to pay for the pleasure.

Some 90 odd drivers attended this meeting meaning the competition would be fierce even with some of the
pro’s away at the Euro’s. Team Xray was pretty depleted for this event so it was
Bren left flying the flag for our corner but was happy & confident with the car.

Rnd 1 & typically at these events an extra 4 minutes is given before the
start on the first run as a warm up to learn the track as time is to short &
does not allow for a true practice or re seed . The out laps where fast & a
good run but for two errors cost Bren dear so he went 6th in round. I knew I
was up against it as I found out that most of the top runners had been
running on the track most evenings that week so knew it like the back of
there hands. The balance of my car felt good so only a tyre change on the
cards & hopefully a mistake free run.

Rnd 2 the tyres worked a dream & the mistake free part was spot on, the
slower car in front I had not planned for & this lost time at the beginning
with a slower car holding me up till I passed so had to settle for 2nd in
round ½ a second of tq, if only but we can all say but if.

Rnd 3 with a main place guaranteed tried a different setup to normal & this
just released the car further making it feel on rails taking tq in that round by 5 seconds.

For the main knew I just had to be patient & bide my time & get around the
first few turns clean, this I did & got away clean braking away from the
field with local wizard to the track Mark Tatman. The battle with Mark was
great where he led just up to the half way point & only fuel stop at 10
minutes, just prior to the stop I took the lead & with a quick re fill
gained a few seconds & a small buffer. The gap stayed at 5 seconds until 2
minutes to go where Mark closed the gap & was just on my tail, from here I
just shut up shop knowing he would have to work hard & go around the outside
to make any pass. As hard as he tried there was no way through which
eventually forced him into an error 3 turns from home allowing me to relax &
cruise the last few turns & take the Win.

      1 Brennan Ralls 29/20m 28.67 42.37 Xray 808 OS Speed

      2 Mark Tatman 29/20m 34.00 42.55 losi 8ight2.0 eu Nitrotec R21

      3 Mark Stiles 28/20m 11.74 43.28 Losi Eight 2.0 Aplha

      4 Oli O’Connor 28/20m 20.88 43.6 Xray 808 OS Speed

      5 Mark Tarrier 28/20m 34.80 44.1 losi 8ight2.0 eu novarossi plus 21-4t

      6 Nick Hill 28/20m 36.58 44.16 Mugen MBX6 RB

      7 Darren Hayden-ball 28/20m 42.19 44.36 losi 8ight2.0 eu Nitrotec R21

      8 Pete Stevens 27/20m 17.59 45.1 Mugen MBX6 OS Speed

      9 Karl Jackson 26/18m 25.97 42.54 Mugen MBX6 Nitrotec R21

      10 Steve Johnson 26/20m 14.72 46.72 Mugen MBX6 novarossi plus 21-4t

      11 Janos Nagy 23/17m 41.64 46.16 losi 8ight2.0 eu Aplha

      12 Simon Turner 18/13m 30.56 45.03 Kyosho MP-9 orion

      13 Jim Thompson 14/11m 3.10 47.36 Losi Eight 2.0 Novarossi

      14 Michael Waller 9/ 6m 31.85 43.54 Kyosho MP-9 Sirio

Set up sheet

http://forum.teamxray.com/xform/index.php?act=view&ID=1349&setup=xb808

An enjoyable race & fitting end to a great day & track thanks Herts.
Thanks also to Xray, Hudy, RC Disco, KO, Piraterc, Custom blitz

Thanks to www.piraterc.com for the images