[Graham]

Photoshoot PT2

Oxo Cube
Cat 1 Ninco BMW X5
   

Cat 2 SCX VW Tourareg
   

Groundhogs
Cat 3 Mitoos Fordster (Don't ask!)
Was supposed to have been a van but the intended body broke.
   

Woodcote
Cat 1 Ninco BMW X5
   

Cat 2 SCX Sandbuggy
   

GPA113 
Cat 1 Ninco VW Tourareg
   

BAracing
Cat 2 SCX Sandbuggy
   

Cat 3 VW Tourareg
   

Cat 4 Mitoos Mann Truck
   

there is still 4 more to come, hopefully tomorrow

[Graham]

The final Dakar Rally Vehicles have arrived.

Hotlap
Cat 1 Ninco Mitsubishi Pajero
   

Cat 3 Avant Mitsubishi Lancer
   

JamesA
Cat 1 Ninco Bowler
   

Cat 3 Avant Mitsubishi Lancer
   

[Graham]

The 1st Stage will be on my "spen Brook" Rally track (as it seemed to work quite well in the past for these Raid cars).

The temperatures here have at last normalised so it's a good time to run this Stage in my garage, and hopefully I will run the vehicles later today.

[BAracer]

Any luck?

[Graham]

Any luck?

All completed today, but sent you a pm about your Truck which has developed motor problems 

[BAracer]

Pit crew ready and waiting.

[Graham]

 Good evening,
so after a day of high drama, I have the results of the Stage 1.

   


                        

General comments
Category 1
We started the day with some loose wheels on Roadrunners Bowler, and GPA113 VW Tourareg, which needed gluing on.
Category 2
Woodcotes Sandbuggy a wire fell out of the eyelet and I had to carefully refit with a bit of solder. Also Oxo Cube VW Tourareg has a loose eyelet, which could lead to running issues later on.
Category 3 
JamesA Mitsubishi Lancer, interior has collapsed.
Category 4
Major motor issue with BAracing Mann Truck.

I will issue a further report and Videos later this week.

I am also looking at the feasibility of running a Stage on my SCX Targa Florio Hillclimb track with some changes tomorrow, but I am not overly confident that this is feasible. My old SCX & Ninco Raid tracks are now at Whitchurch which should be our next Round in roughly a weeks time.

[Graham]

Spen Brook - Stage 1 Report
So started this morning, with Category 1 vehicles.
Bangers Racing / Mitsubishi Pajero was very  smooth, and in fact was the fastest around this track.
Roadrunners /Bowler was to run 2nd but the rear wheel fell off during the practise run, also found a front wheel loose so had to put that car aside for a while. Eventually ran it but the impression was that it was not the most stable of the Cat1 cars run.
Hotlap / Mitsubishi Pajero Evo ran fast but rattled along as the body was intentionally loose on the chassis.
Woodcote/ BMW X5 was sensitive to front end deslotting, so had to run abit slower.
JamesA / Bowler to me this was the smoothest one of the category, and held the track really well, don't know quite why it came 3rd probably deserved better.
GPA113 / VW Tourareg, not the smoothest but stability wise it was easier to perhaps throw around than the others, so a well deserved 2nd place.
NERC / Mitsubishi Pajero (Van type), loved this model handled better than I expected and seemed a lot quicker than the recorded result, pleasure to drive.
Oxo Cube / BMW X5, this had soft braids which needed some adjustment to get consistent contact, not the most stable of Ninco models.
PaulC / Mitsubishi Pajero Evo, seemed to run smoothly so surprised it did not fair better.

Category 2
Roadrunners / Nissan Patrol, difficult to run fast as easily deslots, probably one of my worse decisions to run this car, but not seen this one entered in our proxies before, so I thought I would go for it .....umm
BAracing / Sandbuggy, you really need to be careful on some corners with this one, front lifts too easily on the long drop arm, sending it off.
PaulC / VW Tourareg, this model has previous winning form with the pevious proxies, very quick, smooth and eaasy to run. Not surprised it was a winner today.
NERC / Peugeot 405, similar to the Patrol, not the easiest to keep in the slot.
Bangers Racing / Mitsubishi Pajero Evo, a surprise of the day as I expected better but was quite wild to run and unlike it's Ninco equivalent appeared less planted at the front.
Oxo Cube / VW Tourareg, started with zero power during practise, but found that an eyelet was loose, the problem is that the model was originally fitted with thicker braids, so the eyelet is just too loose with the thinner NSR soft ones fit. Once the eyelet was pushed back in the car run very well, but I think the eyelet isssue will need looking at as I can see this coming out during every Stage otherwise. Managed 3rd but perhaps should have been better with a tighter eyelet.
Woodcote / Sandbuggy, during the practise run one of the eyelet wires broke off, so had to carefully pull through a little more wire to relocate in the eyelet. The wire is very fine so had to add a little solder onto the wire to attach to the eyelet. However once up and running appeared to run better than the other Sandbuggy, and bagged 2nd place.

Category 3
JamesA / Mitsubishi Lancer, frantically ran around and was very stable, even with the interior and glazing rattling about inside the body, I was surprised it came in 1st place. I will need to see if I can fix the inside bits in place.
BAracing / VW Tourareg, nice run but a little light at the front. Interesting combination of Olifer Chassis with a Raid car model.
Bangers Racing / Landrover, with modified Ninco chassis and Mitoos motor and wheels, great to run, very smooth but struggled on one raised section of the is track
NERC / Mitsubishi Laancer, similar to the other Avants, but this one had stiff locked suspension, so not quite as versatile as the others perhaps.
Roadrunners / Mini Buggy, well after all the effort building the damm thing, it let me down on the track, very wide for a MINI, but I also think the running gear is not well balanced after I had to replace the pinion, seems tight.
Groundhogs / Fordster, actually a Van in disguise, or to be precise was the original chassis used for the AA van in a previous Raid Proxy. Somehow the original body got cracked and broken, so it was huridly replaced with the "Fordster" body.
Hotlap / Mitsubishi Lancer, similar care free run as with James version, easy 2nd place.

Category 4
Well it should have been a great battle of the TWO trucks.....
Roadrunners / Merc Truck, running somewhat faster than my MINI 
BAracing / Mann Truck, managed a run for practise and I was up to give it my all, but sadly it came to a stop towards the end....and is now heading back to the garage for a new motor.

What an anticlimax to a great day's racing 

[Graham]

So what if.......

There was two things on my mind overnight
The 1st was would my Odyssey with the Mitoos chassis from the previous proxies have run better than the Mini ?
The 2nd thought was if the Avant truck of BAracer had run would it have run well.

So since my track is still set up I decided to investigate.

The answer to the 1st question is yes, the Odyssey certainly certainly ran better than the Mini, at least until the pinion gear gave up (this seems to be a common issue with the Mitoos chassis based models 

The second question could be answered as I do indeed have exactly the same Avant Truck with Mitoos chassis but never run it on any track, so I am waiting to try this out once and video it, once my phone has been recharged.

[BAracer]

Will be interested to hear how your MAN truck runs...

Your message about the failed motor confused me at first as I thought it was a standard Mitoos one, but your note about it being unwrapped did ring a faint bell in my memory. Fortunately, PSR had the spec Mitoos M6+ motor in stock, one of which is winging its way to me as I type. Hopefully I will be able to return the truck to you before you rack up an unassailable lead!

Out of interest, I spent a lot of time recently playing with shock absorbers on the truck, trying different spring strengths and lengths. This is something that you can do on a 'Pro' Mitoos chassis. My gut feeling was I got it to behave more to my liking, which hopefully will translate into a better performance than in the previous Extreme Proxy. 

Anyhow, a bit of work to be done before all that can be assessed!