Club Racing at Hobbytown USA / SRS

Saturday March 31st, 2012

Headed out to SRS Hobbytown USA for some Saturday night club racing.  I carpooled to SRS with my friends from Wolf Pak Racing, and we got there around 2pm for we could get in a little practice.  I have not been to this track since they changed the layout for the Cactus Classic, which I regret not entering, but I plan on making the race next year, guaranteed.  Dean from Wolfpak racing made the race this year, and you can see his full right up of the weekend over at the Wolfpak Racing blog.

After getting our pit stall all setup, it was some time for some practice. I decided to get by HPI Blitz out, and try to see how it would fair.  Unfortunately for me, after 3-4 laps of practice, I tried to be brave and jump the big triple in front of the drivers stand, and broke my rear body posts off the truck.  So I decided to retire the truck for the night and break out my TLR Losi 22.  After about 4 laps, I felt really comfortable with the buggy.  It was handling great, and I was consistently hitting the triple without too much trouble.

For this nights racing, Dean and Dragi from Wolfpak and myself all decided to enter the novice open wheel class.  We were hoping to get in some good practice as we were all pretty much green on the new track layout.  We were also hoping that we would be racing with only open wheel vehicles, but unfortunately they decided to throw together all the novice entries, so we had pretty much every type of vehicle in the race, sigh.

On to the racing:

Round 1 (5 min Qualifier):
For round 1 I started of great, and was in first for about the first 3 laps, then I had a bad tumble over the big triple, and relented the lead over to Dean, after that I could nor catch him, and I ended up finishing in second.  Unfortunately for Dragi he broke after 2 laps, and he was looking forward to improving in round 2.

Name:            Laps  Time  Fast Lap
-------------------------------------
Dean Vuckovich    10   5:22  31.549
Frank Lilly        9   5:32  34.637
Dragi Vuckovich    2   1:13  41.636


At the end of round 1 of racing, there was two groups of 9 drivers.  Dean had the TQ, and was in 1st overall, I was in 4th overall for the A-Main.

Round 2 (5 min Qualifier):
For round 2, I drove about the same, and pulled 9 laps, but had a few hangups/bang-ups with some short course trucks that slowed me down some.  Dean unfortunately broke on lap 5, and Dragi had a bad jump, and something went wrong with his steering, he finished the race, but was only able to pull 5 laps.

Name:            Laps  Time  Fast Lap
-------------------------------------
Frank Lilly        9   5:43  33.073
Dean Vuckovich     5   2:41  34.361
Dragi Vuckovich    5   5:22  50.475

At the end of round 2 of qualifying, Dean still had TQ and was holding on the the first spot, and i had dropped to 5th place overall.

B-Main (5 min):

I wish I was able to get better pictures for the results sheet.  Dragi ended up finishing 2nd in the B-Main.












A-Main (5 min):

Dean had a great start for the race, and was having a great battle between him and Austin, but in the end, Dean pulled out for the victory.  I had a horrible start to the race, and was tangled up in the big first turn crash, and then tumbled big time over the triple, and crossed over the starting line in last place on the first lap.  I was able to make up a lot of ground and was able to finish in 5th place, once again with 9 laps.

RC Racing at Warehouse 3

Friday, February 24th, 2012

Got in another great night of racing over at Warehouse 3 in Phoenix on Friday night.  This time I decided to just concentrate on racing my new TLR 22 Buggy, so i left the SC Truck at home.  Friday night I was met down at Warehouse 3 with my friends from Wolfpak racing (Dean and Dragi), and I was looking froward to seeing Dean's new Kyosho RB5 on the track.  This would be the second time that I was able to race my new TLR 22, and I looked forward to getting in some good racing and much needed practice.

Dragi from Wolfpak on the left, and my daughter Laura on the right, all setup in the pits.

Since I am still new to racing my new TLR 22, I decided to join my friend Dragi from Wolfpak Racing and enter into the Novice 2WD Buggy class.  Once again I had my little cheering section, my daughter Laura decided to come along tonight and watch me race.


Novice 2WD Buggy - Round 1
Round 1 went okay, I had a few spills over some of the jumps, still getting used to jumping the buggy compared to jumping my short course truck.  Overall not bad, i finished in 3rd, 1 lap down from the leaders.

Qualifier Round 1 - (5 min - 4 racers):

Name:    Laps  Time  Fast Lap
-----------------------------

Dragi     19   5:03   14.72
Schreck   19   5:13   14.25
Frank     18   5:11   14.64
Kerri     16   5:04   16.02

=============================

Novice 2WD Buggy - Round 2
Round 2 went a lot smoother, I was able to stay on the lead lap, and although finished with the same time, I was able to improve by an entire lap, and finished in 3rd with 19 laps.  Kerri also made a big improvement over the first round pulling 18 laps, a 2 lap improvement over round 1.

Qualifier Round 2 - (5 min - 4 racers):

Name:    Laps  Time  Fast Lap
-----------------------------

Schreck   19   5:05   14.09
Dragi     19   5:10   14.74
Frank     19   5:11   14.19
Kerri     18   5:16   14.70

=============================


Novice 2WD Buggy - A Main
The A-Main started out very badly for the first lap, but after that we all settled down, but it was too late, Dragi was way out in front riding on rails in front of us.  Schreck had problems with his motor and pulled off early, but was able to come back into the race.  I was able to make up some time, and finished in 2nd 1 lap down with 19 laps.  Congrats to Dragi from Wolpak Racing for getting his first ever A-Main win with his buggy. WOOT.

A-Main - (5 min - 4 racers):

Name:    Laps  Time  Fast Lap
-----------------------------

Dragi     19   5:00   14.64
Frank     18   5:13   14.62
Kerri     15   5:00   17.29
Schreck   13   4:59   14.27

=============================

KBRL 2011 Finals at Fear Farm

Saturday, February 11th, 2012

This Saturday was the final round of the KBRL series, and it did not disappoint. I would like to thank Dean from Wolfpak Racing for allowing me to share a ride to the event and for sharing pit space together. This was the first large scale series that I have raced, and the experience that I gained has been outstanding.  I am looking forward for KBRL 2012.  The day started early, and we pretty much pitted in the same spot we did for round 2 of the series, which was nice because we had a good view of the entire setup, and could see out pit space from the drivers stand.  Below is a picture I snapped of the pit space.

Dragi from Wolfpak Racing getting ready.

For the KBRL finals, they made a new track layout, I took a panoramic shot of the layout:

New layout looked great.

The day started out with some practice time.  I was racing my HPI Blitz in the Pro-Lite class for this series, and I was also going to be entering my new TLR 22 into the 13.5 Buggy class.  BUT!!!!! OUCH!!! During practice with the TLR 22 I took a bad bounce in the middle section and came down hard on the pipe breaking the rear camber blockTLR2051.  Unfortunately, I did not have a replacement with me, so the day ended early for my TLR 22, sigh.  But on a positive note, my truck seemed to be handling the new track layout okay.

For the series I ended up finishing in 28th place out of 78 Pro-Lite drivers that had raced in the series at one time or another.  About 40 drivers raced in 2 or more of the series events.  This being my first time entering such a series I feel that I did alright, and my goal for the 2012 KBRL would be to try and crack into the top 20, or possibly the top 10.  For a full breakdown of the 2011 KBRL you can go too: http://www.racekbrl.com/ or click the logo below:

Now onto the final results for Saturdays racing:

Round 1 Qualifying:
The first round of qualifying went okay, I ended up pulling 9 laps, and finishing off in 7th place.  I had a few bad jumps off the double after the start/finish line that I just could not get a handle on all night.


Driver Laps RaceTime

Frank Lilly         9    5:16.840

Here is a video Dragi from Wolfpak Racing took of me while I was running my HPI Blitz in Round 1 of qualifying:

Round 2 Qualifying:
The second round seemed to be a little smoother, but the result was about the same, and I ended up losing about 4 secs.  These results would place me into the D-Main.


Driver Laps RaceTime
Frank Lilly 9 5:22.909


D-Main:
I finished 4th in the D-Main, and would not make the bump. I did include all the mains for the pro-lite finals below. There was a lot of good drivers out there that day.

C-Main:

B-Main:

Triple A-Mains:

A-1

A-2

A-3

This was a fun series, and I got to meet a lot of very cool people in the process.  I am looking forward to the next KBRL, and also looking forward to entering some of the other point series here in Arizona.

Friday night racing at Warehouse 3

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

Got in another Friday night of great racing at Warehouse 3 in Phoenix. This was round 3 of the Friday night point series, and the crowd was awesome , in fact it was a record night for the amount of racers that showed up.  My friends Dean and Dragi from Wolfpak Racing made the trip up to Phoenix to join in the racing fun, you can follow them on their blog at http://www.wolfpakracing.com/. I had just finished my new TLR 22 buggy on that Wednesday, and was itching to get it on the track for some racing.

All setup in the pits, and ready to race.

This Friday night I decided not to run my truck, and concentrate on just racing my new buggy.  I had entered into the 2WD 13.5 Buggy class, both Dean and Dragi had also entered into this class.

Qualifier Round 1 - (5 min - 5 racers):

Name:  Laps  Time  Place

Frank   19   5:20   5th

================================

Qualifier Round 2 - (5 min - 5 racers):

Name:  Laps  Time  Place

Frank   20   5:06   4th

================================

C-Main - (5 min - 4 racers):

Name:  Laps  Time  Place
Frank   20   5:08   1st
================================

B-Main - (5 min - 6 racers):

Name:  Laps  Time  Place
Frank   19   5:00   4th
================================

A-Main - (5 min):

Name:  Laps  Time  Place
Frank  Hopefully next week

For my first time out racing my buggy I feel I did pretty good, and I am looking forward to next Friday and Saturday, as it will be a busy weekend of racing.  Friday night point series racing at Warehouse 3, and then on Saturday the final round of the KBRL series.  I plan on racing both the truck and the buggy both days.

Below is some pictures I took when I was finishing my buggy off Wednesday night.

Working on the finishing touches.

 

TLR 22 Buggy Build - Finished

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Well, its been a long week of waiting, but my TLR 22 Buggy is now in its finishing stages.  My 22 will be making it debut race this Friday night at Warehouse 3 in Phoenix.

The build went very well for being my first time ever building a complete RC vehicle from a kit.  I had a blast, and learned a lot with building each component.  I would like to thank my friends Dean from Wolfpak Racing and Ed for helping me mount the electronics into the buggy, that is still my weak spot, I suck at soldering.

So here is the final result of the build:

Motor:       Novak Ballistic 13.5
ESC:         GTB 2 Sportsman
Receiver:    Spektrum SR3520
Servo:       Spektrum S6040
Transmitter: Spektrum DX3C


The reason I went with the GTB 2 sportsman for my ESC was that I run in stock 13.5 classes, which most all the tracks in the Phoenix area run with no boost/timing in the speed control.  This system will be a great way for me to start in these classes and not worry about not making tech.  Once I get more comfortable with my driving skills, and want to switch to a mod class, I will upgrade then at that time.  Until then, I am still on the learning curve.

Here are some more photos I took when finishing up the buggy:

Our cat Sassy decided to try and lend a paw.

Motor and trans in, ESC all connected to the motor thanks to Dean

Body all trimmed, rest of electronics placed and shocks and tires done.

Body painted, decals will come tomorrow.