RC Racing over at Hobby Town Gilbert

Saturday, May 4th, 2013


I met my friend Dean from WolfPak Racing down at HobbyTown USA in Gilbert for some on-road RC racing.  I have been racing all off-road vehicles up to now, but my friend Dean has racing on-road RC vehicles on and on for awhile now.  Since he was racing down at HobbyTown Gilbert on Saturday, he invited me down to try some on-road racing by letting me race his son's two cars.  I would end up racing in the VTA Oval and the Sportsman Sedan classes.



All setup in the pits ready for some racing.
I have to say, these were some fun cars to drive.  The VTA car was a blast, this is a Associated TC4, and although we were fighting a electrical issue all night, this was a fun car to drive.  Although I did not do as good on the road course in the Sportsman Sedan class as I would have liked to, this was also a fun class to race in.  By the time I got to the main with the car I was finally getting the hang of the road course, and I ended up finishing in 4th in my lower main.

Looking forward to some more on-road racing in the near future, now which car to buy first?  Any suggestions?




RC Racing at Warehouse 3

Saturday, April 27th, 2013

It been awhile since I dusted off the RC's and got some racing in, so since everyone else was off doing different things this weekend, I decide what the hell, time to break out on my own.  Since I haven't had a chance to visit Warehouse 3 since they moved to their new location, I took this as the perfect opportunity to go and see the new facility.  I got there about an hour after they opened because I wanted to get in some practice time before racing started.  I have to say, this is a very nice facility, although I wish is was closer to the central part of the valley since I live on the east side in Mesa.


After practicing for a few hours I was ready for racing.  Although I originally wanted to race my TLR 22 SCT in Pro-Lite, they did not have enough to create a class, so my only option was racing with the Pro 2 guys.    For my TLR 22 Buggy, I entered into the 17.5 Buggy class.  There ended up being 2 heats of Pro2 and 2 heats of 17.5 Buggy.

The pit spots were well laid out, plenty of room and power.

Round 1:

     Pro-2
        - Did alright for round 1, finished in 4th and was sitting 7th overall.

     17.5 Buggy
        - Buggy was a little loose for round one finished 6th, and was sitting 10th overall.

Round 2:

     Pro-2
        - Made a tire change,hurt the handling, finish 5th in this heat, dropped to 8th overall.

     17.5 Buggy
        - Tire change for the buggy, much better, finished 5th, still 10th overall.

Mains:

17.5 Buggy:
  • The top 7 would start in the A-Main, and since I was in 10th overall, I would be started 3rd in the B-Main.
    • B-Main:
      • Started in 3rd, and ended up finishing 2nd and on my way to the A-Main.
    • A-Main:
      • Did not do as well as I wanted, had a few crashes, but still had a blast.
Pro2
  • Since I was sitting is 8th overall, the top 7 started the A-Main, so that put my starting 1st in the B-Main.
    • B-Main
      • I started out pretty good, I was able to hold on to 2nd and then 3rd for almost 1/2 the race, but only being a 17.5, I eventually fell out of the bump spots and was not able to make it into the A-Main.  But it was a blast to race this truck on that track, my truck absolutely loved that layout, I just wish I could have been a little faster.
        • I see a 10.5 or an 8.5 in the near future for my 22 SCT.






Upgrades to the new Super Cub plane

Saturday, April 13th, 2013

I was thinking today about my first flight with the plane, it seems that against the white clouds, it becomes somewhat hard to see the plane sometimes in the air.  So after a trip to Michaels, I purchased some foam safe spray paint, and decided to give the plane a new look.  Since I had to do some minor repairs from my first flight anyway, I decide this would be a perfect time to give the plane a new paint job.

Below are some pictures I took after painting everything up, and doing a test fit.  I had to replace the front cowl, the prop shaft, and I went ahead and replaced the motor since one of the wires on the original motor was broken.  I will try to solder on new wires to the old motor and use it as a back up.  Back to the paint job, I wanted the colors to be something that will be very noticeable while the plane is in the air, so I decided to go with yellow and black.  I still need to get a new sticker set for this one, but being this is my first plane I am learning on, I'm not going to worry about making it too fancy.  Going to be taking it out tomorrow morning for another outing with the wife.  Maybe I can get her to try to take it up for the first time tomorrow.

I wish the yellow was a little darker,
but overall I'm very happy with how it turned out.
I think this will be very easy to spot in the sky now.

I will try to post a video of tomorrows outing, as I want to try to start videoing every outing from now on.  Eventually I would like to get a camera to have on the plane while flying.



Getting in some flying time with my Super Cub DSM RC Plane

Saturday April 6th, 2013

My brother has some planes, and I was always curious to see what it would be like to fly one.  So my curiosity finally won over, and I purchased my first RC plane.  I wanted to get something that would be easy to learn to fly with and after spending a lot of time on the forums, I decide to buy a Super Cub.   This is a great starter plane for anyone getting into the RC Plane hobby.


After checking out where you can fly in the city of Mesa, which after some research is limited, unless you are a member of one of the local clubs.  Unless I am wrong, there is only one location in the City of Mesa that is legal to fly RC Planes or Helicopters, and that is Basin 114 and 116 in far East Mesa.  Basin 116 is for Airplanes and Basin 114 is for Helicopters.  I will be doing more research here in the near future to see where else I can go to fly in the Valley of the Sun.

Below is a small video of my first outing, I was only out for about an hour because the wind was blowing more then I felt comfortable with, and was really hard to control the plane in the wind.  I think my next outing will be earlier in the morning, and hopefully on a calmer day for the wind.

KBRL Finals at HobbyTown USA/SRS

Saturday January 5th, 2013

On January 5th, the KBRL Finals were held at Scottsdale RC Raceway.  Although the weather was a little bit cold, I think it was a great night of fun racing.

After missing round 6 in Tucson, I dropped a little in the points race.  For the 17.5 2WD Sportsman Buggy Class I was sitting 9th in the points at the beginning of the day, and for the 13.5 Pro-Lite Class I was sitting in 26th in the points.  After getting all setup in the pits, I was really looking forward to the racing.

Sitting in the pit, ready to race with the TLR 22 SCT and TLR 22 Buggy
On to the racing:

Round 1

13.5 2WD Pro-Lite

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Ernest Palafox    9   5:36.951   35.607
Dean Vuckovich    8   5:02.931   36.135
Frank Lilly       8   5:37.313   38.538

17.5 Sportsman 2WD Buggy

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Dean Vuckovich    9   5:29.836   34.953
Ryan Hackl        8   5:14.446   38.143
Frank Lilly       8   5:22.592   37.448


Round 2


13.5 2WD Pro-Lite

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Ernest Palafox    8   5:01.476   35.792
Dean Vuckovich    8   5:00.276   36.424
Frank Lilly       8   5:35.737   37.975



17.5 Sportsman 2WD Buggy

Driver          Laps  RaceTime  Fast Lap
Dean Vuckovich    9   5:22.657   34.506
Ryan Hackl        8   5:09.914   37.374
Frank Lilly       8   5:18.608   37.772



Mains

13.5 2WD Pro-Lite

For the Pro-Lite class I qualified in the D-Main, and would be starting in 2nd place.











For a D-Main race, this had to be the funnest round I have had in the series so far.  The truck felt amazing, I made some further cutouts in the body, and added some more weight to the front  and the kiting was gone. I started the race in 2nd place, after the first lap I was in 1st place and feeling good, I small wreck, and on lap two I crossed the line in 2nd place, back to where I started.  In lap 3, I had a brain fart, and wrecked off the triple and then again off twice more in the same lap, knocking down to last place.  But this is where is got fun, the truck just took off, and the I was doing some of the best driving I have done all year, within 3 more laps I was back into first place, another slight tumble on the last lap and I finished the race in 2nd place, and earning a bump into the C-Main.
















For the C-Main I did not do as good I wanted, and was not sure what happened, I started in 10th and finished in 10th, and I swear I wrecked on every jump and probably hit everyone at least once in the race.  Below are the rest of the Pro-Lite Mains.


















For the Pro-Lite class, I ended up finishing in 22nd overall, which was an improvement for me, I finished in 28th place overall last year in the KBRL for Pro-Lite.  Next year I hope to be in the teens or even to top 10.

17.5 Sportsman 2WD Buggy

For the buggy, I qualified for the B-Main, and would be starting in 5th place.  The race started out okay, but after the 1st lap, the car just would not turn to the right very well, and on the 4th lap after coming off the table top before the front straight-away something happened to the steering, when I cam flying down the front straight, and came across the start finish line, the buggy would not turn at all, and I almost went straight into the wall.  I pulled the buggy from the track, and the steering was locked and would not move.  There was a rock jammed up inside, and after removing the rock I was able to rejoin the race.  Unfortunately, at this time I was already 2 laps down.  I was able to finish the race, and ended up pulling 7 laps.

Below are the Mains for the Buggy class.












.

For the buggy, this was the first year that I raced it.  I ended up finishing in 8th place overall, and it was great to finish in the top 10.  Next year I want to shoot for top 5 or even top 3.

Below are some of the pictures I took during the day.

Ernest on the left and Dean on the right

Me ready for some racing

Dean showing off his Kyosho colors

Dean's black stadium truck

Ryan on the left and Tom on the right working hard in the pits