Ghostrider after yatabe vintage race

[Mr. ED]

Yes, I went to my first yatabe vintage race; on june first, and no, I didn't take pictures.
I had a fun day and the track was real cool: with lots of relief and only 1 high speed section.
But the turn-up for the vintage class was highly dis-appointing.
Aku and mr. timetunnel warned me they couldn't make it, but I had not expected only 3 drivers to participate.
Beside my own buggy, there was a re-re firedragon and a 6-gear rc10 goldtub.
So the camera stayed in the bag and I concentrated on making the best of the shake-down of my all revamped ghostrider.

(Only whish I had taken the camera out when Masami was taking a look at the car. I can't believe I didn't recognize the guy immediately! He kinda sneaked up on me from the back and wasn't wearing his glasses. does That count as an excuse? )

Anyway, here's some after-pics with the new wider geometry of both the front and rear-end, the extended wheelbase, new servo and electronics location, better tires and wheels, and longer larger volume shocks.

first qualifier run:
the first jump made both front tires lean in and I ran the entire first run thinking the to plinks had popped off.
Inspection after the run revealed the bar the front arms are mounted on was not clamped strong enough and had just rotated.

2nd qualifier run:
I managed to improvise a lock for the bar by the time of the second run, and even some improved geometry for the top links on the front too: limiting the extreme angle changes during suspension travel.
But just near the end, one of the steering knuckles locked up when i hit the inside of a curb. The marshall didn't know what to do (How do you say in japanese: "just snap it back: the servo saver is holding it" ? ) and the car was pulled off the track before the 4 minutes were over.

3rd run was interesting: as I broke a YZ-10 front steering knuckle during the practise and had only enough time to replace one side with a different design alu part.
I had lots of troubles remembering which turns needed full sway and which only half... lots of crashes.

final run:
I was all ready this time I thought: improved the lock and alu parts on both sides for equal steering response... just had to tweak the steering a bit with the new geometry and pul upp to the start line.
Wrong: I made a mistake on the tweaking and struggled with a left pulling car during the entire run. Tried to correct it without stopping the car but only made it worse and had to run the entire time counter-steering and keeping only half-throttle.
just kidding:
While I struggled a lot over the day, I was surprised to see how much difference the revamping already made, and a couple troubles are to be expected when you go and drive a scratch-build the first couple races. It could have been a lot worse and I think this car has actually great potential for an all-trailing arm design.
I'm sure it will get better still in the next runs and am rather looking forward to taking it to the next race.

[Asso_man!]

Nice Ed, lots of fun it seems! You need to practice more before attending a race to limit the bad suprises. So, did the RC10 win

[Mr. ED]

yep the rc10 won and i ended last. But next time I'll give it a bit more competition.
There was absolutely no time to test the car before the race: I just finished it the day before

Ofcourse you're right, I really need more practise, but the rainy season has started and yatabe is the only covered track: way too far away to go weekly (as if I even have the time )
The next Yatabe race is the first weekend of August, maybe I can go get some driving practise on the covered paved circuit instead

[Bormac]

Erik this car is very cool. What I think is even cooler is that you have come home to Belgium from Japan and your vintage racer has a 'YATABE ARENA' number plate still attached. Now how many people outside of Japan have one of these? Priceless!

[Mr. ED]

that sticker is long gone I'm affraid

I think I still have the memberscard though

[Bormac]

Ok let me re-phrase that then....how many can say they have a picture of their vintage racer with a Yatabe Arena number plate ......

[Bormac]

So Erik- is that a 'trackmaster' rear trans you've made C/F side plates for? Obviously Ultima rear bulkhead and tower but what chassis plate?? I like the suspension arms on this car too. Ive been wondering if the Scorpion rear trailing arms handle well on the rear of this car much like the A&L units people run on the rear of their RC10 buggies?

[Mr. ED]

Those plates were available both in carbon and alu originally. The chassis is a composite craft rc10 (sprint version).

The trailing arms are not as good as the a&L ones: too short and the shock sits too close to the hinge.
So travel is limited and longer shocks don't help much: at a certain point the angles just become too extreme. Especially down-travel is limited as the dogbones almost hit the arm.
To me the trailing arms feel a bit like if there's a built-in stabilizer. Fun for high grip tracks where the car squats rather than rolling over, but a bit hard too handle on low-grip tracks. The front trailing suspension looks cool and is what I wanted, but certainly not advisable if you want good performance.