So after the initial shakedown run with the 13.5 motor I managed to source a cheap (relatively) 2nd hand 8.5 Orion Vortex brushless motor (It was agreed amongst the vintage racers that an 8.5 would be our fastest allowed motor wind) with this installed into the JRX2 last Tuesday, I set off to race at the same club/track where I did my shakedown run two weeks previous. I was hoping that a few of the other guys had managed to get their vintage cars ready so that we could have a heat of our own but unfortunately I was the only one, so had to join in with the rest of the 40-odd 2wd racers (we just run 'modified' open class - no stock class here
)
Anyway I am please to report that the car yet again ran faultlessly throughout the meeting. I made a couple of changes during the night - the first was to go up again on the rear spring rate - to Losi blues, when I first ran the car with the 13.5 on pink springs (that I would normally run on my XX) It rolled alot from the rear causing front inside wheels to lift during cornering, swapping to red springs cured this, but the extra speed of the 8.5 mean't that I was going into corners faster & the rear end 'roll' re-appeared - the blue spings stiffened up the rear yet again & stopped it from rolling so much that it lifts front wheels! I also added yet more lead weight on the front end - theres approx' 50g-60g now stuck either inside or on-top of the front bulkhead! To try & tame the on-power understeer.
I did the rear spring swap just before my first heat & didn't have time to adjust the ride height which mean't that it sat a little high at the rear causing a couple of grip-roll moments - for the rest if the night I ran the car lower & I must admit it handled really sweetly especially considering that it is running all the original JRX2 geometrys - it even has the stock pistons inside the shocks with 30wt oil front & rear.
I ended up qualifying 18th out of 40 (or 8th in the 'B' final) which I was really pleased with. With my modern car I would normally expect to qualify somewhere in the middle to the bottom of the 'A' - although on this particular night we had three of the UK top drivers all battling it out for top-spot (Darren Bloomfield, Tom Cockeril & David Poulter)
Onto my final & starting lower down the grid sometimes is an advantage as you can sit back & try to avoid the usual first corner/lap carnage - which is what I managed to do, working my way up to 3rd & managing to hold onto that position until the end!
Here's a little video that my mate took with my phone of my car in the B final - he's not the greatest cameraman & the phone doesn't give the clearest picture, but you get the idea!
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