News & Race Reports from Team Manager David Guyatt!

Race reports are added in sequential/date order. Scroll down for 2006's Action R/C Team race reports.

CASINO - Northern Rivers Titles 1/4/06
I decided to make the trip to Casino based on the number of times the guys from there have ventured up to Brisbane for events -mainly Logan I guess.

They are always competitive and when they swept the floor with Brisbane's best at the Summer Cup in stock I thought I'd like to see what sort of a training ground these guys were running on at their home track - plus the lure of a weekend away with some Interstate friends is always too much for me. I have to say I was very disappointed with the numbers of Brisbane drivers that didn't turn up at the event, but drivers from elsewhere made up for that, Melbourne, Sydney, Dubbo, Tamworth, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay to name the ones I can remember.

The event was run like clockwork with a 2 minute gap between races and no waiting for drivers who weren't ready. This enabled 5 qualifiers and 3 final legs for everyone, right down to the D final in stock.

Qualifying was by staggered start and went of very well with a lot of courtesy being shown to faster cars (at least certainly by drivers in my heat) and I think in most heats it was the same. The finals were a bit more scrappy with 8 cars on a track with quite a narrow racing line and some quite fast sections there was quite some lexan trading happening.

In the end the best drivers won and there were generally smiles all round, congratulations to Steve Stubbins and the organising team - good job.

Heavy's Tale of Woe

I got there pretty early and had plenty of practice on the track. Right from the start I though my car was fairly good and needed virtually no set up changes. I was however chasing gear ratios right through practice and finally didn't get it right till the finals.

Qualifying went something like this for me. (memory is a bit foggy so the story might not equate exactly to the round numbers but it all happened somewhere)

Round 1:   After sitting around for 2 hours chatting with Dave Smith I got to the line for my race only to find my motor wasn't soldered in - some quick work by Darren Matthews got me to the line not too late but after a few laps my battery fell out anyway so scratch that round.

Round 2:   Being off the back of the grid even in staggered start racing is not the ideal spot especially when you have quite a few slower cars in the race, even though they were very courteous it still takes time to get by cleanly - 23 laps.

Round 3:  Slightly cleaner race for me - 24 laps.

Round 4:  Got to the grid in plenty of time but one of the other guys decided to take another lap of practice and cleaned me up from behind at warp speed = broken rear suspension arm. While I was repairing it later I thought 'wonder if anything else is cracked from that smash - should I replace the rear upright as well - no it looks ok" .

Round 5:   Oops to much chatting again - no pinion, late to the grid - 11 laps

Finally qualified 12th - 4th in the B final - amongst some amazingly talented drivers.

B Final leg 1: Think my gearing is still not correct I'll go up a pinion (all the time thinking about how often I advise people that seek my help to think about going down not up) down was right up was wrong. Anyway after a very scrappy start I got to the lead and led for the last 15 or so laps going away to finish comfortably first.

Leg 2:  The overgearing resulted in a comm skim being required so I ditched the XXX brush and decided to make a bit more power so went for a drilled 4499 brush - even ran it in on the motor checker for 3 minutes at 3 volts.  I know Scott will be proud of me for working on my car between races (Ed:...I would have been more proud if you had soldered in your motor and done up the pinion earlier...). The car was very fast now but I got bashed up at the start and for the first few laps actually - very scrappy. I finally got out of the melee and ended up 3rd. So a first and 3rd, with Peter Beckett the next best with a 2nd and 3rd.

Leg 3:   Another scrappy start and I never got out of it unscathed - finally the right rear upright broke and I will never know if it was from this race or if it was cracked from the previous incident. retired after a few laps.

S0 there you go that's my weekend. Still as enthusiastic as ever about the Mi2 EC. It's such a great car - way more potential than this driver has. The Casino track is well worth a look and I suggest if you can't get there before hand stick the Northern Rivers Titles in your diary for about this time next year. If I'm still racing 1/10th electric next year I'll be going - by the way if moneys tight you can do it in one day with an early start from Brisbane and a late night home or you can camp at the track as well - a few did.

Bayside Cup - March 25/26

The Bayside Cup for 2006 was unexplainably a little down on numbers but what we lacked in quality we more than made up for in quality.

Saturday:

This was the 540 and 19t day for electric and Gas Tourer day for Nitro (the Gas Tourer are running the new rules now at the Interclub wit a 1 hp limit.  We had no team members running gas this year, and none in 540 either thanks to Steve going against team orders and entering himself in 19t.

With Scott and heavy and Shayne all in the new EC and Steve in the older Mi2 we thought we had a good representation, and so it turned out with all 3 of the EC making the A final and Scott finishing 3rd Shayne 9th and Heavy 8th.

Steve finished 3rd in the B in his first drive of anything faster than stock. A good day was had by all until the last leg of the finals when Heavy totalled the EC in a heavy crash virtually destroying one corner of the car and ensuring he had a late night rebuilding the thing.

Sunday:

We had Scott and Shayne in Mod and Heavy and Steve in stock and looked good. Heavy set the track on fire in the first heat and with a lap to go was leading the way on target for a 17 5.07 which would have been TQ - until he rolled on the kerb coming into the straight, ending up on his lid & losing heaps of time.

At the end of qualifying it was Scott 3rd and Shayne 6th in Mod (again all the EC's into the A) and Heavy 5th and Steve 8th in Stock - all the team in the A's. Steve did a personal best for Stock 16 5m3.54 to demonstrate that the older Mi2 S1 - still available for around $350 - is still a competitive car to own.

The finals were a joy to watch - some great racing and we celebrated Scott winning one leg of the A finals in mod and finishing 3rd overall with Shayne going better in the new car as well and finishing 6th. In Stock it was left to Steve in the old car to go best and finish 5th with heavy back in 8th after an unhappy finals. Steve's Mi2 was powered by unmatched Feral 3800's & a Surge Monster and he had heaps of grunt!

Heavy spent the last qualifying run and two legs of the finals with a car that was slow and he couldn't pin the problem down - blaming first a battery, then a speedy, then a motor finally finding a broken drive pin inside a rear UJ which was causing his car to be a front wheel drive with the spool doing all the work - might be great for limp home mode but not much good with the quality and speed of that field that we there Sunday.

Overall I though that the EC acquitted itself very well for a new car - we are all running them built as per the book and with no modifications or extra parts at this stage.  Scott was delighted with the performance of his brushless (Novak 4.5) setup - able to run at the pace all day with very ordinary batteries.
 

Logan March 18

 
I was not that excited about the prospects having had a couple of Saturday nights where racing didn't happen, but I had a couple of phone calls seeking my help with learning the computer etc. so I thought "hey these guys are serious about getting this going again" so I went.
 
From the drivers stand the left hand end of the track is basically the same . The right hand end is different with a very tempting chicane followed by a much tighter one then a loop back onto the front straight. The loop is inside where the old loop was so effectively closer to the drivers stand and with the new lights almost seeable even for the old guys with no night vision left. The new covering is good, good and black, good and grippy and all round excellent.
 
There has been a pit lane created half way down the front straight - in front of the drivers stand - the only negative comment I have on that is that it causes the front straight to be more of a dog leg and if you are coming down the inside watch out cause suddenly the barrier intrudes by a meter onto the track - you get used to it.
 
There was a full heat of stock and one mod who ran with the stock and a heat of pulls start with one open nitro running with them and then there was a heat of 540.
 
The nitro guys were very excited about the surface and I think a resurgence of nitro can be expected. there were quite a few new faces in Nitro and electric which was good.
 
Unfortunately (in my opinion) Logan have an open tyre policy and in stock there were two guys running foams - one was Justin and he would have probably won every race anyway but I think foams are a little quicker. I was running a new motor so spent the three heats looking for a ratio - found it by the final and was in third comfortably about 1 sec behind the foam cars when on the second last lap I had a coming together with some  lapped traffic and got shunted over the pipes where there was no marshall and ended up 5th as a result - oh well that's racing.
 
The EC was very good and again running totally stock out of the box configuration my Sorex 36's had done 2 Wynnum meets, 1 Beaudesert and 2 hobby station meets and this one - suffice to say they are now retired. Time to get out the glue and fit up some newies for Bayside Cup next weekend. Only one other Schuie racing I think that was Josh at his first race meet in the ex Jason Wakefield Mi2. Josh is on a steep learning curve and doing well.

Hobby Station March 17

(from Scott)

With just over a month to run until the Hobbystation Invitational and Brisbane Cup we couldn't pass up the chance for another run at this challenging indoor track. Another reasonable entry tonight with small fields in Tamiya and 540 tourers and a busy 8 car heat in both stock and modified. Competition at the front of each class is tough.

Track conditions were a little slippery early with some residual dust from off-road racing the week before, but the track soon cleared things up and times came down steadily all night.

Heavy D ran in stock and set the pace throughout qualifying - the EC working great still in stock condition, and with some pretty well run-in (shall we say) Sorex 36's.  The first heat was a cracker with Stewie Milton running the older Schuie and Heavy never more than a couple of feet apart.  Awesome stuff.  Heavy got that race and then put in a couple of blinders to plonk the EC in the TQ spot, setting the scene for an awesome final.

If we thought that first heat was close, the final was intense!  The smiles were enormous as Stewie and Heavy battled within inches throughout.  Great sportsmanship and great driving, with the guys again hardly distinguishable. It didn't help anybody that both cars are identically orange! Last lap and they ran door-handle to door-handle down the front straight, the door-banging eventually sending both into a spinning, tumbling sprawl over the finish line. Nobody knew who had won, and apparently nobody cared - the laughter drowning out the computer!  As it turned out Heavy hit the line first (literally) for his second win in two events at Hobbystation.  Return bout on the 30th to see if  you can 3-peat Heavy D?

I (Scott) ran mod with a full field and some real class with guys like Peter Dooley, Anthony Atack, Damian Barnier and HS fast guy Justin Hughes.  Anthony was of course the fast guy and we spent all night chasing him.  The margin wasn't big - just a couple of tenths per lap, but it was enough. We stuck with nearly kit settings on the EC, playing tonight with sway bars, wheel-base/weight distribution and front toe. The car improved usefully though the evening and I ended up qualifying second a bit back from Anthony.  The GTB/4.5 combo was making great horsepower for me, and Damian Barnier was close to with a similar powerplant. Peter D was wrestling with old tyres and half-charged packs but feeling pretty confident in his setup for the final.

Finals time and Anthony's first mistake of the night (or so it seemed) gave me the chance to slip into the lead and set the scene for what was an absolutely classic race to drive in (and I reckon it would have been good to watch).  I defended with every trick in the book while Anthony probed and poked. Mid-race I slipped wide onto the straight and Anthony was through only to surrender the lead once more next lap.  It seemed like we were never more than millimetres apart. Finally Anthony found a chink and slid cleanly through to take a narrow but well earned win.  Mod racing was intense!  If the Brisbane Cup and Invitational produces races of this quality it will be awesome.

So another good night at HS and another good night for the Schuie Mi2-EC. This is unquestionably the best Touring Car we've ever had, and quite probably the best race car ever built by Schumacher. We like it a lot!

Hobby Station - March 3

Scott had the chance to race once over the weekend and with rain looking like spoiling the party at Logan we made a last minute choice to go to Hobby Station. We did consider Beaudesert for awhile but as Scott wanted to run mod Hobby Station got the nod.

There was a few roof leaks so the track had to rerouted around them and we ended up with a short composite track that had a lap time of about 7 seconds.

There was a good field 1 heat of Tamiya,  2 heats of stock and 1 heat (7) of mods. Our main focus was in getting Scotts new brushless 4.5 set up and tuning the car ready for the Hobby Station Invitational. Right from the outset the 4.5 looked quick and the EC looked comfortable on the track.  Scott went on to win the first two races and get the TQ from Anthony and Peter. In the final Anthony proved too good over the last minute for a good win with Scott in second.

In stock I found that the main man was Hobby Station regular Stuie Milton, he was hard to catch and even harder to best. In the first he beat me by 4 laps, in the second by 2 laps, and in the third by 1 lap and I finally had his measure for the final just beating him home by a coat of paint with a much improved Jason Wakefield in third a further 2 secs back - some excellent racing throughout the night. Good to see Schumacher cars TQ in Mod and Stock and up there for the finals with the best around.
 

Bayside R/C - February 26

After cancellation of Logan due to insufficient numbers the week before we were a bit nervous about Bayside - especially given the Pre-Worlds had run all the preceding week - not to worry however, although there were a few missing there were still 38 starters which is not a bad number for a good club day and reasonably early home - I almost got in trouble for coming home so early!

In electric there were about 7 in 540 and 10 in stock and about 7 in Mod and all classes provided good racing. The nitro numbers were down a bit too as expected however pullstart held it's end up well with 10 and about 6 in the open. Again both classes provided some exciting racing.

There were only 3 Schumacher cars going around today - Shayne in mod with the EC finished 2nd in the final after his best drive for awhile and after a long dice with John Perkins - well done Shayne!  Now we know you can do it we'll be expecting it more often. The EC looked very solid particularly in the final .

In stock I was running the EC and Steve the older version Mi2.  I won the first heat although it has to be said Jason Wakefiled was very fast and if not for some altercations with passing slower cars he would have got me. Basically three drivers were on the lead lap Jason myself and Bob Vardy so three different brands all going very well. In the end Bob got TQ with Jason second and myself third, Steve qualified 4th in a reasonably better drive than he's done for awhile. The final was all Bob with speed to burn he just pulled away from Jason and myself who finished in that order.

Another really friendly, really competitive but fun race day in the finest Bayside tradition - and no-one makes a better steak burger - well done catering team and race directing team - it's all good.

Only one more race day before the Bayside Cup - get your entry form here and don't miss this trophy event and the first round of this years Interclub Champs.
 

Brendale Grand Re-opening 11.2.06

 What a great job the guys out at Brendale have done with the track in preparation for the World Titles, and also in an effort to regenerate enthusiasm for racing in all onroad scales, both Nitro and electric. In an effort to bring 1/10th scale relativity there have been some cutouts put in that enable a track more suitable to the smaller and less powerful scales. We used one of these tracks for the Stock and Modified racing on Saturday.

The electric representation wasn't huge about 6 stock and about 10 mods I think it was. In stock Damien Barnier was dominant and I was able to easily qualify 2nd (and very happy with the EC ) but didn't stay for the finals due to other commitments. In mod Andrew Abbott was in a class of his own and the TC4 was worth watching as he carved up the track. The electric Nationals in November will be fantastic.

Bayside 12.2.06
It looked like a wash out but I thought I'm up and dressed I might as well go down the track for a chat. By the time I was half way there the rain was gone and I realised that there was going to be racing after all.  Unfortunately many others probably thought differently and stayed home. They missed some great races.

I think there were about 8 in the 540 class and 10 in stock and about 8 in mod. In 540 young Thomas Lowe dominated the finals with a great win - good to see.

In 540 The qualifying was Jason Wakefield and Bob Vardy ahead of me and that's the way the final was looking until Bob died off at about the 2 minute mark (flat battery) Jason ended up taking it out with me second and Steve in the old Mi2 in 3rd.

Not 100% sure who won the final in mod but it could have been Shayne Pearce in his EC - (will have to check that)

A good day in the finest tradition of Bayside. Next Bayside meet will be Sunday 26th which may be down on numbers depending on who runs at the Worlds Warm up the days before. Come along and have a go.
 

Logan Summer Cup - 4/5 Feb 2006

Day 1: A rare opportunity for Scott to race today - and a chance to play with the Mi2-EC for the first time in the 19T class.  It was a quiet and relaxed day with just 1 heat in each of the three classes.

The EC proved to be right on the pace of the front-runners in 19T, and we spent the day experimenting with a few different tuning options just to see what we could see.  In the finals Scott had a couple of great races with Keith, and a couple of runs ruined with a radio hit that was glitching the car straight off the track!  Changes to all sorts of electronic items failed to cure the problem.  The problem however, failed to ruin the day.  The EC is excellent - it's performance is very good, but most impressively, its performance is very accessible.  It was just easy to drive and easy to be confident in.  Roll on the 2006 racing season!

Day 2:  I started the day with the car set up as Scott left it the day before. As Scott had had some severe glitching problems the day before I turned the receiver on it's side and moved the ESC a little way from the receiver. I had no glitching all day so possibly these measures fixed it or it is something to do with the 19t that Scott was using the day before.

The car was a little twitchy for me so after a run I put the plastic wheel spacers back in to make the steering a little more docile - suited me better. In the 3rd qualifier when I thought I was on my best run I hit a stationary car flat out resulting in a severely rearranged front end. All fixed in about 10 minutes and probably won't need any new parts but maybe a bit more supa glue on a small area of delamination of the chassis - looked a lot worse than it was.

Ended up qualifying 8th for the A final which was a whole lot netter than I have been doing lately and can only say the car is a pleasure to drive - there's a lot more there than I can get out of it - better drivers will love it. At the end of the day noone could match the pace of the 4 drivers from Northern NSW - they were just too good for us. They finished the finals 1st to 4th. Scott Harris had an unhappy finals series and ended up 5th with me a very happy 6th.Wish I'd saved a good battery for the last final, wish I'd bothered to even clean my motor during the day - Oh well I'm grinning from ear to ear so -
 

The other Schumacher EC racing today was Iain Schwartz running in mod. Iain seemed to get better during the day, comfortably qualified second and came second in the finals, still a little way to go to catch the domination of Anthony Atack. Iain reports that the car is very responsive to just the smallest changes - and quicker than the Mi2 but with much less and effort..

Another great day of RC Racing - it doesn't get much better than this.

OOPS - made the mistake of having a drive of Dings 1/8th scale Nitro Offroad Buggy. What a lot of fun they are. Had to go home urgently Ding before the bug could really bite me - I AM NOT (DEFINITELY) GETTING BACK INTO OFFROAD.

Also today I sold my gas car so I can concentrate on electric this year.

David Guyatt
 

Bayside - 29 January 2006

Finally got the 2006 season underway with a great meet at Bayside. There were a few regulars missing but great to see a reasonable crowd turn out. I heat of 540, 2 of Stock, 1 of Mod, 1 of Pro Tourers, 1 of Gas Tourers and 1 of the new RTR gas class.

There were two of the new Schumacher EC making their debut today and neither had done more than a couple of laps prior to racing, I raced one in stock and Iain in Mod. My day went something like this

Race 1 - my first drive since November and it showed. I got punted onto the grass in the first lap and after marshalling was dead last - catch up laps when you are rusty never work and although I made up some ground further mistakes piled up - qualified 7th.
 

Race 2 - decided to dial out some steering and change to a more docile body -from a Mazda 6 to a Stratus. The car was a lot better and I was on target to do a good lap time when the car started slowing after 3 minutes - kept going till 4mins 53 when it stopped altogether. A pin had been working out of the rear uni joint and chewing up the rear hub - thus making the motor overwork and overheat. Fixed both rear uni prior to the third round but didn't have time to do the motor.
 

Race 3 - won this one in a reasonable time but not the fastest heat of the day - ended up qualifying 4th.

Final - after a scrappy start I actually got to the lead but was shunted from behind and ended up being marshalled off the grass. Drove back to third behind Jason Wakefield (Tamiya) and Scott Harris (X-ray) - reasonably happy with the first drive. better drivers will get plenty out of this car - there is a lot more speed through the turns than the previous car.

Can't tell much about anything else except to say Iain qualified 2nd and was an easy 2nd in the final behind Anthony Atack.

A good day - roll on some more of those.