Mike Swauger was racing the new Mugen MRX5 at the Great Lakes Challenge. To say he was fast would be an under-statement, but then again, Mikey is always fast. I had a chance to take many photos of Mike’s car (right off the track!), as well as to talk to Robbie Collins about what the new features do for the racer.

Servicing the MRX5 is faster and easier than before. With the new design, changing the front belt takes no more than ten minutes. Changing the rear belt can be done in half that time. An added benefit for racers is that bodies that fit on the MRX4 also fit onto the MRX5 with no changes. This means if you already have a collection of bodies and upgrade to the new car, your existing bodies will fit perfectly.

Here is a list of what has been changed on the MRX5, along with photos. Click on any photo to see the enlarged view.

Radio Tray
The radio tray is now mounted on bearings that allow the tray to move around; it now has the ability to move side to side which provides more steering. The radio tray can now be removed from the car more quickly - only three easily accessible screws hold it in place. This simplifies cleaning the car.

Two-Speed Shaft and Standoffs
The MRX5 has a larger diameter two speed shaft. This allows larger bearings to be used, increasing bearing life. The MRX5 two-speed shaft is now mounted in separate standoffs. This change not only cuts the time needed to get to the rear belt in half, it also adds "flex" to the chassis in a way that improves the handling of the car.

Dan Louis showed up in Toledo for the Great Lakes Challenge with a new design for four-wheel-drive-braking on 1/8 scale on-road cars. This kind of brake system used to be illegal for this class (because of the likely high cost). I was told the rule was removed from the ROAR rulebook, but still remains in the IFMAR rules.

Dan has been inventing new parts for R/C race cars for 35 years now. He came up with an ingenious method to fit four-wheel-braking to his 1/8 Shepherd CEFX Version race car. This is just the latest in a long line of designs he has thought up and turned into reality.

The front wheel brakes (click image to see larger view)

A view of the whole car (click image to see larger view)

The 12th running of the Great Lakes Challenge fuel on-road race was held the last week of August at the "One Eighth Racers" permanent track in Toledo, Ohio. The track size is 110’ by 230’, with a driving line 956 feet long. Lap times for 1/8 scale cars are typically in the 18-19 second range. The lap times for 1/10 cars are typically 20-21 seconds. Classes included 1/10 200mm 4-wheel-drive Sedan, 1/8 4WD Masters Class, 1/8 4WD Open Class, and GT Class (1/8 Off-road buggies on steroids).

The GLC is probably the single biggest on-road car race currently being held in the USA. Weather was perfect as the race started, with the thermometer climbing higher each day. If it's a choice between "hot" and "wet", the club got real lucky this year. As to local interest, none of the Toledo newspapers showed up to cover the race, but it was nice to see a huge sign posted in front of a gas station across the street from the track saying "Welcome Great Lakes Challenge Racers"! The parking lot around the track quickly filled up with cars, vans, campers, trucks, and a small "tent city" between the two steel structures provided for covered pitting. The club had hoped for 110 entries, and was pleased to find the actual number was 140. This is about the maximum number they could handle, while making sure the race would be completed early enough on Sunday for racers to make their return airline flights back home.

The GLC drivers - click image for larger view

Friday morning was more practice, followed by a driver's meeting, then two rounds of qualifying. Qualifying continued on Saturday, with three more rounds also run on a leisurely schedule. The JLap software worked well - Brian Berry handled the original announcing duties, until Chris Goetz arrived to take over. Chris is great on the microphone - he makes every qualifier or final sound like the fate of the planet depended on the outcome!

When the dust settled, the TQ honors were awarded as follows:
1/10 sedan: Josh Cyrul
1/8 GT: Scott McNish
1/8 Masters: Rick Davis 1/8 Open: Ralph Burch

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Mike Swauger, Qualifying Round #3

Paul Becattini leading Robert Ronas in the third round of qualifying.
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Mike Swauger, GLC Final Qualifier - Doing great until another car died in front of him...

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To see Saturday's Photos, click on this link:

http://www.sgrid.com/cgi-bin/backtalk/peek:onroad,25

GLC Track, Early Morning

The beautiful weather we’ve been experiencing continued, and got even better if that’s possible. You couldn’t ask for better racing weather. The nearest reported rain cloud was rumored to be somewhere in Transylvania.

The plan for today is to run practice all morning, have a driver’s meeting at noon, and then run the first two rounds of qualifying. The race schedule got a bit longer than expected, when 140 racers signed up, with others still on the way. Even with running 14 cars in the 1/10 scale Mains, and 12 cars in the 1/8 Mains, it’s going to be difficult if not impossible to stay within the goal of only 16 Mains - and this is with running all eleven (more coming??) 1/8 GT cars together.

Everything is running smooth as silk. Everyone is just doing the right thing without needing to be told. Part of this is because everyone already seems to know what to do, and part because of the *fun* atmosphere at the event. Josh Cyrul’s wife has set up a food stand alongside the track, so even that need is now taken care of. The PA system is loud and clear, so no matter where you are, you’re informed of what is going on - and in case you want to work indoors, you can tune your FM radio to 89.7 and listen in your camper or trailer.

Brent Gottfried, out of retirement?
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Today was the first "official" day at the Great Lakes Challenge in Toledo, Ohio. My plan for today was to spend the whole day trying to get a photo of everyone competing at the event. I probably missed a few people, but it's not from lack of trying.

The next question was how to post all these photos. Usually I create a web gallery, but as a test, I posted all 113 images in a single discussion item in the Starting Grid Forums.

To access this item, just click here:

It may take a while for all the images to load.

Mico Racing has developed a new V-Cam (Variable-Camber) System to maintain zero-camber on R/C cars, keeping the tire firmly planted on the ground.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9B1-PZCb8A

V-cam installed to front suspension of an 1/8 4WD on-road race car

Anyone who has been racing a radio control car already knows one nasty fact about car setup. Push the car up and down on the suspension, and the amount the tire "leans in and out" (the camber) constantly changes. This makes it very difficult to keep the tire flat on the ground for maximum grip, and causes tires to wear unevenly, often causing the inside or outside of a foam tire to wear more than the other side.

By using the idea of a "DAX" suspension from full-size cars, Art Carbonell was able to modify the suspension on a 1/8 on-road car such that the wheels remain level, fully planted on the ground, no matter what position the suspension is in. This will be clear in the video posted below. Once you see what is going on, the function of the new components in the following photos will become obvious.

V-cam installed to rear suspension of 1/8 4WD on-road race car

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V-Cam system demonstration

When you do something over and over again for many years, it gets to be an integral part of your life. That’s how I feel about the Great Lakes Challenge R/C car race. For the past dozen or so years, August means finding myself at 30,000 feet up in the air, heading to Toledo, Ohio.

I’ve now been to r/c car races all over this planet, from my own backyard to so far away that if I had gone any further, I’d have been around the globe, heading back home. Of all these races, the GLC stands out as a unique event. The Toledo club, the "One-Eighth Racers of Toledo", has always focused on the fun part of r/c above all else. This used to mean a group of friends from Toledo getting together to play, which grew to people from all over the Midwest, which has now grown to people from all over the country. There is something addictive about the place, the people and the track - if you go there once, you always want to come back.

Flying into Detroit takes you to a very modern airport terminal!

What a beautiful track to race on!!

The following information and full set of photos were taken of the new super-secret Serpent Cobra GT prototype. The new car is being developed by Joaquin DeSoto, Chris Tossolini and Art Carbonell. The team has been able to create a high-tech GT class contender, using mostly off-the-shelf Serpent buggy parts! The car uses a Serpent 966 1/8 on-road transmission. Production cars will come with a typical buggy clutch - the Centax clutch will be an optional extra. The photos below show lots of details of the new car.

The Serpent Cobra GT is expected to become available for sale towards the end of this year, and sell for a street price of under $500, the same price as the Serpent Buggy. The Novarossi "Basic Sport" engine shown in these photos will have a street price under $200.

While the track was drying off from a rainstorm, I got to ask Art Carbonell and Sean Leu what they thought about the track design. Before reading further, click here for a short video of Art getting around the track. If you can, be sure to change the setting to high-resolution, or you'll miss much of the detail...

CLICK HERE

Art:
The track flows pretty good, much better flow than the first time I ran here when the track was being laid out. There are some tight spots, but that's just part of the track. Traction is fairly good - I think they just put down a little sugar water, but even without it, it would be fine traction. Tire wear is decent, it looked like my tires wore about 1.5 mm in fifteen minutes (hardness 35 front and rear). The visibility from the driver stand is pretty good; the only thing, Shawn was next to me on my left, and I couldn't see my car when leaving pit lane. If people step back it would be better, but the rail is right there. I had nobody on the right of me, only Shawn on my left. I'll know more about this once we run the state race.

The Miami RC Speedway Track

Looking left from driver's stand.

The track, looking right.

It’s amazing what a team of dedicated workers can accomplish in a week. Miami RC Speedway went from a rough unfinished track to a semi-operational racing facility in all of seven days. Led by Johnny Wong, the team spent most of their free time (and lots of time taken from other tasks) and had the track ready for its opening practice session on Sunday, August 01, 2010.

World Championship Track, Gulf Coast Raceway, Porter, Texas

Racers in the Final - click for larger image

The A-main as I remember it... Ralph Burch and team X-ray started the race with a couple of lessons in mind from the preworlds. The car does not handle or produce fast laps for the final 5 laps without rubber on the rims. A flame out 3 laps before the end can be very costly. These lessons were incorporated into the race strategy.

The trial start came very smoothly with no incidents. The real start had an incident in about the middle of the field coming off the sweeper. That car was punted about 5 times before it finally came to rest. This created a split field the first five cars tightly bunched.

This bunch held on for quite a while until refueling started. Robert Pietsch was leading, Ralph Burch approximately fourth. After the third fuel stop things started to go badly for various teams. Robert Pietsch had a complete runaway in the pits. This created quite the exiting moment for all teams in the pits at that time. See the second photo. He came out of the pits in last place.

We’re all friends here so ill share...

Note to self “racing crosseyed is difficult!” (see elaboration below)

Wow. Racing for me has become a brief interruption for my daily chaotic life filled with a thriving 6 day a week business and a beautiful and quite demanding little 9 month old 1.5 foot tall tower of terror my daughter. So Sometimes Selfishly Sunday comes and I want to escape the clutches of my middle aged obligation and let my hair down for some RC racing.(im actually 1-2 mm from bald…GI joeish to be exact).

But sometimes my little piece of the pie has costs. Often its nothing more than a kiss on the top of the head and some shopping money, and sometimes it requires a little more. In an effort to stay married and have a happy home you just gotta give back. And this weekend was a doozy.

A rare phone conversation of explicative’s and choice words of exhaustion coupled with blasphemy towards my rare Sunday enjoyment prompted the full package of an art long lost called dating. That’s right a date….with my wife! I know I know.