A side shot of the new LCG configuration, dropping the battery down by over 2 inches and laying down the servo.  Testing continues on the prototype:

by Steve W

After a successful first test run in the hands of experience racer and RC Driver editor Tony Phalen, I decided to test drive the truck at a local club race as well.  I head out to our amazing local race facility, West Coast RC Raceway:

I took the same exact setup from the Tuesday testing at OCRC Racway to another track, West Coast R/C for Wednesday night club racing. Please keep in mind that I consider myself an average driver (so if you’re looking for a glorious story about a win here….I don’t have one ) but I’ve been racing these cars (on and off-road) for about 20 years so I have a good idea what a well handling car feels like

Immediately what I felt during practice run was how sure-footed this truck feels. I raced a stock slash for about a year before moving on to a SC10 (this was a couple of years back), and compare to the stock configuration slash, it definitely rolls a lot less and I can push it harder through the corner. One of the common comments I kept getting from the on-lookers and other racers on Wednesday night was how well the truck rotates around the tight 180 turns and even around turns that are off-camber.  The truck just apex tight and I was able to hammer down on the throttle without getting the truck loose. The truck also jumped and landed well (the shocks feels really nice and “plush” now in this LCG configuration).

Compare to my SC10…and I hope I don’t offend any AE fans on here, but I like this truck better because with my SC10 it was always a bit of a hit and miss…when you hit the set-up just right, the truck is fast, but when you’re off…the dang thing is almost undriveable. With this truck and the LCG conversion kit, we been to two tracks and so far, it felt very consistent as far as performance. I think my next venture would be to race this on an out-door track and see how it does

Through out the night I won both of my qualifier, but compare to the rest of the field in the same class, it put me 3rd on the grid (I’m delighted considering I haven’t race 2wd short course in about a year) and because the A-main was a 12 car mayhem, I wasn’t able to evaluate much in the main other than durability and the truck held up just fine. Zero breakage. For the most part, I loose out on faster lap times due to my older generation ESC which cost me about 6 truck lengths down the straight away, and I was not able to consistently do some of the more technical double double jumps.   I also ended up in third place once the A-main finished and fastest lap being 26.2

I have a new Tekin RS Pro coming next week and that should give me an even better idea what this truck can really do now that I updated my electronics a bit.  It is also important that we test this truck with the proper “modern” horsepower to make sure it works just as well with more speed and torque in it.

Steve

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