April 12, 2014

Chassis Focus – Steven Hartson

Fri-HartsonB5M-10

Chassis: Team Associated B5M
Motor: LRP X20 8.5T
Batteries: LRP 4500 Shorty
ESC: LRP Flow Works Team
Body: JConcepts Silencer
Tires FR/RR: JConcepts Dirt Webs (Gold)
Radio/Servo: Futaba 4PK SR/XP1015
Remarks – Current 4wd World Champion Steven Hartson is running the Associated B5M here in Tacoma with a new line of harder plastics throughout. The dark grey material is to make the car more responsive in the corners by removing flex in the chassis and components, allowing the suspension do all the work. Other changes made to the car is to remove the central cross brace to the front of the battery which, combined with a shorty battery pack, allows the speedo and receiver to be mounted further back in the car and along the centreline providing more traction and making the front less edgy. In terms of setup Steven is using his same setup, tires and tire sauce from his home track OC/RC.

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April 11, 2014

Track Focus – Tacoma R/C Raceway

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Track Name – Tacoma R/C Raceway
Owner – Scott Brown
Country – USA
Location – Tacoma, Washington
Direction – Clockwise
Surface – Dirt

This weekend the JConcepts Indoor National Series visits some new territory taking the second stop on its 5-race calendar to the north-west of the country to Tacoma R/C Raceway in Washington State.   A hobby shop that has been in business since 1984 and moving to its current location 5-miles from the centre of Tacoma City 14-years-ago, the JConcepts Spring Indoor Nationals is the biggest race to visit the Scott Brown owned facility.  A former World Championship finalist and ROAR National Champion, Scott has been the driving force behind the popular r/c outlet since 1995.  Born in Tacoma but working for the original Losi company down in California, when the opportunity came up to buy the business he jumped at the opportunity to move back home. Heading into to his 20th year of running the business this year he said he still enjoys the fact he gets to ‘play with toy cars everyday’.

Covering a total of 9,000 square feet, the facility has a well stocked r/c car shop, off which the indoor dirt track & pits are housed in an airy high roofed building.  Built in a space 90ft by 60ft, a new track layout for this weekend JConcepts race was built by Scott on Monday with a good 2WD lap pace running at a low 15-seconds lap. On a regular week the track runs racing four nights a week (Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday) with a good night attracting around 80 entries but Scott said racers tend to spread themself out well over the four nights meaning that he can run a good programme of racing each night without running too late.

In terms of the layout, World Champion Steven Hartson , who is making his first visit to the track, said one of the most notable things of the track is the height of the drivers stand which for an indoor track is very highly elevated.  Describing it as fun to drive the Team Associated driver said the biggest challenge of the lap is staying within the narrow racing line, with it easy to get out of your rhythm.  In terms of the tracks features he said the step-up chicane after the triple in front of the drivers stand can be a little tricky.   Commenting on the track Associated team-manger Brent Theilke said the piping takes a bit of getting used to describing it being more like curbing.  With the track being built up to the piping rather than the piping having been laid afterwards he said its hard to differentiate between whats track and whats more like curbing which on some corners can lead to rolling.

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