Hudy Arena - XRS Slovakia round 1

This was the first opportunity for me to visit this, what should we call it? Myth-ridden venue for R/C car racing.

We, my little boy and me arrived for free practice allready on friday. We arrived at 16-ish but the track was held open allready from 0800 in the morning.

• Representing “Luleå R/C Club” and “Luleå Race Team” with its focus on getting new ones into the sport makes me feel proud even when racing outside of Sweden!

The venue

First thing we just unpacked the car, got a good pit space next to Alexander Hagberg and then took a walk around the facility. With an indoor 1:10 buggy track, an indoor on-road track, an indoor clay track and a huge outdoor on-road track this arena is like heaven for all of us into this sport. Add to this a restaurant and there is no arguing for not going there :)

https://youtu.be/lszzAMIYiy8

F1

Léon made his debut with the F1 car. I had him attedning the race but due to his age he was a little bit too tired on friday night so we called it out. He was happy with driving a real racecar and made three outings with good progress every run.

• The lineup before drivers meeting

Touringcar

I attended both the modified and the 13.5 stock classes. Both cars where set-uped like I would for black ETS-carpet at home and my T4-21 felt good right from the start. In both classes we had to use the Hudy C3-28 tyres which I love. It took like 3-4 runs on this track to have them perform at their best but then you could easily use them 11-12 packs before they started to drop. Actually, Alexander made his best practice on friday using a set which had 12 packs on them!

13.5 Stock

In stock we used handout motor, Hobbywing Justock 13.5 with no timing and a FDR of 5.0. I actually thought this would be too slow but they gave great fun and exiting racing. On this car, I basically only changed two things. At the rear I opted for the 2.7 spring instead of the 2.6 and I also added one screw in the front of the motor-mount. Both this made the car more agile and more free during the corner. My car was spot on and I was quite surrised that I managed to take the top qualifier spot in front of Team Xray Driver Oliver Havránek. I also managed to set the fastest lap of the event which really proved that my car with the Bittydesign Hyper-HR was on spot. My Zombie 6000mAh batteries provided me with incredible punch (low voltage drop) during the complete runs.

• My Xray T4-21 setup for stock-racing

In the finals my lack of practice together with some sleepiness had me make a couple of small mistakes. On this level of racing you will instantly be punished and Oliver had the win in A1. In A2 there was some tumble and I was taken out and had to fight back up to second place. In A3 I had the lead from tone to flag.

In stock the car was very good to drive. I used a little harder rear diff, 7k instead of my normal 4-5k oil. This was du to the fast chicane just down from the rostrum and to be able to keep up the speed without having the car to pointy. I really think I got out my max from the chassis but for the next outing I still have some cards to play with my electronics :)

Modified

If my stockcar was on point I had to work harder with the modified chassis. The car felt good but I couldn´t get over the feeling of the throttle. It went from too aggressive to very much expo-feeling and all in between. Finally I found out, thanks to Alexander what parameters I should change and it was like a night and day feeling. When I finally could moderate the throttle I could start with the setup. The car was very much like the stock one except the forward screw in the mount and I also put in 8k in the diff due to the power this setup produces. This car has the Zombie 4400mAh low CG batteries fitted and when the last final was run I was quite happy with the setup I opted for. 

• My modified car using the low CG Zombie 4400mAh batteries

The finals was a nightmare… I managed to quali for 6th position and didn´t check the listings as I should have done. I just imagined that they would run 8 cars in the main final and was out looking on the B-main when Martin walks up and excuses himself for not informing me that they went with 5+5 in each finals to make up for marshalling. So, I just missed out on the first final. In the second I just did my worst driving in a couple of years, hitting almost every barrier. nevermind, my goal was to gain experience and in the last final I just wanted to produce some clean laps. This was my fastest run of the day with modified and I really liked the car. Some more driving with this modified setup will really be beneficial for me as I totally lack experiences for the last two years driving modified on carpet.

Final words

This trip was a blast. A 2.5 hour drive from home with my family staying at a nice hotel (Slovakian standard :) ) made it all fun. I had a chicken sallad for dinner, some good coffe at the resturant and made new friends at the track. This was not the last time at this track - This was the first outing there for me in many more to come.

• Chicken sallad in the restaurant. I´m freakin´ tired of being served pre-fab hamburgers or hot-dogs so this made me happy!

I´m really happy for the helped provided by Alexander Hagberg but I´m also proud to have a good realtionship with Henrik at Minicars who 110% supports my hobby with Futaba and Xray gear. I´ve allready mensioned Zombie but if you are in to buying new batteries or motors - Try them, they won´t dissapoint you!

All the movies, setups and pictures are on the menu to the right.
Enjoy and let´s meet at a race in the future!