Summery of first day

Today was the first practice day for us and it was a little bit of challenge... The track is super smooth and hardly any bumps. However, the racingline is very narrow and if you miss it slightly you have no tracktion at all.
Our car was not set for the conditions today. We decided in the morning to run with a brand new car which only did have a 3 lap shakedown. Maybe that was not the right decision In the first and second run Marcus was really struggeling with the car. It was not going well at all and very difficult to keep the car close to the curps. For the 3rd and last run we decided to soften up the suspension (from pink/purple to blu/red). That in combination with other brand of tires compared to first and second run gave us at least a step in the right direction. We still have some work to do, to say at least
For tomorrow we have decided to switch back to our old car and upgrading it with some new suspenstion parts which Serpent handed out to all Serpent drivers (new larger upper alu bracket and a new shorter upper wishbone.

We will also upgrade to some alu parts which hold the antiroll bar in the front. The plastic ones ar not up to the standard you should require which makes it a little bit tricky to adjust the anti rollbar correct. Here you can see how it looks like:

Who is then fast on the track. Well, it is the usual names. Here are some of the fast guys:
R Pietch 16.005
D Balestri 16.065

I won´t tell you our fastest time today... :-)

First laps...

We have just turned the first couple of laps and we could say: We have some work infront of us.... :-) Well, the scope of the first outing was to find the way around the track and gradually tune the engine (which is brand new). We take it easy and not too much stress the first day.. :-)

Cheers,
Marcus/Wolfgang

At last.... arrived at the hotel

It was a loping trval from gothenburg to miami..... We started 05:00 Thursday morning and arrived 04:00 Swedish time. All baggage did also arrive which is a little bit surprising due to the change of flights in Toronto. We have set a new worldrecord from customs to gate 169. I will tell you the story tomorrow. Now I am too tired

Good night folks

On the way....

Ok, now we have squeezed us int the airplane for a 8,5 hour flight.... With the knees at the ears.... :-(

Secret weight saving tip

You can't go to far to save weight for your luggage when traveling to a race.... :-)



And yes, I don't believe they have toothbrush for sale in US....

Cheers!!

All the WC preps are killing me....

We did decide rather late that we will participate at the Worlds in Miami so I have been working like hell to do all the preps. The deciding factor was that we got engines from NovaRossi which was already preped and run. And trust me, they are really prepped and not tight at all! So, hopefully they will be fast... :-)

Normally we have a tendence to load the car with all the stuff we need (and don´t need...) but this time it will be a little bit tricky to go by car... :-) Ok, how hard can it be to do some "Biggest Looser" approach to the race stuff? Well, it is damn hard! After some packing, unpacking, replace some plastics boxes with cardboard boxes and packing again we are finally finished. Just under the baggage limit.

While I have been doing all the preps my driver is enjoying a good party... I mean, student life in Gothenburg. Actually, Marcus is also building a race car but a 1:1 scale or should I say 1:2 scale because it is a Formula Student Racecar. Marcus is responsible for suspension and all tests.

How about practice? Well, if you enjoy driving in +2 degress you know.... All in all, we have about 1,5 hours practice..... In a normal season that is not too bad beginning of April but we all know that this is not a normal season.... I am not happy with a WC in the start of the season. I believe that IFMAR need to be more carefully when deciding dates in the future.

On Thursday April 7th we are travelling to US. Keep all the fingers crossed that all the race stuff will arrive in Miami.

Over and out for now. We will do more reports during the WC.

Cheers,

Marcus/Wolfgang

Boring,,,,

Season is over since one month.... it is now getting really boring.... The buggy folks have their big event (WC) starting shortly in Thailand.... Ok, what is then on the radar screen? Well, the EFRA AGM is staring tomorrow. Will be interesting to see what new rules will be invented. I believe we have too many already. Let us hope that their will be at least some GPs in Nitro track which are closer then 2000km from where we are living.... ;-)
Have some interesting (and maybe impossible.....) ideas for the 2011 season. Stay tuned! More information might be published here :-)