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USA: Mobers reports on Snowbirds 2011 (15/02/2011)

By:: Reporter
Linked to:: Serpent S120 Link 1/12 pancar EP, Serpent S120 Link-Tube 1/12 pancar EP

SNOWBIRD NATIONALS 2011
Three classes-three podiums!!

He folks, it’s me again, reporting from a nice race-week at the Snowbirds Nationals 2011. This year there was even more interest in the largest electric controlled RC race in the world. Entrees were huge in on-road and there was lots of competition. Especially 1/12 scale seems to be on a move there, we had 12 or 13 heats in total, which is awesome.

The field was filled with so many of the world’s best on-road drivers, like Groskamp, Lemieux, Cyrul, Blackstock, Hebert, Fischer and Mobers. I was really looking forward in having some nice racing there.

WORLD GT
To be honest, I did not even have one practice pack with 1S before that race. I had to figure out car setting, speedo setting, gearing, well, everything J
The first two practice packs were not that good. The car was traction rolling badly. This was solved with some stiffer side springs. When we went into qualifying I was surprised to be 2nd after two qualifiers. Josh was TQ and quite a way in front of me. His car seemed to carry more corner speed and had better power too.

In the last two qualifiers I tried different settings on speedo and motor, but I never improved, so I qualified 3rd behind Dumas and Cyrul.

The World GT final was very early in the morning on Sunday, gladly those cars are a bit slower…I was not really awake at 7 in the morning.
Still, I tried some with the car to may compete a bit with Mike and Josh….the car was better and I was fast the first 2-3 laps and could have passed Mike, but both the leaders pulled away after the first couple of laps. Well, I settled for third than, still a superb result for Serpent.
No practice, no idea setting the speedo for World GT….this shows what the car is capable of.
Also afterwards I think I created too much understeer on the car, as Dumas and Cyrul’s cars were pretty tippy the first couple of laps and than simply perfect. Well, next year to come ;-)

1/12 13.5
I did some testing with 13.5 before the race, not too much, but at least some. Also I had some good support from my friend and Serpent teammate Paul Cicarello.
I was fast right from the start….the car was simply awesome…just needed to play some with speedo timing. I was TQ before the last round of qualifying, even with a quite big margin.
What I did not realize after my 3rd qualifier was, that I totally broke my motor, as I simply used too much timing on the speedo. The motor got superhot and I broke that rotor and stator.

So I went into the last qualifier with a melted motor without knowing it. The first three minutes it still went pretty good, I was changing lead with Dumas and Knapp. Than the motor went down pretty much, so Knapp and Dumas beat my TQ time by 1,5 and 0,5 seconds.
After than run I gave my motor to Jim Dieter and asked what was wrong. His reply was “everything” *lol*
For the final I had a brand new rebuilt motor, so still the chanced to win were there.
At the start of the main I was ran off, great, 10th after lap one! L
Time after time I could gain some positions and the leaders were fighting badly, so with one minute to go I was third behind Blackstock and Dumas. I tried hard to catch even more…but at the end I was 3rd, 1.5 seconds behind the winner.
All in all this was a great showing for our car, it was simply awesome all week!! Next year I will be prepared even better for the speedo/motor and team war.

1/12 Modified
This was my main focus. I wanted to do well….as testing before that race went super good too.
In practice I was on a good pace, always in the top three. After the first two qualifiers I was laying 2nd, which was nice. During the week the track changed a lot, the traction came up in a crazy way. To be honest, I never ran on that much traction, not even in Paragon additive times.
It was super hard for everybody to solve that problem, some had a pretty good car, some could not figure it out at all. Nobody had a perfect car!! Not even Josh who dominated all Lipo races in the past.
After qualifying I was in 4th spot, still a good basic start point.

I have to say at this race the A final starts are mostly ugly…as its simply only one final. So it’s all or nothing in one main. Also our start was so ugly again….I don’t know what happened anymore….everybody crashed into everybody….I came out 7th or so.

Soooo….a lot of work to get back up front. With some steady racing and nice passings I still managed to get 3rd, which was more than I thought after the start. Actually the only car being faster in the main was Lemieux’s car….he was flying and almost even catched Josh at the end from 10th on the grid. He must have found some good settings for the main. I was like 4-5 seconds down on the leaders.

I like to thank my sponsors, Serpent, Team Orion, MobGums, SMC and Advanced for supporting me in a great way. Special thanks go to my buddy Sven, who once again helped me out in a great way all week. Nice to have you my friend!
Last but not least….thanks to Chicky….hope you are back in 2012!!

Best regards,
M. Mobers

not only interested in cars ...