Hello Serpent racers!!
Coming back from the Snowbirds race this year I am very excited about how good the car performed at its first big race!

Well, to start of this report, when we (me and my buddy Sven) arrived at Orlando, the famous Florida weather welcomed us. Arriving already on Sunday evening before the event, there was still some time to rest and work on my cars. I met Paul and Butter on Monday to have a chat about setups and tire choice.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we had enough time to practice. Tire choice was a problem, as the grip increased massively. I started off with magenta random for qualifying, which was pretty good to start off. During qualifying my car build up so much traction, that it became a little nervous.
I changed damping and to different tire compounds, but could not really solve the problem.

Unless, I qualified 5th, 4th and 2nd in all three classes, which was ok. Most confusing was actually the 17.5 class. For a modified based driver like me, this is pretty different from modified racing, especially motor gearing and setup was a problem. My car carried good cornerspeed, but whatever I did, I simply lost too much time on the straightaway.

Going into the finals day, I hoped for some nice finals. My 17.5 final was ok, but not really fun. I changed gearing and motor-setup again, but the lack of top-speed was still there. I finished 5th there.
Going into my Modified final I was little unsure about tires and picked magenta/magenta again.
At the start of the final I could hold my 2nd position for a couple of laps, as I clipped a board and then was taken out. The rear right tyre chunked and all I could do was finishing the main in 6th place.
Pretty disappointing for me after qualifying as 2nd.

Last up was the 10.5 final. I changed to yellow rears. We went off and I could move up to third. Damn….third corner and somebody took me out. It was a nightmare standing at the board for half a lap, until a track-marshall removed me. Well…to be honest…this was the first time the whole week I was upset J and now I was driving the hell out my car. The car was brilliant now, so yellow seemed to be the best choice, as I passed car by car.
Coming from 10th a half lap back, I still could manage to finish third, which was fine.

To be honest, in Modified Mike Blackstock was superfast and hard to beat for everybody, but in 10,5 I could have won with the car being so good with yellow rears.
Anyway, we did great as a team, I want to thank Paul, Sven and Butter for their support. To finish on two podiums on the first big race, this is great for the S120. I am sure there is more to come!

Also I like to thank Serpent, LRP, Jaco, Xceed, Serpent USA and Parma for their help!
Take care!
Markus

Pictures courtesy of Rc Car Action.

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