2023 GT Pre Worlds Report
The 2023 Worlds warm up event was held over the first weekend of April, fortunately for me the track is only a short 10 hour drive from my home…
Ready to hit the track for open practice on Wednesday we were unfortunately greeted with some wet conditions – After some hours and a bit of bench racing we could hit the track in the early afternoon and got some laps in.
The track is very smooth with really only one major bump leading onto the main straight, it is flowy with 3 heavy braking areas that require a stable rear that also provides a lot of rotation. Very Fun!
After dialing in my engines I was ready to work on setup for Thursdays practice sessions. Working with all the Serpent Team – Ric, John, Ross, Jason to name a few we all managed to get a nice driveable car.
Friday was Controlled practice and seeding followed by 2x Rounds of qualifying. I utilized the CP rounds to continue progressing my setup and trying different options. Q1 came around quickly – Not 100% sure on how my fuel economy was I tried to ‘bank’ the first run resulting in a TQ for the round.
A luxury the track has is the ability to race under lights! I was a little concerned for Q2 due to my body being predominately black… As I squinted through the exhaust fumes comfortably leading my car started to feel a little strange – This feeling was my front left wheel nut coming loose eventuating in a 3 wheeled GT car, suffice to say I was unable to finish.
We woke up to again a wet Saturday which was scheduled to have the final 4 Quails, after a steller job by the club volunteers to dry the track we managed to start the program.
The Serpent SRX8GT’23 was dialed! Managing to take with win in all the remaining rounds resulting in the overall TQ.
Unfortunately Sunday mother nature won, not able to start the 1 hour A-Main the race meeting was declared and results would be based on qualifying – I was pretty bummed not to have the opportunity to race but still super happy for the whole team and result.
I would like to thank all the organizers of NSWRCRCC and everyone that gave up their valuable time to volunteer so we could all enjoy racing our RC cars! Also thank you to my sponsors and Andrew for his help over the weekend.
Jeff Hamon
Team Serpent
