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Old 2010.10.14, 10:55 AM   #61
yasuji
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ok me and a few of the local drivers will be headed down there this sunday! if enough driver show up i will talk to the kyosho guys there to run some club racing on sun!come on down and drive some thing different! carpet.... counterclockwise.....
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Old 2010.10.14, 02:55 PM   #62
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Originally Posted by yasuji View Post
ok me and a few of the local drivers will be headed down there this sunday! if enough driver show up i will talk to the kyosho guys there to run some club racing on sun!come on down and drive some thing different! carpet.... counterclockwise.....
Yes Sir 02-03 & awd racing would be fun, do they rent out the id tags? ...and also for giggles I'll have my dNanao with me also, so pack it if you have it, surface should be good to run on. If you have an F1 bring it, I'll be doing some laps with that too.
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Old 2010.10.14, 04:06 PM   #63
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I expect to be the lone runner in the "Bone Stock" (aside from bearings and tires...) class with my new MR-03. Otherwise, I'll try to stay out of everybody's way .

I don't think they rent the tags, but you can buy one ... $36.99 at the store.
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Old 2010.10.14, 05:30 PM   #64
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Originally Posted by Treadmule View Post
I expect to be the lone runner in the "Bone Stock" (aside from bearings and tires...) class with my new MR-03. Otherwise, I'll try to stay out of everybody's way .

I don't think they rent the tags, but you can buy one ... $36.99 at the store.
Bone stock is good! Tires are a huge portion of the tuning game ...it's gonna be fun no matter what.
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Old 2010.10.15, 04:35 PM   #65
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Some response some of the questions.

Mini-Z's are designed for use on multiple surfaces and to be honest the majority or our Mini-Z customers do not run them on formal tracks. I am sorry if this is off putting to the diehards but we simply wish to promote Mini-Z as something that everyone can enjoy for both young and old, rookie and veteran. Tim is correct that with very little adjustment you can still get the car to have such a high grip level that it will traction roll on our surface.

The residue that is showing up on the timing tags is tire dust and it appears your ride height is too low and you are rubbing the tag on the surface. This create a friction which causes enough heat to melt the tire dust to your tires. I have noticed this happening on my F-1 car which runs the tag very low and when I adjusted the ride height slightly it stopped happening I would suggest just simply rubbing it off with a pencil erasure and not using any chemical on it or scraping as you could cause damage to the tag. THis happens of some tires as well you get "marbles" or "clag" what I do is simply take the tire off the rim tun it inside out and rub it against itself and it rolls off leaving a clean fresh rubber surface on the face of the tire when re-installed. for dNaNo's this is almost a tuning element. Car loose rub out the rear , car pushing rub out the fronts car needs more traction rub out front and back etc.

Speaking of rubber...regarding the Rubber tire only rule, we do not allow the silicone tires because they are not as widely available as the rubber only tires and unfortunately you cannot run both tires as the silicone tires grease the track for those running rubber. We also do not want people using sauce. A Mini-Z veteran should have the tuning skills to get good performance out of any situation with out the need of traction sauce.

The track does get some use other then Sundays actually. Some employees run it during their lunch hours as well as sometimes after work. We also use it for testing on occasion. We have had VIP's come by to run as well a couple of times. We would like to have R-241 open more frequently but unfortunately we do not have a very large staff at Kyosho America so finding staff to run the track has proven harder then projected.

RCP vs.Carpet...we used to have the big RCP track that Tim spoke of but when the dNaNo project came about and it was deemed that RCP was not a good surface for dNaNo due to the seems. We developed the panel tracks that are all over the country now. Also we began to use these panels instead of RCP for trade show and demo tracks and after seeing the overwhelming positive response and feedback we got from customers on how much they preferred the carpet surface over the RCP we felt it was a good time to make the transition. I understand there are those that feel RCP is the only way to go and we respect this and there are many RCP tracks around Southern California I urge you to help keep them going. We however will not be running RCP at R-241.

If any group of racers that has timing tags wants us to make an impromptu fun race for them we are more then happy to do so in the closing hours of practice. We unfortunately at this time do not have rental tags but compared to other timing tags they are fairly cheap especially when you consider the timing loop can be purchased for less then $200 and the software we use ( Z-round) is free to download for everyone. Our system does not have any issue with voltage, harming your PCB, or infrared light, so it can be used at home or may other situation. It can also be run with Mini-Z's and dNaNo's running together. We really feel it is the best most cost effective system out there.

Again we want to bring in new racers to our hobby and to do so we need to provide an experience that is fun, fair and has an easy point of entry. Over powered frankenstein cars with hard to find or unique components does not help grow the hobby it only serves to create an elitist faction that drives away new racers. This has been the cause of death to more tracks of every scale then anything else I have seen in my short 19 years in the hobby. There is room for all of us and let us all remember that if there is nobody else left to race against with then there is no more racing.

We appreciate all feedback and will continue to consider all options.

Thank you, we hope to see many of you in the coming weeks.
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Old 2010.10.15, 09:06 PM   #66
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Does anyone pass through Pasadena on their trip to R241? I'd like to have a go at this track sometime but taking the bus all the way down to Lake Forest isn't exactly practical.
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Old 2010.10.16, 01:59 AM   #67
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Brian we met last week at PN briefly, this is Alex. I could go through Pasadena. PM me your address and contact info and I'll pick you up @10am on Sunday. I guess track opens at 11.
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Old 2010.10.16, 02:37 AM   #68
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Can you mount the cards elsewhere in the body, or does it have to be under the chassis?
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Old 2010.10.16, 10:29 AM   #69
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the ic tag is a non issue.... if rubs... raise the ride ht i run the tag under my pancar wih no proabs.... it drags a little....
but nothing i really notice!
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Old 2010.10.16, 12:36 PM   #70
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Could someone provide a link to the surface that is used, so I can find it in Europe as well?
How does the dNano run on it?
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Old 2010.10.16, 10:04 PM   #71
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EMU View Post
Can you mount the cards elsewhere in the body, or does it have to be under the chassis?
one of the faults of the kyo ribbon has been the close proximity required for the kyo rfid tag. at least this has been the common experience with the kyo home timing system with dnano and mini-z with kyo rfid tags and generic rfid tags. the kyo rfid tags have also been reported to be very fragile so be cautious in cleaning them. in my experience with the system, the rfid tag must be on the bottom to pick up reliably. the rcp tile is at times to thick of a separation depending on the rfid tag being used. i have both the kyo home system and the core analog system (kyo system is built off the core analog tech, right from core analog, see the core analog vendor forum here for reference is interested).

there is plenty of this systems feedback and review in dnano circles btw.

perhaps kyo usa has a commercial version? any particular reason you are using 3rd party software? we also know from the kyo home system dnano usage that the feedback for the kyo software has not been kind. most non ht/usa locations use alternative software selection.

curious, have you tried using generic rfid tags with the software you are using? i realize it kind of flies in the face of making sales on the kyo branded rfid tags but lets be honest, there is a healthy profit margin on these considering the bulk price point of the rfid tags (less than a dollar each). unless there are complex and laborious programming tasks in the processing of the rfid tags prior to release which could account for some of the mark up. i have never gotten a response as to why these cost so much and or what production requirements make them so expensive? even core analog doesn't charge that much for his original spec rfid tags.

Last edited by arch2b; 2010.10.16 at 10:09 PM.
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Old 2010.10.17, 12:01 PM   #72
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so as far as i know there will be quite a few local miniz guys there today!
alex
brian
bob
chad
opi
larry
myself
maybe
bruce and gianno
see u @ the track!
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Old 2010.10.17, 12:13 PM   #73
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thats a nice size crowd
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Old 2010.10.17, 04:45 PM   #74
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Old 2010.10.17, 10:10 PM   #75
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Hey, I'm in that picture.

Today's the first time I drove on the R241 track, and it's a very interesting drive indeed.

First off: the wooden walls scared the CRAP out of me. I was one of the first guys to put the car down on the track, and 1) crashes sound real bad and 2) the first car on the track seems to get the most grease stuck in the tire treads. I had crap for grip, front or rear, for the first 15 minutes. Also managed to crack my front diffuser during this time (thankfully the GT1 did not crack).

A good tire setup for the carpet is K30 front, K20 rear. Radial or slick is fine, I think, the Mod cars used radials but I got sufficient traction with K20 slicks in the rear. My PN tires did not work well at all, I think the carcass is too stiff to bite well into the soft carpet.

Secondly: Once we had traction, the cars ride pretty well. Traction on the carpet is NOT as high as your average RCP track, it's about the same as a slippery RCP track, but VERY smooth. The cars don't jump and skip over RCP tile gaps, as there are none. You can hit the same line lap after lap after lap once you have grip -- very consistent. You can set the ride height very low and get away with it (unless you're running the Kyosho IC tags). Low grip also means you have to set the car up soft, Opi and I went to PN G10 #3 T-plates and the softest front springs available (PN Orange, for MR03's) to get proper traction. Speeds are lower so there's no excessive body roll, no traction roll, and we made full use of the softer setting's increased mechanical grip. Once we had the cars dialed in -- remember to scrape the gunk off your tires, I forgot and had a ball of a time trying to diagnose it! -- it was a very fun track to drive, not frustrating at all. You also don't get RCP dust stuck to your car, so if you don't crash you honestly don't need to do a whole lot of maintenance to your car across runs.

Thirdly: The nice thing about the consistent surface is that you don't meet the walls as often, which is REALLY important because those walls will kill your car. Opi cracked his F430 and mine is showing some wear in the front clip area. My 911 GT1 is also showing wear in the front clip area, I'm gonna have to fix it before it blows out. I also curb-hopped my car several times on accident and on purpose, it's far too easy and made for some dangerous incidents on the track.



Overall, I'm half-impressed and half-disappointed with the track, summing out to perfectly neutral. Once Kyosho fixes the rails/walls with a better solution, e.g. plastic-covered foam bars, I will be very impressed and would possibly lobby for this surface to be used more often. It's a nice divergence from what we're used to driving on.
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