Mini-Z Dojo Events Reboot

[mini-z]

As the weather at Summerfest clearly demonstrated, summer is over and it's time to start spending more time indoors! Oh and the other thing we learned is that everyone is really gropping to race again ASAP! I've mentioned this idea that's been brewing in my head for a while to a few people, but wanted to formalize and share it so we can start getting things moving again...

The term I've been using to describe the concept is "curated events" since instead of just doing the same (or similar, since we do swap between sprint and enduro formats) thing every other week, I would like for members (myself included) to propose a date, format, and other criteria, and then solicit feedback and commitment from other members.

For example:

"ZBQ" - Saturday, 9/dd/2012 - Meet at 6pm, put batteries on to charge, then head to BBQ place next door for food and drinks (optional); non-participants in BBQ portion show up at 8pm for tuning and BSing until midnight or we all get bored! Track PC will be running continually to allow comparison before/after tuning. Bring laptops to monitor your times from the pits.

"Monaco GP" - Sunday 9/xx/2012 - Meet at 2pm for F1-only practice, quali, and 30 minute race. Friends and family welcome to watch!

"Drift Night" - Friday, 10/xx/2012 - Juried drift contest...

"Setup Night" - Saturday 10/xx/2012 - Small, technical track with timed laps all night; 10% off parts at the shop!

"LeMans" - Saturday-Sunday 10/xx/2012 - LM car setup on Saturday night, then endurance race on Sunday...out-of-town entrants encouraged...

What do you guys think? To be clear, these are just abstract examples, and any member can propose an event type/date/time/format etc. that they think enough other people would be up for!

[YoYo-Pete]

I think this is really a good idea as it lets us try different formats and let us focus in on doing one thing in the night instead of trying to race and do another format and setups and what nots.

I'm ready to get my Mini-Z back on.

[Chris Furman]

Hey Guys... I ran off-road since I was a kid and then my passion went to on-road, but since MSI closed here locally, there is no where to run. I was up at Larrys last night and they told me about you guys. How often do you guys race? Do you only race 1 class per day? Where is the track located? Are there any pictures of it? I would be interested in getting into this, if it is an on-going type of thing.

Please let me know. Thanks.
Chris

[kmas]

Im from Bay City, was wondering how things are going, would like to hit a few races.

[YoYo-Pete]

We stalled out a bit due to everyone's schedules, but with two new people we hopefully can start thinking about getting into the swing of things.

We race GT class usually. Do some F1 races. Hope to do some buggy and drift events as well.

We have been racing at Spark East in beautiful downtown Ypsi, next door to Red Rock BBQ. Unfortunately we currently dont have a dedicated place to race where there's a permanent track, but we have lots of track and do whatever people can think up for a layout. (There's a tool on the site somewhere to biuld them). Below is a picture from a random Get Together night. We do have the benefit of having access to the entire Mini-zRacer.com warehouse to pick hopup/replacement parts and drool on all the autoscale bodies. Which is sweet.

Plus our group is full of really awesome people. I like the social aspect as much as the racing aspect.

[kmas]

what do you need for transponders, do you guys have rentals?

[monkeyZ]

It seems like a great idea. I will attend as long as we can solidify the dates.

Kmas,

Yes we have transponder rentals.

http://shop.tinyrc.com/product.php?productid=20512

[Deca]

I'm definitely down to get things going again, my new NSX body never got to see a single race after being prepped! I'll definitely need a tuning session, I seem to remember having weird problems with my new motor mount that didn't quite get resolved.

I'll probably set my MA010 back up as a drift car if we're not doing the stock series anymore, if we have room for it I think we should find a good way to set up drift stages on the carpet. There just isn't enough grip on RCP for everyone to enjoy drifting, depending on the layout it can be very difficult and you're limited on angle and linking options.

We have some curbing type things we can tape down to define corners don't we?

[monkeyZ]

Originally Posted by Deca

I'm definitely down to get things going again, my new NSX body never got to see a single race after being prepped!

Awww yeah... NSX is back. Did you see the new HSV?

[monkeyZ]

Originally Posted by Deca

I'll probably set my MA010 back up as a drift car if we're not doing the stock series anymore, if we have room for it I think we should find a good way to set up drift stages on the carpet. There just isn't enough grip on RCP for everyone to enjoy drifting, depending on the layout it can be very difficult and you're limited on angle and linking options.

We have some curbing type things we can tape down to define corners don't we?

I think the carpet idea is really cool since we could just move the tables or even use the tables as part of the drift course. Perhaps the first drift event should just be a very simple oval with a kink in it to get people started?

[Deca]

Yeah I think that'd work well as a starting point. Has both low speed and high speed corners and a basic link to get a feel for it. We can just vacuum the area and use some of our kerbing, cones and some tape to mark it off. It'll be awesome if we can get guys up to being able to tandem

[mini-z]

Posting a link to this here in case any of the potential new guys above are sub'd:

Ann Arbor Mini-Z Dojo 2015 (?!)