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Rnd 7 Sat 6th July 

Fly Trucks Support Class

          

Truck racing is popular at the club but making their debut here - and in their first live race event following necessarily limited testing on a small home track -  were the Fly Sisu trucks. (One of the club members Googled Sisu and apparently they are a Finnish truck manufacturer.)

The lorries barely fitted side by side on the grid, one or two people thinking they were actually 1/24 scale, I suspect because the Scalextric trucks previously run are actually smaller than 1/32?

            

The excitement was palpable as these were truly 'something different'. Despite some doubt about their size they could be successfully raced, with a lot of tail-out action, bumping and nerfing.  Braking on all was poor and on a couple, non-existent but drivers quickly adapted to reducing power early and drifting round the corners. They are trucks after all, not cars, so they should require a different technique to drive.

            

On the left a very close finish demonstrating that truck racing is a contact sport, followed on the right by a fist in the air from Graham who - I think (apologies if I'm wrong) - had just won his first heat ever at the club. Nice one!

            

There were a few 'racing incidents' the least expected being the penchant for a couple of the trucks to do a 180 and suddenly go racing off in the opposite direction, much to fellow racers amusement. However, it didn't take long to get the measure of that quirk and not apply the power too soon on the exit of a corner. 

One other, about heat seven or eight, was an errant wheel rolling down the straight, followed half a lap later by the other wheel, complete with axle, disappearing. (See photo left.) Funnily enough the truck was quicker in the tripod format, the driver electing to carry on 'as' is' rather than stopping for a repair but NO- we won't be removing the front wheels from the other trucks to match! ( A quick dab of glue between heats quickly sorted THAT issue.)

RESULTS?

Ben set fastest lap for the class, with Mark J and Shaun still topping the league. However Mark turned the tables on Shaun this time, with his faster lap deciding the tie for first place in his favour.

LESSONS LEARNED have been quickly applied - but will they make the trucks less fun? Only time and another meeting will tell.

All six racing trucks gearing were checked. I thought I'd changed them all to 8t pinions but two were still stock 10t, so they were swapped out. (Explains why a couple of the trucks had even less brakes than the rest!) 

After some online research each Sisu has been fitted with one pair of softer WASP urethane tyres, these replacing the outer pair, one on each side at the rear. Apparently that improves grip but still allows some slide to stop the trucks tipping on sharper corners. Finally 3D printed slot guide 'thingies' were fitted in place of the springs, to stop the 180 reverse running phenomenon and get the slot guides down into the slot. 

Yet to be done is the gluing into the chassis of the motors and bearings.

(The backup truck body and chassis have also been identified using chequered tape, as the complete backup truck and the spare 'chassis only' are both running 10t pinions - I ran out of eights. Other than that they were indistinguishable from the primary race trucks.)

          

P.S. Forgot to say, they're magless with 20gms of weight added, 10 directly behind the guide and 5 either side at the mid-point.