JQ's Racing in America Part 1

 

THECar, ready to go for yet another race, racing every week end, and testing every week!

TLR Winter Series Revelation
I have attended 2 of these races, in this 4 race series hosted at Revelation Raceway in Ontario. The race format is short, a one day race, open practice in the morning from the crack of dawn to 9am, and then 2 rounds of qualifying, followed by mains with bump ups. Revelation is Adam Drakes home track, so he is the man to beat there.


Revelation Raceway

The Revelation track is very loose, so tyre choice is important, and as for car setup, maximising forward bite and rear traction seems to be the name of the game. My car has worked really well at revelation for my drivingstyle. At the races, it has almost been too stable, and i have started changing it to be more aggressive in an attempt to try and stay with Adam.


Consistent laps, I just need to be faster!

In the first race a few weeks ago, I managed to qualify 2nd, being the only driver along with Adam to do 8 laps in qualifying. In the main, adam checked out and i had a good battle with Drew Moller who had one less fueltstop than me in the 30min final. I pushed as hard as I could and I managed to gain one fuelstop on him, and when i stopped for the last time, i entered the track just ahead of him. I managed to hold on to second place, but didn't manage not to get lapped, as Adam lapped me during the last minutes of the race!
1. Adam Drake
2. Joseph Quagraine
3. Drew Moller


Got to represent, even while building shocks!

The second race was two weeks ago, and for this one, I hoped to be able to match Drake a bit better. in qualifying it looked good, as I almost beat Drake in the second round, but lost it by one tenth of a second! Drake! Adam ended up TQ:ing over me by 4 seconds, and we were once again the only drivers to do 8 laps in qualifying.


Getting closer!

For this race I also had some friends over from Europe, John and Felix Sandberg from Sweden, and the medjoubi Family from France. Both the Medjoubi brother made the main in Expert buggy, and the Sandbergs battled it out in the open class. This was only one of many races we attended during their 10 day stay, and we were at some track racing or practicing every day!


The JQ Team at Revelation


A lot going on in the pits!

In the A main, I unfortunately had some clutch problems. I was running a new clutch and the springs were too soft. it started bogging in the main, and I just tried to not make any mistakes with my overheating engine, and ended up having to fend off a hard charging Colby Poh towards the end of the main. One interesting fact was that I didnt crash a single time in the 30min main, and i only had one sketchy moment where i tangled a bit with a crashed car. I just kept it clean the whole race and got 2nd again. Rayan Medjoubi finished in 4th place! his best finish in USA. Tres Bien Rayan!
1. Adam Drake
2. Joseph Quagraine
3. Colby Poh

Snowman Series ARC


ARC is a good track, but it is located, in the middle of nowhere!

I attended the last Snowman Series race along with my friends the day after the TLR Series at Revelation. We were a bit late in the morning and barely made it to practice, we just had time to get a few laps in. This race again had 2 qualifying rounds, and then mains with bump ups. I qualified 3rd, and the top 5 or so were very close. it was going to be a good race! In the main i got taken out by someone, and then soon after that i tangled with another car, and when the marshall untangled us my engine cut, so that was that then. i lost a couple of laps and finished well down the order. Both the Medjoubi brothers had tyres fall off in the main, so that put them down the order also. Cody king won the race, and Shawn Kirkman was 2nd!


Some tall fool


Packing is an artform


Time to fly home redneck!

Grassroots at Hemet

I attended the Grassroots series race at Hemet, together with Jay Smoker. The Sandbergs and the Medjoubis had gone home already. Smoker was going to run my soon to be released RTR car, with an OS VSpec bolted into it. I remember Hemet from back in 2003 when i first visited America. Back then it was the craziest track i had ever driven on, with all the burms, woop sections and bowl turns. Now the track is still in the same place, but unfortunately it is a lot more flat. It is still good, but I miss that craziness!


Hemet RC Raceway

Once again, open practice in the morning, 2 rounds of qualifying, and then the mains with bump ups. This time we well and truly missed practice. The time changed during the night, to summer time, and I didnt know this. Also my iPhone switched the alarm off when this happened. This meant, that we overslept, and only made it to the first round of qualifying, and even then we had to rush to get our stuff ready. So the first time I drove on the track was in the first qualifying round!I picked up the track pretty quickly, and actually qualified 2nd in the round after Cody king, and my fastest lap was on my second lap :-D. After the two rounds i qualified 5th i think, it was very close. Smoker managed to qualify 3rd in over 40, and then decided that he wanted to race open too, so he signed up to the open class and would start last in that main.


Rushing to get ready for round 1 of qualifying!

The A main was pretty intense for me. It was a 20min race, so the start would be important! unfortunately, I had a terrible first lap. I crashed in a very bad spot, when avoiding being runover by the chasing pack after I didnt have the speed to clear the awesome back rhythm section and had to roll it. The marshall didnt see me, so it took 10 seconds for him to get my car. He only heard my car after everyone had gone by. I was already half a lap behind the leaders after 1 lap! that sucked. But I really wanted to finish on the podium, so i just started driving punched! I changed my setup for this race, i wanted to try something new. Robert Gustafsson from Sweden told me he had been running 10 hole 1.1mm pistons with much success. I tried these, but they didnt have enough pack, the car was bottoming out a lot. So I stood the shocks up all the way on the rear tower, and later also moved them out on the rear arms. I ran 500 oil, and my new hard springs, which will be released soon. In the front i ran my normal pistons. This made it possible for me to drive a lot more aggressively. I was able to get away with stiuations where before i would have crashed, spun out, or something similar. Now i just punched it more and kept going in the right direction. something definitely worth trying!


Setup setup setup, try 10 hole 1.1mm pistons in the rear, and stand your shocks all the way up!


Justin Damarin beat the odds, and won his second race with THECar!

In the 40 over class Jay managed to finish in 3rd place, after a pretty entertaining race! I was very happy with the performance of this truely Ready to Race car!


Jay Smoker not only got 3rd with an RTR, he also had the coolest hat at the race, by far! :-)

Believe it or not, it didnt even break, just kept going!

I will still be over here in USA, testing and racing for 3 more weeks, then it is back home to Finland, where the season will be kicking off. The stay here has been well worth it, and I know already now, that JQ Products will be able to offer all of you far better products in 2012 than we did in 2011. This will be a great year! Watch this space...

THE Stats So Far
Days Spent in USA: 54
Days Spent at the Track: 40
Days Spent at the Beach: 0
Days off, not working on anything: 0


One day I want to stand here! COME ON! 

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