Chippenham Club Racing

So now with the car built, and some Mini racing under my belt, I was told by John Ridding and Andy Travis that there is an RC club not very far from where I live that races Minis. Earlier this year, I went along to see what it was like and to meet and talk to the other drivers that I might be racing against.

Chippenham Model Car Club is a fantastic club for drivers of all abilities, it really is. The club has 3 seperate parts to it - Offroad racing in the summer, Indoor touring/mini/F1 in the winter, and also in the winter - the CWIC - Chippenahm Winter Indoor Championships. I'm not likely to be around during the summer for offroad racing due to other RC committments, but the winter indoor season and the CWIC series appeal to me very much.

Now it's late September and the indoor club season has just started at Chippenham. The classes raced are F1, Mini, and Touring Cars. Touring Cars for me are too fast for the tight, technical tracks that Chippenham use (due to limited floor space). However, Minis seem almost ideally suited to the floor space available. The motor used by most of us racing is the HPI 20T Saturn motor, which gives enough punch and speed to have fun with, without being too powerful.

Last Tuesday (20th September) was the first indoor club meeting at Chippenham, and I wanted to get up there to test the M-05 on carpet for the first time, as well as to test a new part, the 3Racing Oil-filled gear diff (M06-06). The night went well, initially I was having problems with the car turning-in too quickly, leading to big oversteer moments - not fun on carpet. In addition, I couldn't figure out how to turn down my brakes. Thankfully Dave Allen from the Chippenham club was the voice of experience (he has the same trasnmitter), and once I'd turned down the steering and brakes, the car was transformed and handled really well, turning in sharply, steering beautifully through the corners, and pulling very nicely out of a tight hairpin onto the straight. The only slight improvement I would like to have made would be to how the car handles changes of direction at higher speeds. Right now, I'm leaving the car setup as it is - however, I have in the back of my mind that I might use thicker shock oil in the front to numb the off-power steering a little. We'll see.

All of this carpet racing at the Chippenham club meetings is great practice for the Chippenham-organised CWIC series, of course. The series has a great following in the South and South-West of the UK and is sponsored by local RC model/karting/mini-moto business MMR Flux, as well as Schumacher, Sorex, and Much More UK. In past years, members of the Dorset and Chippenham clubs have had great racing in the Mini class. I'm looking to join in the battle, I hope this year is as good as previous years!

I'll try to take some photos and videos and will post them here at a later date.