On Friday February 10, 2006 we had another Mini-ZRacer.com GTG Event at Chuck's work.
 
We had all been looking forward to this GTG ever since we ran the first two HFAY OLPS races last time then saw how "poorly" we did related to other clubs (see my blog on our previous GTG).  This time we decided to dedicate the whole night to one HFAY OLPS race instead of two.  Most of us got a little more serious about setting up our cars and prepping for the races.
 
Again everyone started to arrive at 7pm and started settling in and talked for a little bit.  Will showed us his Enzo with a cool paintjob that changes colors based on how the light hits it.  You can see a video of the Enzo body here.

Finally we got down to business and had the track ready around 7:40pm.  We then ran open practice for about an hour.  

During practice a couple people had issues with their metal locknuts coming off.  Most of us seem to think that the stock all-plastic/nylon locknuts seem to do a better job staying on (although I have read the Kyosho metal locknuts are pretty good).
 
David finally got more Core transponders in so now we don't have to worry about sharing them and having to sort the results afterwards.  This was a big pain from last week.  After setting up the new Core transponders we started qualifying at 9pm.  
 
I gave Will my spare MR-02 to use for qualifying and racing.  He's too good of a driver to be stuck using anything else.
 
Again I missed out on making the A Mains.  So I got ready for the B Mains which started around 10:30.
 
The B Mains was Will, Brad, Josh, and I.  It was a great race as usual and I was able to pick up another B Main win.  Will loved the MR-02 so much that he bought it off of me.  The B Main results for HFAY OLPS #3 ended up:

B Main:
  hobbycar (that's me) 81 laps
  will3kgt (in my other MR-02) 79 laps
  crazybenz (Brad)  58 laps
  joshsrchobbies  55 laps
 
Then it was the A Mains again with David, Chuck and Vaughn.  David had issues with his car from the start.  The rear end on his Ferrari 575GTG was real loose and caused him to spin out several times.  Later he said it was probably due to a loose ball diff.  Vaughn also had some issues during the race.  But Chuck (aka onrailz) was totally dialed and focused and gunning for the top HFAY OLPS spot (check the HFAY site to see how he ended up doing).  The results from this A Main for HFAY OLPS #3 ended being:
 
A Main:
  onrailz 91 laps
  vaughn 75 laps
  mini-z_djg 71 laps
 
After the official HFAY OLPS races were over we had some more fun.  David brought out the custom Super Epochs made by LBRC.  They are quick but the speed makes them flip due to traction rolls when going full speed around the corners.  I finally got used to it (slowing way down for the turns) and took a couple videos of it.
  Video: Super Epoch solo run
  Video: Super Epoch vs Mini-Zs
 
We also started to do some individual HFAY OLPS time trials.  By 1:30am I had to go, but apparently some of the guys ended up staying past 4am racing .
 
Well the results from today made me even more eager to upgrade my transmitter to an Airtronics M11, M8 or KO Propo EX-10 Helios.

Thanks to everyone that came for another fun night of racing.

Stay tuned as I'll be posting a blog about the February 24, 2006 Ann Arbor GTG.  I'll talk about finally getting an Airtronics M8 and setting it up, trying out the Atomic 1 degree steering knuckles (purchased from shop.tinyrc.com of course ), and running HFAY OLPS race #4.

Note: The main Mini-ZRacer.com Forum area for our club is here.  And you can see a gallery of images from our club here.