First race, brand new car
(open the photo full size)RugRacers Round 1 was at Hertford: a sports hall full of pit tables, an ETS-spec carpet track, and 38 drivers in my class, 1/10th Frontie (front-wheel-drive touring cars on a control motor). Doors at quarter past seven, practice at eight.
I’d finished building the car the day before. The Xpress MF1 went together over three days: chassis, diff, shocks, then soldering, flashing the ESC and setting it all up on the bench. The whole build is on camera and coming to YouTube.
Practice: it wouldn’t stay pointed straight
Practice was the first time the car had ever turned a wheel on a track. The back end stepped round every time I lifted off into a corner, and again every time I got back on the power. Best lap 15.25. Most of the class were in the 12s and 13s.
Where the AI came in
I race with Marbl[AI] from our Pit Crew app, open on a laptop at the pit table. I tell it what the car’s doing in plain English, and it works through the setup with me. It works by our own rulebook: diagnose first, change one thing at a time, and say how sure it is.
For a car stepping out at both ends of the corner, its first call was a stiffer front anti-roll bar (1.3mm up to 1.4mm). It also had me recheck the front toe-out and bring it back to about 2 degrees. Two changes. One heat later the car felt on rails, and my best lap dropped from 15.25 to 14.36.
(open the photo full size)Chipping away
The Pit Crew app also reads the live timing. After every round Marbl gave me a short read on where the time was going, and by mid-morning the answer was no longer the car. It was one scrappy patch per run: a big lap or two sitting in the middle of otherwise tidy ones.
| Round | Best lap | Average (clean laps) |
|---|---|---|
| Practice | 15.25 | 16.44 |
| Qualifier 1 | 14.36 | 15.52 |
| Qualifier 2 | 14.34 | 15.52 |
| Qualifier 3 | 14.16 | 15.35 |
| Qualifier 4 | 14.37 | 15.89 |
| D Final, leg 1 | 14.44 | 15.62 |
| D Final, leg 2 | 14.07 | 15.00 |
My quickest lap of the day came in the very last race. Across the day my average lap came down by nearly a second and a half, and the gap between my good laps and my bad ones halved.
I also turned the throttle speed down a touch for cleaner launches off the grid. And I learned that my glasses slide off my face mid-race. Something to hold them on is going on the shopping list.
Advice from the pits
The best thing about a day like this is the people. I was offered tips all day by drivers and mechanics who really know their stuff. Marbl checked each one before I acted on it. “Run scrubbed-in tyres for the finals, not brand new ones” held up: new tyres carry a shiny surface from the mould, and mine took five or six laps to come in during the first final. Another tip, about cycling batteries for extra punch, didn’t hold up for LiPo, so I left it.
That’s the bit I think matters most for anyone new to this. Good advice is everywhere in a pit lane. Knowing which bit applies to your car, today, is the hard part.
The result
Qualified 38th of 38, into the D final. 7th of 8 in both legs. Not last, which I’ll take on a car I only finished building the day before.
The gap to the quickest in the class is nearly two and a half seconds a lap. That’s this winter’s job.
At the stand
We had the Marbl Racing banner up, and plenty of people stopped to ask what it was and how the AI works. If that was you: thank you, and the Pit Crew beta sign-up is on the Pit Crew page.
Watch the day
The whole day is on YouTube: practice, the setup changes at the pit table, qualifying, marshalling, the raffle, and the final from the driver’s stand.
Play My first RC race in 20 years: RugRacers Round 1, 38 minutes (YouTube video)The build that came before it is in Building the Xpress Execute MF1 in one day. Subscribe to Marbl Racing on YouTube (opens in a new tab) for the next ones.
Thanks to RugRacers and Hertford RCC for a cracking event. See you at Round 2.
Richard
