P1 Brand

Congratulations to P1 Brand supporters, Paul Lemieux and Alexander Hagberg, 2012 Snowbird Nationals Champions in Modified 12th Scale and Modified Touring car, respectively. Below is an excerpt from their joint race report from the event. You can read the report in it's entirety at the XRay site.

The 2012 Snowbirds were held at the World Gate Resort in Orlando, Florida. The format of this race is special do to the racing of both On-road and oval. The racing goes on for almost 24hrs a day with a track change between on road and oval every day. Having this combination of two huge races rolled in to one makes the snowbirds the biggest race in the world with double the great racing and story lines. This year the attendance and competition was large do in part to the international attendance; several EU countries were represented along with Japan and obviously North America. 

I decided to join the largest r/c event in the world, the Snowbird Nationals for the first time at its 2012 edition. The race was entered by all the US drivers and top drivers from all across the world. The on-road category had more than 350 entries split on 9 classes. Team XRAY was represented by its RC America factory drivers, Paul Lemieux, Eric Anderson and Drew Ellis. From the European team it was I and Francesco Martini from Italy who had joined the event.

I arrived in the US a few days prior to the race to test at a high traction track which used the same layout as would be used at the actual race. This track was located in the city of Nashville, Tennessee, which is also the local track of RC America driver Eric Anderson. The tests were all very promising and I was happy with both of my cars. The track had very high bite and used the same layout as would be used the actual Snowbirds. After three days of intense testing we took off to Orlando, Florida for the Snowbird Nationals.

I competed in two classes, 1/10 Touring Car Modified and 1/12 Modified. In the 1/12 class I was struggling a bit with car set-up in early qualifying but eventually got it together for the last round where I was on a TQ pace but eventually fell off to 3rd overall which still was a decent result in this strong field of world class drivers. I changed my set-up a lot to cope with the high traction conditions and the technical parts of the track which required a lot of steering. I changed to stiffer front and side springs, made the upper arm longer in the front end, and changed to a harder shore foam tire. For Q4 and also In the final the car was handling really well and I had a good enough car to win the race. I was also very impressed by the performance of Paul Lemieux as he would go on to take TQ by 5 seconds in front of Keven Hebert and myself just behind Keven.

In the touring car class, I had a very good car already in practice and was the pace setter at this point. I did not have to change much on my set-up. But as myself and Francesco and the other team mates worked very closely together, we tried to figure out some changes, mainly from practicing hard in the early morning open practice rounds.

The main changes that I made to my basic set-up were to lower the rear upper roll center, and raise the front upper roll center. I also put the diffs in the high position, and put on softer springs both front and rear. I held the provisional TQ until the last round of qualifying where the Yokomo team driver Naoto Matsukura put in a perfect round to take the TQ just 0.6 seconds in front of my previous TQ time. The one-final format would allow for some exciting racing and hopefully good battles for the overall win. As the tone went off, Naoto pushed very hard and tried to pull away. On the third lap however, he would make a mistake in the sweeper following the straightaway which sent his car off the track. I now held the lead which I gradually increased throughout the race. I pulled away from Keven and Paul which were fighting for the 2nd place behind me. The car was so fast yet easy to drive, I could cruise to victory with 3.5 seconds down to the 2nd place finisher. It felt great to cross the finish line as the winner of the Snowbird Nationals!

Photos courtesy of RCActionPics.com©2012