Bear Races recap - was Re: SInce it's slow, my traditional cruising tune thread

[vwdaun at yahoo.com (Daun Yeagley)]

--- Mike Smith <smithma7@gmail.com> wrote:

> BTW, I asked in D's thread on the 'tex and don't remember
> seeing a
> reply: What were the results of this past season's Bear
> races?


Mike - Here's a copy of Cathy's e-mail all about the Bear
Races this year:

As you know, Boxing day is the traditional Bear race. It's 
starting to feel
like real racing. Our competition (my nephew, who has a 
modded GTI, and my
brother, a professsional mechanic who does Monster Garage 
type stuff
annually for the firefighter's big float competition) came 
up with a radio
controlled Civic (their first radio controlled effort, they

went with
rocket powered last year). They visibly whitened when they 
saw ours,
modelled after "my future daughter-in-law's" car. This 
being Melanie
Simmons, one of Canada's fastest females, she's 22, has an 
alcohol rail
that does 7s, and Adam is sure she's his soulmate.
Our car sported an all aluminum chassis, sponsored by 
HeliLynx (where my
son works). (I'm sure it didn't detract from their 
completion of the
multiple helicopters they're working on). Alexander Keith 
provided the wing
shell, which housed the battery. It was mounted on part of 
a (previously
wrecked) Scirocco grille, with some Lexan structural parts.

I love Lexan! 
We were going to attach it with titanium bolts, but we 
figured that was
just going overboard. Drivetrain was from a carpet racer, 
same one we used
last year, but I got some tire compound that really revived

the grab of the
slicks. Servos and radio stuff was scavenged from my Chris 
Craft, I really
want to put it back together at some point, it's too sweet 
not to use. But
I digress.
The bear had been on a diet since last year, he'd shrunk 
down to the point
where we were accused of removing his head, that's all you 
could see of
him, and he had a cute little helmet and a roll cage to 
keep him safe.
Sticker tuning was helpful in adding a few Hp, and the only

downside of the
build was the speed controller, it's a two speed 
mechanical, and would only
go fast or super fast. It did good wheelies too.
Anyway, I set up to take pictures and got nothing when ours

shot out of the
hole, it was just TOO fast. Theirs took easily three times 
as long to go
down the track. Sort of like an import ricer against an 
alcohol rail in
real life. Ours then proceeded to produce quite a bit of 
SMOKE!, video
shows what appears to be a small fire up in the works. Mr 
Avionics didn't
use enough cable ties, one of the power cables got tangled 
in the gears,
and managed to burn through the main drive gear. So it was 
a one run
wonder. But what a run! We've already planned a new car for

next year
anyway. 7 years we've been doing this, with only one loss. 
We still need to
find enough adult beverages for a "meeting of the 
sanctioning body" to cook
up next year's rules. Ours will most likely go amphibious 
anyway, so we'll
be ready for whatever.
That's the report. 
Oh, and Santa was good to me, there were tools and go fast 
parts under the
tree. Which is always cool!
Cathy




Daun Yeagley - Wilmington Ohio
'81 Scirocco S (Deiter)       '86 Scirocco 8v
'88 Scirocco Slegato (Gino!)  '88 Scirocco 16v
'96 Passat GLX Wagon          '56 Cessna 172
The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts - Ehrlich's Law.


 
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