Our new “What’s Cookin’?” series on RCSoup brings you an exclusive look at our hobby from our Team’s perspective. We’ll touch base on industry trends, rant about track politics, and give you our general opinion on just about everything r/c.  So grab a glass of iced tea, sit back and enjoy. Have a subject you want us to address? Leave us a note here.

Finding your groove in racing – By Paul Peterson

Let’s start off with the question. Why are the other guys faster than me? I have just as much motor as they do and maybe a little more. So where are they gaining so much ground on me??? This question has been around for years. The simple answer is you need to find your comfort zone. When I say comfort zone, I am talking about driving the car within your ability. I have seen it for many years in slot car racing as well as RC racing. People feel the need to “drag race” you on the straights. Don’t become a victim to this style of driving. The most important thing and one of the hardest is to race your own car, do not race the cars around you.  This may be the hardest thing to do. Why? Because people have the need to compete. You will find out more often than not that you will end up with slower laps times driving this way. Concentrate on lap times and the amount of laps you get in the heat races and the mains. If you focus hard enough, you might even beat the temptation to race the car next to you. The temptation is there when a person is pacing you to say “hey, I can keep up”. But your driving skills and set up are not up to this task, even if you think they are. You will find out the hard way in the end.

In time you will start seeing your lap times drop and you will see yourself gaining on your competitors. This is the progress you are looking for. Hit your marks and lay down some great laps and  you might be on the podium soon.

Speaking of podiums…you will get there if you stay focused. Now that you worked  on those lap times, let’s take a look at slowing down to go faster. You’re probably thinking “How will slowing down make me faster????” Well, you know how you used to drag race people down the straights and crash at the first turn?  If you let off sooner and make your car/truck turn perfectly, you will carry more speed thru the corner. When you slow down and enter the corner better, this will also have an effect when you get on the gas on the exit. You are less likely to spin the tires because you’re carrying more speed through the corner. You just made it past the first corner and your lap times will show that was a much better way thru the turn.

Another thing that may help you is turning the brake setting down in the radio. If you have a tendency to jack the brake too hard, go into your radio settings and turn the brake down. Everyone drives differently, so you can adjust the radio to fit your driving style. This also applies to the throttle and steering settings.

Passing people…this is a hard one. Forcing the pass will most likely end your chance at the podium finish. Remember how you used to drag race people? Now let’s think about this a minute. The guy next to you might do the same thing. So apply pressure staying close behind him. If you stay close enough behind him the driver will most likely mess up a corner entry and if they go wide, it will be a super easy pass. Now doesn’t that sound better than  both of you drag racing to the corner and crashing into each other?

Seat time…the most important thing to do is to practice. You will learn your car more by driving it time and time again. You will also get so good that you will start to learn what to change to get the vehicle to do what you want. However, this will not happen overnight. I have seen people expect too much out of RC cars and then after a few times they see that they are not catching the leaders and give up. You have to do setup research. You will find thousands of posts on the internet to help you out with whatever style track you race on. Now be careful with this information. I have printed pages up and tried what people say and my results were mixed. Always keep in mind that these people might drive differently, race on different surfaces or just think they know it all. You can get even more messed up on incorrect setup information you read off the internet and actually have your car perform worse than ever. I say this because this happened to me numerous times. I went all the way back to what the manufacturer has listed as the stock setting and I started all over. Just make sure you document your changes. No one likes it if you found the perfect set up and you never wrote everything down. Then after all your changes you hit the track and find the perfect setup. Without keeping track of the numerous tiny adjustments you did to get there it will be difficult to repeat all the little adjustments that you made to the shocks and the diff setups. How much extra time does it take to just write it down?

In closing, I think you will find your groove as long as you have patience. Take your time learning and study what other people do or how their car works. Always ask yourself why does that car turn like that? Or why does that truck jump so well? If you do, you will be on your way to finding your groove.