I haven't written a race report for several months (or a year?) now, but after one of the best race of the year, I feel I must write a few lines to give you my impressions!
With this year's catastrophic weather, we headed to the Paris area to the RC94 in Sucy-en-Brie for the 24th edition of the Kyosho Masters.
A not-to-be-missed event for lovers of the Japanese brand, this year's event proved to be another success, with a record attendance! At a time when many clubs are looking sad with declining participation, it's clear that the races that offer 'a little something extra' are a great success, with over 170 cars and 160 drivers taking part this year.
From an outsider's point of view, before I joined the Kyosho team, I'd always seen the Masters as a race between drivers from the Paris area who were having fun in their own synthetic track, with no dirt. But I have to admit that I was far from what you experience when you take part in this race!
THE TRACK
Historically, I've never been a fan of full synthetic tracks. Without wishing to denigrate anyone, I don't have great memories of my previous experiences in these conditions, perhaps because it doesn't suit my driving style, but mainly because I don't find it 'off-road' enough in terms of feel. It's often like an on-road track with jumps and I don't find that very interesting.
I know that the further north you go, the more complicated it is to have a track that's driveable in winter without using astro or cobblestones... and even harder to find volunteers to maintain that kind of track.
But I have to admit that since I've been to the RC94 a few times, I think it's quite possible to have a proper off-road feeling in these conditions!
In fact, you really get the feeling you're driving a buggy here, and it's a real pleasure to drive on this track.
The surfaces are well chosen and the cars behave in a way similar to a high-grip dirt track. The difficulty obviously lies in the setup and tyre choice, because you go from one extreme to another when the weather changes from dry to wet!
We'll come back to this later, but from Friday/Saturday with dry conditions to Sunday with wet and changing conditions, we had to be reactive.
Track walk from Saturday morning:
FRIDAY
A day of set-up and testing. It's a real pleasure to see the pits full, with drivers from all over the world, 15 countries represented, from Japan to Greece and Reunion Island!
I started with settings for a fairly wet track, as rain was forecast for Friday morning. So the differentials were 10,000 in front, 10,000 in the middle and 5,000 behind.
From the first practice, I still had the springs and dampers pretty hard to compensate for the high grip of the already dry track.
For the rest, I used the settings I'd shared with you before the race, which were the ones I'd used in last year's edition. As far as tyres were concerned, there was no big question: the Matrix Blackhole with Clay Soft compound was the right choice!
In the afternoon, I took the time to change my differentials for 50000 in the front, 30000 in the centre and 20000 at the rear (with IF402 diff pinions everywhere).
After this change, I went from a best lap of 31.5s to 30.8s on nitro and from 31.5 to 30.6 on electric! Proof that in these conditions, differentials really do make the car more efficient, and even easier to drive!
I took pole position in the first qualifying heat in both categories.
SATURDAY
Qualifying day, with 4 heats on the timing, the 3 best taken into account, then a brushless final and the celebration race.
As the temperature was higher, I changed my shock absorber oils to 650-750 on the nitro buggy and 700-600 on the electric and reduced the rear down travel to 120mm in shock absorber length to limit roll and weight transfer on the low speed curves where I was losing cornering speed.
At the end of the 5 heats, I took pole position in both categories, but there was still work to be done, as the gap was reduced in the final heats on Saturday evening.
I won the first electric final, despite a big hit that disconnected the ball end from my front anti-roll bar. Quite tricky on a track with so much grip ;-)
Now it's time for the CELEBRATION RACE. The concept is simple and original. The top 5 in each category take off in lagged order to compete in a 22-minute final.
Firstly, the top 5 drivers in the LIGUE category: Nicolas Dupont, Benjamin Chebab, Sacha Debouzy, Melina Ratzlaff, Simon Follain.
EXPERT category: Olivier Natress, Anthony Ronssin, Frank Lemke, Andre Gavazzi, Samuel Miroir
ELITE category: Reno Savoya, Thomas Carandi, Jeremy Pittet, William Cazin, Soheil Azoulay.
The EXPERT drivers started 2 laps behind the LIGUE drivers, and the ELITE drivers 2 laps behind the EXPERT drivers, so I started a total of 4 laps behind the LIGUE drivers! I gave it my all in this final, and I finished 3rd, just one lap behind Sacha Debouzy who easily won this final! It was really fun to drive with the drivers from the other categories, they never gave up, well done!
Now it was time for the highlight of the show, the Saturday evening... Music, a pig on a spit, enthusiasts and a bit of punch... It's bound to go well! From the Reunionese punch tasting session to JQ's dance demo and the Irish DJ booth, the evening was once again an amazing success, full of smiles and conviviality.
SUNDAY
Main day... and rainy day!
Heavy showers overnight and in the morning. The track was wet and slippery and the set-up had to be reviewed.
Back with softer hydraulics, softer differentials, softer anti-roll bars, to give the chassis more movement and generate more grip.
The morning's 2nd electric final was cancelled to allow most of the weather to clear.
The first runs of the morning took place on a damp track, but only the straight in front of the driver stand really had puddles. That's the big advantage of racing on a track with this type of surface.
The semi-final practice session took place when the track was still very wet. I started with Matrix tyres, Nova ultra soft then changed to Neutron Ultra soft. The grip and laptimes were fairly similar, but the grip was very changeable and evolved rapidly.
For the 2nd electric final, the track was almost dry. So I asked myself a lot of questions about the choice of tyres. Clay rubber is best suited to synthetic surfaces, so it's the first choice for the RC94, but... it doesn't like water at all.
The track seemed dry enough for me to opt for Nova Clay Super Soft in A2. Clearly it wasn't the right choice, I should have gone for ultra soft.
The track was still too wet and I didn't have enough grip to move into the lead and I finished 2nd. It all came down to the A3, but motor problem prevented me from going for victory. Fortunately, Tim Kraus (who was the only one who could have won after A2) also suffered a mechanical problem, so I won the eletric class.
In the semi-final, the grip was back again, not as high as on Saturday, but very similar. So I went back to my suspension and anti-roll bar settings from Saturday, but kept a 'soft' differential setting, as rain was forecast in showers throughout the day and from one lap to the next the grip could completely change. My tyre choice for the day: Matrix Clay Super Soft.
I won my semi-final with a one-lap lead and would start with the number 1 in the final.
The final is scheduled quite late, close to the heavy rain forecast. I didn't change anything from the semi-final, and just do the usual maintenance: charge the batteries and check the clutch. Everything is still very reliable, so very little maintenance is required over a weekend of racing like this.
The final went very well... until about halfway through the race!
I came back into contact with P3 and P2 to lap them... but a heavy downpour came up. As I said earlier, clay rubber doesn't work at all on water. Except... Thomas Carandi played a gamble at the start of the final and chose to start on Neutron Ultra soft!
Hats off to him for staying on a good pace and taking 2nd place in the dry, but in the wet he was 3 to 5 seconds faster per lap! In other words, even with a 30-second lead, it didn't take him long to get back in touch! Fortunately, the rain eased off after a few minutes, but it was still very wet.
From one lap to the next, I regained my grip and set a pace that was 1 to 2s faster from lap to lap... until around 10 minutes before the end of the final, when it rained again. Fortunately, the rain stopped just in time, allowing me to win by just 8s after 45 minutes!
One lap video from the main:
As you can see, it was another excellent weekend.
Thank you to all the participants for your good mood (sorry, I'm not going to mention any names otherwise I'll forget some), your smiles, your exchanges and sharing, it was another great weekend of racing spent together!
After a few really grumpy weekends in terms of atmosphere on and under the driver stand during french nationals, it was a real pleasure to share this experience with you, and to put another layer on the very essence of why I do this passion and this job. I missed Father's Day and this sweet moment with my family, so it had to be a sensationnal weekend ;-)
Please visit the KYOSHO EUROPE FACEBOOK PAGE, for a ton of cool photos and videos that I'm sure will make you want to come back next year!
SETUPS
Here are the setups I used this weekend. 2 versions, a dry track version and a wet track version. In the nitro and A3 electric finals, I used the dry track setup with the wet track differentials ;-)
Friday/Saturday:
Sunday (wet):
See you soon for a new episode.
The Shark
Reno Savoya