Looking back at a few laps around the speedway

Last Friday I did more racing and for the first time turned my camera around to see what was going on behind me.  This was an experiment during the hot lap practice.  I plan to film a race or two like this.  With what happened last Friday a certain couple of karts are probably going to make that interesting as I think they will be taking it out on my rear bumper.



The white kart behind me is the one that had a problem with me.  If you listen close to a couple of the laps you can hear me just touching the rev limiter at the end of the straight away.  So I've max'd out the gear ratio, at least with the driver I have off the clutch.  May try a tooth more of driver.

Khorne Chaos Space Marine Conversion...Chicago GD News & Go-Kart Racing Report

Another Khornate Space Marine conversion.  I do like this look.  One of things I did on this model was to not use the cone head or have a tongue sticking out.  I'm not a big fan of the tongues anyway.

The possessed legs dow mix well with other bits and the arms are cool also.  Added a tattered tabard to the model also.

 

You can tell I'm beginning to run out of chaos bits in my bitz box, as I dipped into the loyalist box.

A very straight forward conversion.  As is the Slaanesh one below.  Which basically just got a tabard of leftover greenstuff.

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Friday Racing Report.

Not much to report on the Go-Karting front.  I managed to get to the track, made a bunch of adjustments to the kart, got it down to a pound over minimum weight.  They split us into two groups.  Went out in the first heat with 4 of the fastest karts in the class.  Started second to last and finished last, my set lasted good for about 2 laps, after that I was so loose that I thought I was going to hit the wall and porta-pot outside the fence every lap.  The flagstand could see my side panel number for most of the laps as I tried to save it and still run as fast as possible.  Terrible heat.

Heat 2, major adjustments in air pressure and moved in the left rear tire about a half inch.  They inverted the field, I and another clone engine were on the front row.  It's disgusting how much more torque the Animal 206 and Flathead Briggs makes, as they were lined up behind the clone on the pole and pushed him past me before we got to the green flag.  So a restart this time the clone on the pole did not even get on the gas and they still pushed him past me to the point that the kart in third was equal with me at the green flag.  They threw the green anyways, ridiculous.  I drove it super deep into turn 1 and 2 and came out side by side with the polesitter.  Ran this way for a couple laps, got around him after pinching down in the corner to scrub his momentum.  Ran in first for a couple of laps, one of the faster flatheads caught me, ran side by side with him for 4 laps.  Lost the lead and then lost another spot with a lap to go as I was getting super loose again.  Better but not good.  Made more adjustmenst in tire pressure, and went up a gear to see if I could get more straightaway speed.  Wouldn't matter as the screw job was on and they called me for a 3-wide penalty that was B.S. in the corner and sent me to back about 6 laps in, the B.S. part about it was I was not the person that made it three wide and was under someone else, the guy that made it three wide stuck his nose under me and hit me in the left rear in the corner.  They also sent my old man to the back a couple laps before me.  Complained about the call after the race, and the track official I can tell does like me for whatever reason.  And I did it nicely, basically asking for the reason, all he did was yell at me, so I got pissed and pushed him for an explanation and kept pushing for one until he just walked away shaking with anger.  It was actually kind of funny, because I never even raised my voice, and I never got an explanation, other than it was a judgement call.  Maybe its because the guy that hit me sponsered an event for them a few weeks ago. Doesn't matter, now I know the politics.  lol.

My sister jumped in my dad's kart for the pit crew race, had 12 karts on the track.  She took second in that after leading every lap except for the last one. Really good job for her first time out on the track, beating all of the guys.  Take that guys, most of you got beat by a 38 year old girl.

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Chicago Gamesday Golden Demon News

• I was unable to attend, recieved some emails from a couple of guys through our Yahoo group, but its cryptic in nature, I'm thinking something along the lines of the return of Vincent Hudon to competition, not sure though.
• I don't have anything to report, other than Gamesday-U.S. will be in Chicago again next year as they had to sign a multi-year deal with the convention center to get a better rate from the Chicago Mob.  Yay mob!, maybe I'll actually be able to attend next year because of this.  Its within driving distance, must clear my calender.

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Next up.....Pictures of some freshly painted Chaos Warrior marauders.......hopefully.

My WAB Knight Unit...Painted

These are my WAB knights. Some of them are my converted Perry Miniatures knights mixed with the Perry’s Holy Order/Hospitaller Knights.

The ones without hoods and sleeve-less surcoats are my conversions. I think this unit of knights turned out pretty good. I was attempting to get them out of the First Crusade in the 1090s, into more of the late Second and Third Crusades.

I also played around a bit with color schemes, make some of them Knights of Jeruselem, some Ibelin color schemes, Franks, English, and Spaniard themes. Note some of the kite shields are actually GW High Elves shields from their foot infantry, that made conversion of the shields much easier.

 The basing is HO scale railroad ballast, some tiny stones, with Joefix grass tufts, static grass, and GW Staw.

I'm extremely happy with the way the horses turned out.  I really wish that the Perry's someday convert some of their horses to give them caparisons, because its a lot of work to do.

The above is very good picture of a couple of the horses.   

Another angle.  As you can see in the front knight I also updated one of the helms.  The musician horse is kind of a miscast, but it does have a very dynamic look to it.

I do want to be able to play these guys across alot of periods from the Iberian Pennisula all the way to the Holy Land.  So there you have it for now.  That is it for my WAB knights for awhile.  I will come back to them later this year.  Next up I return to painting the Chaos Warriors and few Roman Auxilliaries with them.

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Well spent another night also at the race track tonight.  It started out with an air temperature of 101 F, not exactly the kind of night that you want to put on a jacket, gloves, and a helmet on.  The heat did effect me early.  I'm also battling some sinus issues that have caused a build up of fluid in one of ears, not really helping my equilibrium.  Did not drive well and did not drive clean, kept getting caught up in little things on the track and either getting spun out or just flat spinning out.  But that said, I definitely made huge gains in speed.  So much so that my Old Man had nothing for me.  The feature was kind of comical, as I and my old man got into each other.  Tomorrow we will tear apart his engine and see why he was down on power.  With how things went tonight I look forward to next week, hopefully it will be a bit cooler.  My go-kart's handling keeps getting better.

Another Friday Night in the Kart...Carnage Ensues

Wah! Crazy night tonight racing. I completely changed the setup on my front end. Got out 4 scales, checking nose weight and cross weight. Cut the lead bar in two and moved 6 pounds to the nose, to try and cure the push in and loose off. Handling improved on a hot slick race track. Still a bit loose, but loose is fast if you can hang on.

Warm up session felt good. Heat 1 Started 3 rd to last out of 8 karts by number draw, lap 2 got wild we went 3 wide in to turn 4. I came out of the lap in second, but the carnage behind me brought out the yellow and the field reverted to the previous lap. Restart was bad for me and I only gained one spot.

Heat 2 got crazy. We had a red flag thrown for a big wreck. Well someone hit me in the left rear and my rear tire launched him into the air, and the kart behind him driven by the lone gal in the field hit him and launched her right over the hay bail wall, and flipped her over into the catch fence, the kart rolled and landed on top of her. The guy that launched off me busted up his kart a little but was able to continue. And another guy went off the track into the wall with them. Me I just felt someone hit me, and looked over my shoulder and saw the nose of the kart and kept going. I ended up finishing terrible in that heat, 3rd to last. And the gal, had no padding on her steering column post, well she caught a bolt that scraped the inside of her thigh a few inches long. They put some disinfectent and gauss on an taped it up. She's a trooper, she want to get back and race the feature, but the track officials held her out.

25 lap Feature I started 7th out of 8 karts. About 9 laps in I was in last, got caught up in a slide with another kart that damn near spun out in front of me and lost all my momentum. Later my old man got spun, so gained those spots. My tire pressure adjustment was completely wrong. Yellow came out, single file restart, passed a couple karts. Finished 4th, held off my old man for the last 6 laps in a back and forth dogfight. 4th was actually 2nd in our engine class. My engine is not right. My oldman has built himself a new engine, so I'm going to try his current engine. He's definitely faster than me, so will see if its the engine or the driver.

My oldman at 64 years old won the 2nd heat race. To give you an idea on the speed, someone radar gunned us at the end of the straight away, we are hitting 50-55 mph, most everyone is running mid to upper 11 second lap times on an 1/8th mile oval.

Fun in the Dirt.

Well just because it rained last Friday and canceled my go-kart racing on the asphalt oval, doesn't mean that you cannot get in some laps and not have any fun. Since it rained lightly that just meant that our homemade dirt oval track did not need as much preparation time. And yes, it is as much fun as it looks on my face inside the helmet.

And the Old Man known as Deathwish is absolutely having a ball also as I'm chasing him down.

The dirt track was in good shape and the scary part is that our lap times are almost as fast on the 1/8 mile dirt as they are on the 1/8 mile asphalt. The kart frames are the same as our asphalt karts minus the bodywork, engines are the same, as are the tire sizes.

And the wildlife does not seem to mind it as the deer came out later to investigate what we were doing and the turkey flew in and then flew off as we were taking a short break adjusting the karts.

Another night in the kart...not a good showing.

Got few pics from the past couple weeks, nothing from tonight yet. And honestly tonight was not a good night for me. Had a bad draw for Heat 1 started in the back, got into with two other karts just after the green flag and spun out early before lap one was even complete. Got a restart, go a trapped low, rode around awhile, tried to get a couple a spots late and did, but got greedy trying for one more on the last lap and got hooked and spun out finished last.

The above pic is from the first week during a warm up lap.

The above is the pace lap of the begining of one of the heat races.

In Heat two tonight, they inverted the field so now I'm starting outside of the pole. Got the lead by end of lap one and it went all downhill from there and finished a very disappointing fifth. Had an okay start but I had made an air pressure adjustment in the tires that did not work and lost all the handling on the kart.


The above orange and black kart is my old man. He took third in the feature tonight, pretty good since he had nearly 30+years on all of the other competitors with the exception of me.

Got in the feature, and because of my poor heat races, I was put in the back row. Got one spot on lap one. Then two of the kart in front were fighting back in forth, I felt I was faster. After following them 2-3 laps, I decided to dive the apron a bit and see if I could get one of them, almost got both, couldn't get clear and lost the momentum for the next corner. So got back and line and waited for 3-4 laps while the leaders were getting away. The 96 finally made his move low on the 53 and it was time to go and follow him through. Away we went. I still felt faster than the 96 and diced with him a bit trying to get around him, but he was trapping low. We did this for another 3 laps or so the leaders were gone. Then coming out of turn 4, he got loose tapped his brakes, I punched his left rear and he goes into a spin. I was like I'm going to spin out unless I powerslide into his side, so I held it, side swiped him and straightened him out and then it was drag race down the straight. 96 runs a Briggs, it has more torque, he got away, I lost momentum and it took 3-4 more laps to get back to him. Finally I get around them, and got passed by the leader in a 206 Animal. After that we had 3 more laps and I was flat out getting away from those behind me. Too little too late. 5th in the Feature a lap down.

Yep the above was more like how things went for me tonight. That is me in the middle of the track going the wrong direction. I think this was from one of week ones heat races. I think I got hooked by the silver 73. He is a good hard racer and fun to compete against.

Another Friday Night in the Kart...Better Results

Took a break again from warhammer and went go-kart racing again tonight. One less racer in my class tonight but 9 karts on a 1/8 mile high banked asphalt track is quite a few karts. A few more tweaks this weekend, more tire pressure, a different clutch, and different sprocket.

We drew for starting position in the first Heat Race, I drew pretty high and started inside of row 3, behind my old man. When the checkered flag was thrown I finished 4th, as the Animal engined #14 spun out in front of me, damn near a bad collision, but I got around dirt track style. You should have seen how big his eyes were inside his helmet as I missed him.

2nd Heat Race I started inside of row 2 this time, a really fun race lots of back and forth racing. This time the 14 got out front and stayed there. The animal engine makes a lot more power than my wee Clone engine. But in the end I managed to keep everyone behind me and I finished 2nd. Was very pumped about that.

The Feature. Started alongside the 73 Clone engined kart and points leader in the class. He is running a different clutch and getting a lot of pull and definitely can take off faster than me, he is also running a different sprocket. This time I'm on the outside of the front row, not really where I want to be. My old man is right behind me. The two Animal engined 17 and 14 are inside row 2 and 3. In order for me to hang on to the position I'm going to have to get going fast and get to the inside. We line up 2 wide run to start the 17 jumped the start inside pushing the 73 past me so I let off the gas and didn't go so they threw the yellow and waived it off. So now I know what he is going to do. Next time around I was on the gas but the kart sputtered a bit, he still got a jump and pushed the 73 down the track. By the time we left turn two I was in fourth and that is where I stayed. The track cooled down and I felt like I was holding on for dear life. Got to the half way point and I was spent. Then a late yellow for a spin slow us all down and my kart sputtered and quit. We were in esssentially a red stopped condition to clear the spins. Got out started it back up, it ran pretty rough, clutch was just hammering on the slow speed of the yellow. Got back to green I had nothing for them, end up racing the old man for a few laps then pulled away from him.

Not bad. My second week of racing karts on asphalt and I moved up one spot in the feature compared to last week. I had a couple people in crowd putting a stop watch to me and was pulling high 11 second laps in the heat races, but dropped off into the 12s in the feature. The track was quite green with all of the rain the last few days and 50 degree temps did not help either. Lots of fun, will be tearing the clutch apart tomorrow. We'll see if I get emailed some photos.

My new ride..orcs say blue is lucky right?

Well spring is coming, my old truck is not quite done, but the new go-kart is getting there. My old retired father is a racing nut, and started go-kart racing back in the 1950's. He designed and built a bunch of new go-kart frames. So this is mine with body/nose on it. And yes he is going racing this summer.

Decided to paint the top of the body in blue, left over paint from 1988, actually the color and paint from my first truck. The black is the fiberglass gel coat and will probably get a bit abused. And I do have a decal number and of course the my name Psychosis is on it, its on the other side, should have shot a picture of it.

Pictures of the kart frame without the body. This is a much heavier and better built frame than the kart I was running for fun on dirt ovals last summer, which was an old Italian made kart from the 1970's, and I broke the frame half a dozen times. Lots of welding repairs on the old one. This one will hold up to the abuse.

Yes its set up for oval track racing, not too many road/sprint courses around here. Plan to run on dirt and pavement. And yes the right front tire is all of 11-inches wide. There is a ton of stagger in the kart. The left front is about 6-inches wide. Its even set-up so that I can adjust the camber in the front tires.

Go-Karting Incident...No Pumpkins Hurt

So, with the holiday weekend and the nice weather , it was determined, that we would get out the go-karts and run on the 1/8 mile dirt oval. Now we do this quite often, and we're all pretty good and pretty competitive, or at least I was until this happened. Not all my fault I was primarily attempting to avoid someone that spun out in the corner, hit their kart just slightly but hard enough to damage my kart, bending the control arm and tie rod, which caused the lose of control and then I'm along for the ride straight off the banking of turn 2, and into the pumpkin patch.

And yes no pumpkins were harmed by this accident.

So now I have some repair work.