A few words from my co-driver Pavlos:


Our team is at the left. From Left: Tasos and Pavlos. I am in the HPIBajaForum.com t-shirt, lower, above the orange car.


Moments before the start of the race, Tasos (left) discovered that one of the rear arms was broken.


We fixed it in no time!

- We raced with a fully stock car, only 1 set of tyres (which were completely worn out during the last 40mins of the race), no previous test runs, no adjustments on the suspension (fully default-"out of the box"), and 2 out of the three drivers drove the car within the 3hour race for the first time! One of the drivers drove sticks almost for the first time...


Ready for the start! The "mechanic" runs towards the car, starts it, and the race is on!

- We had no damage in the car except a slightly dented lexan cover (I was attacking and slightly hitting some guys that were blocking me... :-) )
- All cars participating in the race had damage of some sort (most clipped their front wishbones, but I saw some minor differential and exhaust issues as well), but our car escaped the race completely unscathed, and ready to run for another 3 hours (it needed fresh tyres offcourse...)
- The #1 and #2 finishing car, had serious front wishbone issues, that were fixed in the pit lane and thus permitted them to continue the race, and it also permitted us to get near to the #2 car by some 2-3 laps in the finishing line...
- I believe we could have never reached the #1 car, but the #2 car, was relatively easy for us to pass, if we had some more traction in the rear of our car. The #1 car driver(s) were very fast and patient, and needless to say they recorded a best lap of 30.something lap, when our best lap was at 35.something...The #2 car driver was very tired at the end (he completed the whole race on his own!!!) and he was making a lot of driving mistakes, thus we had some chances to reach him perhaps...the #4 car finished about 6-7 laps behind us, and he was not threatening us for the last hour or so...




- Our car was in general very durable, but also very difficult to drive (at least for me). The steering for me was excellent, very responsive, and full of caster angles, which is exactly the way I like it. The general shock absorption was also very good (the up-and-down movement of the car and the potholes absorption), and the way the car jumped was excellent. BUT... we had problems in the rear...I think we need to look in the angles-pistons-oil-spring combinations in order to make the rear suspension more supporting in the exit of the turns...just by touching the throtle in the exit, the car was willing to power-oversteer...I dont know if tuning the motor down (I wouldnt touch the motor and exhaust, it is excellent) we would have the same results... what I would do first would be to look into the rear suspension, and perhaps even on the rear differential, and attempt to harden it a bit...
- The car durability was unbelievable, and I think we jumped the 2 big jumps almost 70% of the times, meaning that the car jumped high more than 265 times in 3 hours!!!
- Overall it was great fun, and I will never forget how difficult it was to drive for such a long time (45mins is too long...), and how hard it was to see the turns at the rights side of the track...at some point, I was hitting on the throttle hard on the right turns just to see dust coming off the rear tyres, and manage to see where the car was...it was too dark and the sun setting was level to our eye sight...
- also, I never touched full throttle in the car...it shows that is has amazing speed improvement potential, only the suspension (the rear) was not there to help...


The rest of the warrior after the battle!


The top three cars.


A proud 3rd place!

Pics by Angeliki, Pavlos' wife!