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Thanks Flo. Even though this body originally belonged to a TA02 chassis (which is very expensive as well as hard to find) I really have enjoyed assembling this DF03ra version (which wasnt cheap either) and as I said before, it really drives nicely. 

A couple of weeks ago I bought this storage unit on sale.
Great to keep projects and parts in it.

And over the last week or so I have been cleaning my spare TL01/HBX parts

Thanks Flo. Even though this body originally belonged to a TA02 chassis (which is very expensive as well as hard to find) I really have enjoyed assembling this DF03ra version (which wasnt cheap either) and as I said before, it really drives nicely. 
I would like to discover the df03. And ta02 chassis are incredibly expensive. 

Reprinted destroyed parts, started to paint the driver also.....wait for scary eyes 
Printer newly calibrated and the material is so much stronger now printing at 255° instead of 240°. Bi metal heatbreak works great so far 😍

 
 

Spend yesterday the full day at Belley, for the Belleysane Vintage RC event...


The Nichimo made its first off road track run. The ground clearance is quite bad, and the car quite slow... But it turns well... It may be much more efficient on modern tracks... It is much boring to run than others in the current state, so it made only one run...

The Samurai made also its first run yesterday. I love this car, it reached the top of my favorites. It's light and very efficient with the central diff set properly to give a bit of traction... I really love the behavior of this car. Unfortunately, I got an issue during the second run, while I was starting to increase the rythm... Nothing to do with the printed parts, or the transmission : a gear in the servo is stripped so I'll need to change that one (I had a servo in the box, but anyone who build a Samurai knows that changing a steering servo on a Samurai is not an easy task)...

After this I ran all the other cars, except the Hunter and Galaxy... We had 14 cars there, and 12 of them ran. Beside the broken servo on my Samurai, my son almost teared his Supershot down to parts on the track, but nothing lost and the car is back together...

Discovered a few weeks back an old track that mates and i used to go to, is still there. Not overly maintained, but still very usable.
So daughter and i went up for a run.
 

The track:



As you can see, this is the typical track you would find here back in the eighties (the club in Belley is mainly targeted for leisure off road). This is really a track where trailing arms are in their natural element: that goes for the Turbo Scorpion and for the Samurai which are quite good there. Obviously, the Turbo Scorpion is really much better than the Wild One here... And while the Turbo Optima and Javelin are equally good on this track, I found the Samurai surprisingly excellent to drive on this track...

There is also an onroad track (asphalt pacman type). I did not have the M06 with me as I did not really considered it enough vintage to be qualified for the event, and both my on road Kyosho are not yet ready, so I did not run over it this week-end.


We went there this morning again, and we raced. The category was rigid axle and 540 silver can... I had two cars ready for that : the Hornet, and the Lunchbox, and my son had his Super Storm Dragon and his Lunchbox. Both of us took the Lunchboxes.
The race start was moved 15 minutes earlier due to the weather : org team wanted to have the race before the rain...

The race was a lot of fun : in case you put your cars on the roof, only the driver can get it back on the wheels, so, you have to run. I really thought I lost all chances when someone pushed me out at the first turn... I went down from the podium without even running, put my Lunchbox back on the wheels, and ran calmly... The thing is with rigid axles so imprecise that it is a nightmare to keep them on the track, many cars where actually waiting for their owner to come back to put them on their wheels... At the end of my first lap, I was still far from the race head, but at least, I overtook many other racers (no joy at all when they are on the roof, but they put me on the roof in first place, lol: ). Then during the second lap I had some nice fight with my son, we went head to head for 4 turns, before he missed one, and got his Lunchbox on the roof... And I continued, with not much traffic except funny obstacle to avoid... Did not know what I was in my position, when the judge shouted "please finish your lap" while I was going to cross the line... My Lunchbox made it to the 3rd place and that is my first RC racing podium !

After that my son did try hard to break his Supershot, and we may have to get new chassis parts for him, as per what he showed me at the end (he is trying harder to break cars than me, I think I need to get him a solid Kyosho rerelease at some point)...

Overall, that was a lot of fun, with a lot of vintage rc cars lovers... And some very nice builds, many discussions, and people asking me a lot of things about both my Nichimo Spirit FF and the Marui Samurai...
I can't wait for the next event

Took the gamble, rolled the dice, warmed up the rattle can, and shot clearcoat onto the Austin.

I'm too impatient, and have had the decals sitting here for a few months now.  I want to see them on the car  

Still a big mess at home but today, I tidied up my big toolsbox. Still under a future house because it has not enough space under the roof of our house. 

Fluffed around with this some more, Need to run the shocks through the ultrasonic cleaner but she is standing on her own now