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Once again this weekend we made solid improvement in the performance of the Sidewinder. This was possible due to the assistance of several people. Ed & Hank Runne made the trip over from PA with some new ideas to try. Also they brought Dave Little who lives in the Akron area with them. He had Sidewinders set up in his Hot Rod El Camino which is now sporting some new Sidewinder decals. Also Tom Sutherland was kind enough to loan me a prop to try. Dana Holt and the race committee were kind enough to give me a test lap this morning before racing started. This confirmed that the changes we made were in the right direction.
Saturday's race was what often happens during new product development, a step or two back in order to make several steps forward. The changes that we made before Saturday's race brought the bog in the turns back (not as bad as the original bogging) and loading up of the motor. The two heats of racing had me using all the tricks I learned as an heavy ASH driver to get the boat to come out of the corners. It took about half the straight-away to get the motor back winding out. But we still gained some speed over the numbers we saw at Zanesville, in spite of the cornering issues.
So we put the test wheel on and started making further adjustments. Ed Runne and I were in the water and Dave Little was our on-shore consultant and note taker. After spending most of the day running the motor on the test wheel you could feel a big difference in responsiveness of the motor. The boat actually started walking on the test prop.
Thankfully we got that test lap this morning when the water was nice and calm. There was a good improvement in speed from yesterday's racing and the bog in the corners was gone. YEAH!!! The motor carried the boat through the corner nicely. Unfortunately by the time we raced today, the wind had picked up significantly. There were white caps during the first heat and so I only got a decent run to the first turn, partially because I was checking out my out of position turn fin and wondering how I was going to make it through the turns. The second heat had even worse water conditions so I pretty much never got above half throttle. The race committee left it up to us about going out for the 2nd heat. We all made it around the course without incident amazingly enough. Ian Duggan took the heat and overall win. He got dunked afterwards because this was his first win.
Saturday's race was what often happens during new product development, a step or two back in order to make several steps forward. The changes that we made before Saturday's race brought the bog in the turns back (not as bad as the original bogging) and loading up of the motor. The two heats of racing had me using all the tricks I learned as an heavy ASH driver to get the boat to come out of the corners. It took about half the straight-away to get the motor back winding out. But we still gained some speed over the numbers we saw at Zanesville, in spite of the cornering issues.
So we put the test wheel on and started making further adjustments. Ed Runne and I were in the water and Dave Little was our on-shore consultant and note taker. After spending most of the day running the motor on the test wheel you could feel a big difference in responsiveness of the motor. The boat actually started walking on the test prop.
Thankfully we got that test lap this morning when the water was nice and calm. There was a good improvement in speed from yesterday's racing and the bog in the corners was gone. YEAH!!! The motor carried the boat through the corner nicely. Unfortunately by the time we raced today, the wind had picked up significantly. There were white caps during the first heat and so I only got a decent run to the first turn, partially because I was checking out my out of position turn fin and wondering how I was going to make it through the turns. The second heat had even worse water conditions so I pretty much never got above half throttle. The race committee left it up to us about going out for the 2nd heat. We all made it around the course without incident amazingly enough. Ian Duggan took the heat and overall win. He got dunked afterwards because this was his first win.
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