[Chris Elworthy]

I'm starting to get somewhere with the setup of my Yz-2 following the North West regional at Bury Metro Yesterday. The track layout had some very tight and technical sections meaning despite the high grip nature of the surface I preferred cut staggers over regular staggers on the front as they helped the car through the tighter sections.
I ran the gullwing front arms and tower for the first time and although it's hard to compare with the standard arms as I didn't do back to back testing I did find I was able to drive the car far more consistently yesterday but that could just be familiarity with the car ... Time will tell.

A tidy round 1 drive put me 3rd in round behind Craig Collinson and Stu Wood so had a great base to build from. Managed a 7th in round 2 which would guarantee the A final so could begin to tinker for round 3.

I lowered the front inner ballstud 1mm in order to increase a little bit of initial steering into the corner and mainly to reduce steering through the middle to end of the corner. I also dropped the rear shock oil from 400 to 350 in the rear shocks to made the car slow down on rotation a little more. Car was decent and certainly safer to drive but hard to say whether it was quicker as I made a few mistakes through the heat pushing too hard coming out with a 8th in round.

The track slowed down significantly in round 4 as lots of sand had been pulled through the astro through the day making it a slippy affair. Naturally rear end grip was reduced in certain areas but my biggest issue was the lack of front end grip with the worn yellow cut staggers on the front. I needed to change my whole driving style to get the car to turn into the corner.

I raised the front inner camber link back to 2mm for the final in an attempt to trick the chassis that the front tyres had some tread left! Was evident from the warm up laps that the fronts were just too far gone so would still have to be far more on the brakes than I had been to get the nose into the corner. Lost a few places on the first lap with my car being unable to hold the inside line then on lap 2 I binned it twice..the driving style required to get the car round now was catching me out. Despite catching the pack I made another error at the end finishing 10th

That said, The car was excellent it was just my lack of preparation that let me down as I had no other cut staggers for the front so had to persevere. Was very surprised to see white how much steering the car has when the grip was up compared with how little when the sand came through. The car definitely felt safer to drive on 3-4run old cut staggers but if conditions get like that again new fronts are a must.

Very happy with this car overall,



Chris