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HOTRACE Asia Cup race report By Jeff Hamon (08/05/2023)

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Reporter-2

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Serpent Viper 990 4wd 1/8 GP


I made the journey to Hong Kong from Brisbane on the last weekend in April to attend the 2023 HOTRACE  Asia Cup. The Event was held at the famous TRC Track (Tom Racing Circuit), located in a tropical surrounding about 30min from the major city of Kowloon.  The unique track is built on a slope which gives some nice elevation change throughout the lap, the surface not very abrasive on tyres however patches of worn asphalt creates some interesting bumps that sometimes can not be avoided. A relatively tight layout with a fast sweeper meant that a well balanced and maximum rotation setup was needed.
I arrived to the track Thursday morning with my race buddy and guide Kenrick, I cycled through my engines to make sure they were all tuned and setup for the hot and humid conditions while also learning the layout. Friday I worked on setup, proving to be a little challenging with the UV and Temps really changing the cars balance between runs, I settled on what I thought would be in the window and prepared for Saturdays quals.


Seeding 3rd in official practice, we set on to the 4min qualifying rounds. My first run was a little messy finishing in 4th, I managed to get 3rd in the remaining rounds until some rain stalled proceedings. The decision was to run 1 more round on Sunday before the mains. I continued to make setup changes to chase the track. Another 3rd in the last round meant we would be competing in super pole to try for a direct spot in the main! As anyone that has done a super pole before would know, the nerves are real! Just missing out on the fastest lap meant I would need to compete in the 30min semi final.


I quickly charged and prepped my 990, the strategy was to only change the outside tyres and to stay out of trouble….. The start was great, leading and creating a gap, we had some tangles while overtaking lapped cars which was a little intense but in the end everything worked well and we could finish 1st with two laps up our sleeve.


The 45min Amain!
My favorite thing about RC racing is long finals – Strategy, speed, teamwork, stamina and awareness all comes in to play.  We had a clean start, getting pretty close to Carmine in the first few laps, settling into a rhythm while trying to conserve tyres we cruised around in 3rd position until Carmine had some unfortunate luck which bumped us to 2nd. Having some nice battles and fighting a hard charging local we were always fighting! The 990 was epic with the new Blitz Speed body allowing us to secure 2nd postion after 178 laps.

Im really proud of the result and really happy to meet my international friends again! Thank you to my mechanics Giovanni and Natanele, James and all the guys at TRC and especially the Serpent HK guys!

Setup can be found here:
https://www.serpent.com/xcart/cart.php?target=product&product_id=11847#product-details-tab-Setups

See you at the next race,
Cheers,
Jeff Hamon