King of the Hammers - May 24-25

testing a few pics from Ultra4 this weekend at Glen Helen
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more to come, just needed to make sure these were a good size…

**Edit, kind of big, I'll make the rest smaller…
 
GCM 2 said:
Ahh yes, #775, the big tall aluminum/silver race car. You guys were about 2 or 3 pit spots down from us. Nice shot of you guys making the big left hand turn after the two tall jumps, you can see the Off Road Evolution motor home in the background ;)
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The portals make it really tall. Those were 35" tires. It's huge when sitting on the 40's.

Yeah, that was a great shot. When we made that turn I knew it would be a good one for the fans. ;o) Sorry about the mud Mel.

I was going to post that shot on the Evo Facebook page but couldn't. Mel will see it here.

We had a great time, met a lot of great people. Stop by and say "Hi" next time.
 
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GCM 2 said:
So here are a couple of updates:
EVO TJ- like I said in February at the King of the Hammers, this race car is FAST. In fact tonight, Mel qualified for 1st position in the stock class with a blistering time. So fast, that his stock class fastest qualifying lap, was faster than the guy who ran the fastest qualifying lap in the modified class. That's right, he ran faster than the class of race car above him in qualifying! Needless to say when you beat the bigger boys at their game, you can bet people are going to be interested in why you are so fast. I will not get into the rule book, but a couple of people protested the reasoning for his insanely quick lap times is solely due to the suspension setup the EVO TJ is running. They are all somewhat warranted initially, until the suspension is explained, and realize it is quite legitimate and not cheating. Basically in the stock class, coilover suspension is not allowed. EVO TJ runs a spring over shock, not a coilover. Anyway, no problems now, but you can bet if that little TJ is sitting on the podium, someone will protest and a serious post-race tech inspection will happen. Mel will basically drive much more conservative during the race, and save it for the end.
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I heard from other competitors that it was because he was running a coil slider and thus could run a dual rate setup. You can see the slider in the pic below. Though, I did hear that Mel was willing to go and weld the two springs together and remove the slider. :thumb: He was still allowed to compete this one time but fell to an over heat issue. He was told that he'd be DQ'd if he showed up to another race with the slider place.

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LoPo said:
I heard from other competitors that it was because he was running a coil slider and thus could run a dual rate setup. You can see the slider in the pic below. Though, I did hear that Mel was willing to go and weld the two springs together and remove the slider. :thumb: He was still allowed to compete this one time but fell to an over heat issue. He was told that he'd be DQ'd if he showed up to another race with the slider place.

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I'm guessing this isn't entirely true as you "heard from a friend." But will be interesting to see the next stage of EVO1 and EVO TJ as they are really dialing things in.

If it weren't for a plastic fan, we'd be having a different conversation right now I'm sure.
 
LoPo, there is truth to this. There were some competitors who complained and the issue was discussed more than once. A resolution was found and it will be addressed. Not a big deal....

andrew -
 
JAGS said:
I'm guessing this isn't entirely true as you "heard from a friend."
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Yeah, I guess coming from a competitor, it must be false! :naw:

paychex.308 said:
LoPo, there is truth to this. There were some competitors who complained and the issue was discussed more than once. A resolution was found and it will be addressed. Not a big deal....

andrew -
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Yeah I know there is truth in it, pretty obvious from the pic. I thought it was pretty awesome/ingenious that Mel was willing to remove the slider and weld the two coils together to address the situation! :thumb:
 
So how will he make this with a single spring that doesn't touch the shock body? Should be interesting.

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LoPo said:
Yeah, I guess coming from a competitor, it must be false! :naw:



Yeah I know there is truth in it, pretty obvious from the pic. I thought it was pretty awesome/ingenious that Mel was willing to remove the slider and weld the two coils together to address the situation! :thumb:
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Never said false so don't flame.

What the issue is and what the final resolution is may not be what we all think. As weve already seen, things happen. EVO1 and EVO TJ will continue to evolve based on rules and regs and continuing to push the vehicles.

Like I said, I'm interested to see what Mel actually decides to do/create when all is said and done.
 
travisk said:
So how will he make this with a single spring that doesn't touch the shock body? Should be interesting.

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It has nothing to do with "touching" the shock body. As for making it a single rate spring, that's easier than easy;
- option 1) we were simply going to install a a longer single spring.
- option 2) simply remove the spring isolator and tack weld the two springs together.

Seeing as how the race director and tech inspectors were fine with either option proposed, in the end both agreed it was not illegal and WAS not a coilover, but a "spring over shock" where both the spring and shock are mounted separately to a bracket and not to each other. Unlike a coilover, where the spring is mounted to the shock body, with adjustable ride height ability, and the only the shock is mounted to the axle and frame.

I guess what everyone, racers and spectators alike, are witnessing is an actual huge progression of technology in one particular class of racing, but really is nothing new and already on production vehicles everywhere. No cheating involved, just improvement of equipment to win races. If that bothers spectators or racers, it's really just their problem of not having one of those "ah hah" moments or even worse, people being to embarrassed they didn't/couldn't see this was a better way all along. :thumb:

Just a coulple of years ago, people hated to own up to the fact that IFS race cars could beat old tech solid beam axle cars in the world of rock crawling. Losing hurts, for some people they just can't get over it and look for any reason to invalidate a winner. ;)
 
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GCM 2 said:
Losing hurts, for some people they just can't get over it and look for any reason to invalidate a winner. ;)
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Nobody is knocking your design. I just heard that you would get challenged if you landed on the podium with that setup, and I was wondering how you were going to change it. Carry on.
 
travisk said:
Nobody is knocking your design. I just heard that you would get challenged if you landed on the podium with that setup, and I was wondering how you were going to change it. Carry on.
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It's not his design and he wasn't driving. He is just a knowledgable mall crawler/web wheeler.
 
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