NASTE Gravity Racer Program (Page 3 of 13)

Latest update from The Crew Chief:

"First, kudos to Jimmy for sending me that great T-shirt Native American design of a seahawk looking you right in the eye head on.  WOW !  I free handed it today on the hood of the flyer and imperfect as it is, IT LOOKS TOTALLY AWESOME !

Also, charged the battery, replaced a large broken wood screw on the rear axle fairing, cleaned and oiled the wheels ( running on rural country roads really bangs em up! ) , added more velcro to the the rear hatch cover and put in some velcro tyedowns so the cables do not flop around in the cockpit and get tangled up in the pullies.  Oh yes, also added another spacing washer on each wheel. They were sloppy and showed green paint where they rubbed on the fairings.

Every time I go out to the flyer, she shows me something that needs attention.  The test runs were not valuable  -  they were priceless. Have made enough weights to bring total up to 300 lbs.  On Saturday, I will start light and add as needed. My decision.

Troy and I ARE going to the post race celebration into the evening.  It will be Christmas and I will want to open my presents.

Valeria Victrix !

- Dennis"

For Rico and I our day started with breakfast at Denny's at 4:15 AM this morning. At 5:00 AM we were at the track for setup duty. Each team is required to have at least two voluteers to help the derby organizers. By 9:00 AM everything was in full swing with teams team up their pit areas and getting ready to race. Team NASTE was set up in a nice shaded area with the Hawksbill Flyer on display for all to see!

On his first run Dennis stopped the radar gun at 37 MPH. He had posted the second fastest speed at that point. The car was handling great! In his second run Dennis reached 38 MPH and his first two runs had him in fourth position and qualified for the finals. The nine fastest cars made up the first set of elimination rounds. Although the Hawksbill Flyer ran fast and true it just wasn't quite fast enough to beat the veterans of the hill. We finished nineth overall out of 56 entries. We feel we accomplished a lot in our first attempt and we are very proud of Dennis and all that he accomplished in building and driver the Hawksbill Flyer! Thank you Dennis, this was a fantastic experience for all of us!

Congrats to the etire NASTE Team on the hill supporting Dennis and the Hawksbill Flyer, Al Cristensen, Rico Locati, Jimmy Jones, and our fantastic pusher Troy Hart! You guys did an outstanding job!

It was a very long, HOT day but in the end everybody knew who the old guys were.  Congrats Dennis on your excellent performance, you made Team Naste proud. Here's some of the pics I took:

Link to rest: http://s361.photobucket.com/user/reek45 … amp;page=1

Rico

OregonLive has lots of pics including one of our favorite

http://www.oregonlive.com/events/index. … short_home

I would agree with that assessment. I looked at the time board and did rudimentary calculations in my head, Dennis was the fifth fastest qualifier. He just got placed with two really fast cars the shoot out.

Yes. The three wheelers had the third wheel in the rear.

Looks like Dennis had a three wheeled car on the tow back up, but it doesn't appear to help.  Wheel Diameter makes a difference too. Those taller wheels have the bearings working only about half as hard as Dennis's smaller wheels.

Luckily Dennis lost that left rear wheel after he completed his last run. In the shut down area the cars had to evade a speed bump. The pavement around the speed bump was very rough and when Dennis went around the speed bump the wheel came off. He was able to reinstall the wheel in the pits before we loaded the car for the trip home.

Message from Bryan Dickerson:

"Wow!
Congrats Dennis and crew!

Bryan D."

You might recognize a couple folks in this pic:

http://katu.com/news/local/photos-2016- … k#photo-30

And another shot of the Flyer:

http://katu.com/news/local/photos-2016- … rk#photo-8

After a successful run in the 2016 Portland Adult Soap Box Derby, Team NASTE has decided to go with a two car team for 2017!

The plan for the Hawksbill Flyer at this point is for some upgrades to try to improve the cars performance. Chris Kouba decided to field a second car using a three wheel design.

Chris Kouba is well on the way to completion on the second car. Chris started construction on Friday. These photos were taken Saturday night! Obviously Chris is a Master builder in scales other than just 1/32!