MFT Dodge Challenger Hemi T-A #18 '70
Once again you get the bonus of a RMd-Car virgin having a go at a MFT creation, Ill have to start charging if this keeps up.
In stock form, this car appears to just be another nice classic, but after sending it in for the Race Modification I have to say, the revised suspension and fat tires make this sucker look mean, and the front end, to me, just becomes so much more definitive of that classic muscle car look.
First place I headed for testing was Nurburgring, no reason really, was just looking through the track selection, happened upon it and went with it. In Greycaps mini-description, he claimed that it was still an old American muscle at heart, understeer at entry, oversteer out of corners, washy in the middle, but by the time I was hitting the T2 marker, I was actually smiling during the drive. I found it very responsive in my hands, an all-around great car, with a wonderful engine and little argument from the chassis, suspension, brakes, etc, although the tires werent too fun while cold, but once warm they felt fine.
So after a few laps there, I left and decided to head to the track the vehicle is pictured at in the tune post. Autumn Ring.
Wait a minute I thought as I made my way through the course, this isnt how it drove at Nurb. Out at Autumn Ring, the car felt like it had made a change of character, not as predictive as before, it drove as though the front end was heavier and struggled to maintain the line I desired as it presented a understeer-like nature. I kept with it hoping that itd come back in-line once the tires warmed up and I had altered my driving line to put less strain on the front ends suspension. I wasnt able to gain anything back after the tires had warmed, the only noticeable change was that my alternate line was making the car easier to drive through the course with more of a straight-line bias.
Confused (and hungry), I pitted and went back to the garage.
Looking for a third track to test, I noticed the difference between the layout of Nurb and that of Autumn Ring, The Ring is, really, more like a straight-forward track with curves, where-as Autumn Ring had more angled corners, sharper and not as flowing as Nurb. I started to realize at that point what kind of character this car has.
It looks like the old SCCA racers of yester-year, and it is
what it is, an old muscle racer as Greycap had mentioned, something that would accept moderate curves with some throttle, but never liked a turn that was sharp or abrupt, and that the key to driving these older racers, was the origin of the steer with the rear driving approach something that needed a bit of man-handling here and there. The same behavior the first true racers of the era had to contend with, this car has. Now understanding what I was working with, I decided to enter the Historic cup and see how I could do with a new approach.
With a low-mileage engine break-in, I was able to pull 2nd place at each race first time out, each loss to that box-body Chaparral racer that is naturally just too fast for the Challenger, but a great finish considering the cars behavior towards sharper corners and it was the first time I had personally attempted the cup. As I had thought, my different driving approach had coaxed the cars understeer bias, It requires some common sense along with the skill to perform this, but if your able to time the cars forward-facing direction matching with a usable line around the corner before you see it, and plant the throttle before exiting, you can get the car to almost jump and rotate out of a corner in more of a straight line, sometimes even faster than if you had followed the traditional line, It seemed to have more of an effect at Deep Forests uphill sections, but overall it was fun to drive the car like a madman.
The car definitely earned its Advanced ranking, as it could cleary be mean to someone who was unprepared for the driving ability needed to tame it, and that behavior can change dependent on the course, but offers a unique experience to those willing to step back in time and place themselves in the shoes and mindset of road-racings fore-fathers.
(Sidenote, driving this racer at the Indy Road Course gave me a feeling of nostalgia to some extent, definitely recommend doing so to those interested in the drive, rather than a race 👍)
As I already had the car and only needed to add a turbo and your settings, it was an easy one to try out. I already used the car on the track for the 300km endurance race, so was somewhat familiar with it, too. I chose the non-turbo version for the race ebcause I did not want it to be a handful (as I wasn't really on top of setting it up).
Fail... just... fail. 👎
