Testimonials
By Mike Myers
The Starting Grid, March, 1993, Page 23
For an amateur racer, doing well when racing a 1/12 road course car
seems to depend mostly on two things, how much talent/experience you
have, and how well your car handles. A good driver will do well with
a mediocre car, making up for the car's shortcomings. An average
person whould also do better given a "better" car.
Page 12 of the February Starting Grid had an "info-mercial" about
the precision parts being offered for sale for 1/12 and 1/10 cars
by Niftech. Having talked about and written so much about the parts,
I wanted to try a set for myself, to see how much of an improvement
they would really make for an average racer. I built a 12-L, using
the Niftech rear end. As I built the car, the first thing I noticed,
was that the differential was dead smooth immediately after
assembling it - it didn't take ANY of the usual adjusting and
wearing-in and all the other things you usually have to do to get a
good diff. The hub and axle are pre-pinned, and I used the notched
diff rings and diff balls from Niftech, and Associated diff lube.
This diff went together without any problems and was perfectly
smooth.
I got to try the car the first time February 21 in one of the Sunday
road course races at Rider's Superspeedway. I had been practicing for
a few hours with my other car, and was doing about as good/bad as I
usually do. For the first qualifier I switched to the Niftech car.
What a difference! I'm not really good enough to describe the
difference between the cars, but the Niftech car did what I thought I
wanted it to do, no more,and no less. It went around the course on a
very smooth line, never turning too much or too little. I've never
driven a 1/12 car that handled this nicely. Because the car was so
predictable, I found I could take the turns a lot tighter without
hitting the boards. It was almost as if all I had to do was "think"
the car around the course.
I let Jerry Cyrul try the car for the second qualifier. In Jerry's
words, the car was "very easy to drive". Jerry also said it needed
more horsepower, but that's because I had set the car up to go as
fast as I thought I was capable of going. I had figured that I just
needed to work on my driving ability, and not worry about horsepower.
Since the Niftech car drove so nicely, I figured that for the Main,
I'd try to make the car faster. I took out the motor I've been using
for the past zillion years and put in a Perfect Match Green Machine.
Because of the frequency conflict and none of us being able to switch
to a "free" frequency, I couldn't race in the "B", so they said since
it was just a club race, I'd race in the "A".
I'd love to say that the car was so great that I did well in the "A".
It didn't work out that way. Even without the problem I had earlier
in the race with my servo-saver, the "a" guys were stil lots faster.
However, I did find that I could almost run with some of them, and
and follow them for much, much longer before they pulled away too
far and I was back on my own. The car handled so well that I found
that for much of the course, I could stay on the same line that the
"A" perple were taking. Not only that, it was easier to move over
just a bit to let the "A" guys go by.
When I looked at the lap times after the race, I found that I was
running at a pace two or three laps faster than I had been able to
do in my other car.
... I think Niftech makes some excellent parts, and they're well
worth what they cost.
