Yesterday I tested the car on (loose) dirt, and tested a 3 degree kickup setting (one of the adjustability features that will be on the updated proto).
The last (TRF201 based) proto was very stable in general, but due to it's lack of ground clearance, droop and the inboard suspension the motor dug into all the holes and bumps that the tires that appear in the dirt track throughout the day.
This year things were different. The front suspension did a lot better on the front end, and as a result the car didn't bottom out on the motor. Also, because the RWDs too struggled to get the power down, acceleration was actually quite close to the RWDs (if I could take the right line coming onto the straight). The car's higher cornering speed really showed too: The RWDs seemed to come to a stall mid-corner, whereas the FWD kept the pace up.
As such, I qualified 3rd (out of 30 drivers). However, I struggled a lot in the first and second finals because the holes in the track were getting bigger and the car lost rear traction very easily - it was all over the place, and coupled with the unusual cornering speed difference I caused a few incidents.
So, time to change the setup for the last heat. I reduced the front droop (2mm limiter in the shock), increased the rear droop (shock eye unscrewed by 2-3mm) and added 40g of underLiPo weight. That did the trick to win the last final, despite dropping back to 8th in the second lap!
In the end, a 5th place (from the second final) and 1st place from the last final gave me 3rd place overall!
I'm quite surprised where I ended up: I hadn't raced for 6 weeks, missed the first heat of qualifying (nor had I practiced with the car before going into the second qualifier), and I 'shouldn't' have been in the top 3 normally. The car clearly had a dominant pace and it worked out extremely well!
As for the the 3 degrees of kickup (vs 0 deg): It seemed to smoothen out the steering on-power with a tiny bit more understeer (it was quite snappy at times before), off-power the car felt more predictable. So overall, it seems to make a more comfortable drive. I don't think a clean lap time of either setup would make much of a difference though.
Lastly, a driver who tried the car mentioned some things to work on in the handling (that seemed familiar once he mentioned them): It seemed to off-power understeer at high speeds and off-power oversteer at low speeds. The low-speed oversteer is likely down to the tires I used on the rear (not spiky enough to dig into the soil with the low weight on it off-power), and the high-speed understeer may well be caused by a huge LMR wing on the rear and no downforce features up front
