Waikaraka Park - 10 December

Auckland Superstock Champs

It was a very busy night at the track with most classes having their champs. A bit strange considering that christmas in the park was on as it could have been a good night to draw a crowd, but I guess that's why I don't know anything about promotions. This is such a busy time of year and I nearly missed even getting the car to the track as I had so much to get through. But all 3 cars left the workshop and arrived at the track early and got a good park. With the anticipation of a good field of cars the night was shaping up to be a good'n, I couldn't had been so wrong!

The track was a bit damp to begin with so all classes had to do a grand parade which helped to clear the track a bit so it should had been ok for our first race being number 3 on the program.

Race 1.

The race started and I was finding it hard to get any traction, my inside rear tire has been on the car for a while and it is fine for a normal track but no good for trying to claw through mud. It was easy to see those cars with better grip especially in situations like this. Unfortunately on the second lap a car spun coming out of pit bend and I went go around the outside but I slid straight into the wall. Whack! and the impact, although it didn't look it was enough to move the steering shaft and it jammed onto the radiator support (which we didn't find until sunday). Also the impact was enough to break the front mount holding my radiator sprayer water tank which shot the tank forward breaking the fitting on the tank. With the races being 15 laps, with no extra cooling for the radiator the engine got very hot and I had to pull off with a few laps to go.

However I wasn't the only car to finish the race with some damage. Bryce in 73a got a big hit from behind which broke a blade off his radiator fan and the resulting excess vibration tore the alternator housing in half.

We tried in vain to repair the water tank fitting before the next race but it was just not possible with how the fitting had broken. So it would only be luck that would keep the engine cool by the end of the races from this point forward. I knew it would be fine for 10 laps but anything over that and the alloy engine would just get to hot.

Race 2.

Heading out to the track and coming around to line up for the race start everything was normal, oil pressure was around 85psi, water temp was around 70. I went to move forward and there was no gears! I found reserve, then tried to find 2nd and nothing. So I tried for top gear (3rd), and still nothing. I tried numerous times to find a forward gear and only succeeded in my frustration to rip the gear knob off. My only choice was to put the car into low gear and crawl off the track. As annoyed as I was all I could do was sit on the infield and watch the race from there. The pace as fast and it was good to see that Bryce and Lance were both doing really well.

Once I returned to the pits we got the torch and found that the little spring steel clip that holds the remote shifter cable in place had popped out. Now normally once these clips are in there is no way they can come out, but somehow this one did. So it only took a couple of moments with a screwdriver and hammer and the clip was in and the gear change was working fine. The only god thing was that with nothing to fix it gave us a chance to watch some of the other races, ome of which were fantastic.

Race 3.

So with everything working again I headed out for race 3. Because of my DNF in the 2nd race I had to try for a result otherwise Lance in his first season would score more points than me :) Being that it was the last race of the night after the modified's and saloons the track was dryer than a desert with heaps of drive which of course falls into the hands of those cars with heaps of horsepower. I had dropped my rear tire pressures to give me plenty of drive and less wheel spin otherwise I would run out of revs by the end of the straight (as we didn't have a set of diff gears to suit because they were already in one of the other cars). The race began and it only took a couple of laps to really feel that the tires were up to temperature and there was so much drive you could feel the engine loading up as the rear would hook up coming out of the turns like the tires were clawing at the ground. Unfortunately once the car was making it around the turns nicely with all this grip I was hitting the rev limiter at about 3/4 distance of the straight. Once you start bouncing off the limiter things start to heat up quickly. We normally set the car up to be just below the limiter at the end of the straight, so I was carrying maximum speed into the corners. Judging the gap between myself and the car ahead I wasn't loosing to much but the temperature gauge was getting pretty high which also causes the oil to heat up and this results in a drop in oil pressure. I looked down and saw the water temp reading over 110 on around lap 8 and with no water sprayer tank I had no means to cool the engine. I decided to do one more lap and then I would have to pull off. I came out of the pit bend and hot a huge shock when I glanced down to check the oil pressure. It looked like the needle had dropped off the gauge, I had to take a longer second look with my foot down to make sure the pressure would build up again. I must have looked to long because I screwed up the exit of the corner completely and I lost control in a big way and went into the wall. The car flicked around quickly and I went into the wall backwards, which never feels good. I looked up and saw a whole bunch of cars entering the pit bend so I tried to grab second gear to get off the track quickly but couldn't find it. So I hooked reverse and drove backwards down the front straight bouncing off the wall to stay as far off the track as possible. I had gone about halfway down the straight and thought I had cleared the corner far enough to be out of everyone's way. I tried like mad to find a forward gear to get off the track but there was nothing. Its never a good look watching cars come flying to you and after most cars managed to get by I watched someone (possibly 28k) exit pit bend really wide and head right for me. He got closer and closer and I knew that he wouldn't miss. I let the gear stick go and grabbed the steering wheel tight with both hands. The hit was pretty hard, but the worst thing was which the rear corner already against the wall the whole impact was taken on the chassis. I was fine because of all the awesome seat in my car, but the race was stopped which meant I could use 1st gear to crawl off the track. Unfortunately the damage was done and my race was well over. I crawled back into the pits with the water temp rising extremely high, by the time that everyone got out of my way and I could get the car onto the trailer things were cooking.

As my steam cleared it was good to see that Bryce ended up 6th over all, only 1 point behind 5th and I think the highest placed Aucklander.

Now of course the bumper is meant to be attached to the chassis as well as being straight. The main chassis rails are also meant to be straight.

But apart from the steel damage everything else on the car was fine. This chassis has been through plenty of hits especially when it was raced by Wayne in the stockcar (standard) class. Its not going to be a major to be fix, just have to chop out a few bars and use the port-a-power to push the bumper back straight. Then weld in some new braces.

However I have made the decision that at the moment we don't have the time to spend repairing this chassis. I will begin to strip out all the parts I require to complete the new car and we will just focus on getting the new chassis finished. Once the new chassis is finished we will decide what will happen to the old car. Already we have had people interested in purchasing the chassis as it is strong and with the easy to build and setup front independant suspension, but only time will tell.

I will have an update on the new chassis's progress done soon, the race is now on to get it finished in time.

Catch ya...MadPhil