Superstock 53a - Huntly Review 02/12/06

With just the gearbox and drive shaft to bolt up on Saturday morning there should have been no need to rush, but things just went downhill very quickly. For some reason the evil gearbox just didn't want to bolt up and was putting up a good fight, but forces of good (aka a big pinch bar) proved to much and after way to long it was in and bolted up. Next came the drive shaft, then the gearbox cover which decided to be real pain also but with the delicate touch of a 4 pound hammer a little 10mm bolt wasn't going to stop progress.

So the car was done and ready to back off the hoist. Unfortunately while cleaning up I found a spare part, and if the gearbox could laugh it would have been packing itself. Sitting in my hand was the bolt that should have been holding the rear coupling onto the gearbox. So off came the gearbox cover and drive shaft and on when the bolt. Then finally everything was bolted back up and the car was backed off the hoist and outside where the engine had a tune up and the ignition timing was reset to suit. Then after doing a quick tidy up of the tools around the hoist and got ready to go. I jumped in the car and it just wouldn't start (not having a good day). The battery was not holding a charge so now running out of time I had to shoot down to Supercheap and paid far to much for a new battery as our normal supplier had already closed. But with that done the car fired up and we got it on the trailer.

Now that the road works appear to be finally over the trip from Auckland to Huntly was actually quite pleasant. With both cars (53a and 73a) at the track we unloaded and completed the normal pre-meeting requirements, vehicle checks, gear checks and drivers briefing. There were 16 Superstocks sitting in the pits, well that was until Bryce got a call which meant he had to pack up 73a urgently and head home.

With a long wait until the first Superstock race due to the teams race between Huntly and Rotorua, we had nothing to do except stand around watch some good racing and freeze.

Race 1.
As this was the first time we had run the new engine configuration we didn't really know what to expect so I started right off the back and as the green dropped I gave my self some time to get the car moving, get it into gear properly drive around the first bend then dump my foot on the gas. With the larger carburetor it took a moment to clear all the fuel that had been poured into the manifold, then bang on came the power and instant wheel spin, I got some drive as the rev counter slowed down from 6000 to 6500rpm, then bang again more power and more wheel spin as the rev counter rushed up from 6500 to 7800rpm. On the brakes (which were finally working properly) turn into the corner, back down on the gas. The engine was working well, but the suspension wasn't. With the completely standard engine configuration we were finding it was necessary to run higher tire pressures and less loading on the rear wheels to give the engine a chance to loose some traction allowing the engine to rev and not load up. But now with a little more power there was way to much wheel spin and with the softer rear end setup the back of the car was all over the place and I had trouble keeping the car in a straight line. With the softer rear end the car was also bottoming out on the bumps and ruts around the bends. I caught up to the back of the pack with a slowing tank ahead, I went around the outside and off heading down the front straight and lost sight of it in my mirrors (which were pointing to high and all I could see was the crowd), so I knew the chances were high it was somewhere behind me. By the next bend he was up on the inside pushing us out to the wall. Once we stopped the tank headed off down the back straight and I followed using him brake entering the middle of the corner. I swung out a little wide to come back on the rear corner of his bumper but with having no mirrors I didn't swing out far enough and when I came back in there wasn't enough angle and I slide down around his bumper. After correcting my mistake I drove onto the infield to check all the gauges to make sure everything was running right. I did another couple of laps before realizing that my neck brace had come loose so I pulled off and looked over to see the race was ending so I just waited for the gates to open and headed into the pits.

Back in the pits and I thought everything was pretty good, until we noticed a lot of oil across the front of the engine. We removed the cam gear covers to find the cam gears and belt covered in oil. Under pressure oil appears to be coming up camshaft and squeezing itself around the thread of the bolt holding the cam gears on, then shooting out through the gear key way. With all the oil over the cambelt we decided not to take the chance and running the engine incase the belt slipped. With the extra lift on the valves, if the timing is wrong a valve could hit a piston and that would be very bad.

So we were left to watch the rest of the meeting from the side lines. It should be an easy fix and we will be out this Saturday at Waikaraka Park for another test run.

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Finally on a sadder note we would like to pass our condolences on the family and friends of Janice Dresden who has done a huge amount of work at Waikaraka Park over the past years. I spent quite a bit of time with Janice while developing the payment/computer system down at the track, an extremely likeable person who always had a smile, had something cheeky to say, and willing to lend a hand. You will be missed by many people.

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