Waikaraka Park - 21/11/09

Tonight another of the 63a pilots was not able to drive so once again Wayne got behind the wheel, with only 6 cars on tap for the night it is just lucky that we have 3 to make up half the field.  Thank you to both Warwick and Gary for making the trip.  With large contingents of Saloons, Modifieds, Streetstocks and a demo derby the Park had a great crowd in attendance.  Being that we were so light on numbers our races were dropped down to just 6 laps.

On the sausage front, this week we remembered to grab an proper cooking plate. But forgot the oil so of course they stuck quite nicely to the plate. Then while I was busy one of the crew (to be nameless) did an excellant job of turning the sausages over and they were cooked fantastic. However I did have to point out that perhaps using a plastic fork to turn them maybe wasn't the best idea. Although can't complain as that was all I brought along. Next time we will be aiming for the plate, some oil, and steel fork.

Race 1; The length of time we had to sit on the dummy grid and wait was very annoying.  Mainly as once I heard the bikes were to go out before us I switched the camera off to save the memory and the darn thing didn’t come back on to record the race. With the brakes fixed from the week before the car was fantastic to drive.  I even set the fastest lap of the race!

Race 2; I hit the lead for a good lap and a half before Bryce pushed me out of the way coming out of it bend.  I did try to push him onto the infield so to miss the timing loop but he was too quick for me.  I tried to chase him down but the brakes once again failed on me and it was just too hard to get the car entering the corners properly and I kept on losing ground.  Wayne spun Warwick up early on in the race and was plastered into the wall for his efforts, but oddly enough once he got going again following Bryce he set one of the fastest laps in the race.
Back in the pits we found I had once again lost the rear brake pads and one of the calliper pistons meaning that all the brake fluid had come out of the system.  We tried disconnecting the rear line and plugging it but this just made the peddle rock hard.

Race 3; We started three wide and as we headed off I watched in the mirror as Bryce spun Warwick. In the mirror I could see the wing of 61a looming up.  When you’re running some like 100 or so horsepower less than everyone else (and with no brakes), there isn’t really much you can do except wait and see what happens! But the next time I looked in the mirror it was all clear so I just kept going.  I guessed that Tim must have either spun or at least semi spun.  I worked quite hard to hold the car heading the right way and keep the speed up.  About the second to last lap the rear end of the car kicked out a long way through the pit bend and with a whole heap of opposite lock and a foot firmly planted to the ground I just managed to hold on.  I took the flag for the first time ever - yay!  If the race had gone for 10 laps I wouldn’t have been so lucky, but hey that’s all part of racing right!

To round the night off, being the only 3 stockcars at track not loaded up we all headed out to be marshals for the demo derby.  Thankfully there weren’t that many cars so we were not really required to do much, except blocking the front straight off near the end for the final showdown.

I have since uploaded a couple of in-car movies to www.youtube; you can follow the link below to have a look:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MadPhil53a

The whole team will be taking the weekend off. Bryce has a company function, and I have just had no spare time to catch up on car maintance. The next time we will be on track will hopefully be the Waikato Superstock Champs.