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Back on the road again

Tex013

Well-Known Member
Local time
1:21 PM
Joined
Jun 15, 2011
Messages
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Location
Sydney,Australia
Hi all .
Back on the road again this weekend for the Riverbend Nationals .
After a baking hot round last month and having the crank pulley come off I am looking forward to cooler temps . And no mechanical gremlins .
This is a 3 day event that includes the western conference final . 5 qualifiers if all goes well . I will give the transbrake a go again for first 2 , if feels good I will run it all event . Havent run it for 3years .
This track is new having opened last October . I havent run here before .

Tex

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Hope all goes well! Instead of tracks opening here, they are shutting down because the land is worth a LOT more than keeping the track open. Sucks...
 
Hope all goes well! Instead of tracks opening here, they are shutting down because the land is worth a LOT more than keeping the track open. Sucks...
kind of lucky . This is a private track built at additional to private motorsports complex , has huge road circuit , go karts , moto cross etc . Even got a large motel built on main straight . Also in the middle of nowhere , 1 hr drive from Adelaide state capitol of South Australia .
We are fortunate to have had 3 similar tracks built in the last 20 yrs or so . But we dont have anywhere like the track or racer numbers you do

Tex
 
Looking forward to running at this track come Drag Challenge Oct Tex
Good luck
 
Well weekend is run and done . Im back at work . So lets start with a early run down . Have not even had time to run through timeslips yet .
Track was great , smoothest I have run on . After Sydney pits are a littlle smaller but flat and everything close so no long uphill walks .
Weather was pretty consistant all weekend running 1000-1450DA during day down to about 750 at night .
18 cars final qualified in my class . I ended up #2 after a bit of back and forth with eventual #1 , even went as far as running my Gy radials for a 1/2 tenth gain over the PBRs . Other car was noticably quicker so they just turned it up a bit more . Friday was 3 quals , tried tbrake but didnt work out as out of practice , so footbrake it was . Has a stumble off line in Q3 was a little weird . Saturday was 2 quals then 1 round eliminations at night . Eliminations through a curveball for everyone . DA/weather was good but not great . BUT 9 out of 10 racers were breaking out by a lot . I took a double breakout win , broke out by 4 on the brake other car a Porsche GT3 broke out by 7 !
Sunday , well that was different when they released new schedule . E2 run @ 2.55pm , then 1/4 @ 3.17pm , semi @ 3.45pm .
E2 took the win , other lane redlit but couldnt see it on tree and no win lights displayed on towers or end of track , so ran pass on brake as didnt know i'd won .
Woohoo bye in the 1/4 . Bugger car running warm on super fast turnaround , what its idle is off and seems little hard start . Roll under tower temp is 200F into burnout box , its missing in burnout , tacho flicking and missing downtrack for a 10.44 .
Krap ! Crawl throuh pits and thrash to find spare old analoge msd box and swap it , damn where'd the tach wire go ? Double damn they are calling us to hurry to the lanes . Well car is running better and its cooled to 175/80 . Into lanes car ok NO tacho or shift light ! What the hell am will I dial ? Will it do a full pull ? how close can I get shift ? DA hasnt moved .
OK put a 10.44 on window , if I probably short shift it will be a little slower . Cross my fingers .
No misfire in burnout . Roll into beams . And off, light seemed ok car feels good . Just clip rev limiter on 2-3 shift . Pulling up to other car , 11.26? dial , come round and drop it on the line to take stripe it feels like . Ok 1/2 mile return to see who won .
Darn it double breakout , I went .42 on 44 too much . Hells bells Andrew crushed me on the tree with a 0.003 or 0.007 , I was 0.078 . Done for the event .

On the plus side .
Went to semis so 60 points . I think I will finish #5 in western conference . I will maintain #1 in eastern conference though my lead is down . Car is running and have now sorted tach wiring . Darn those MSD boxes have gone up in price !
Have a double header eastern conference start of May at Sydney Dragway so nice to be local . However competition will be a lot tougher here plus more racers and I will need to step up my game even more .
will enter a track championship round in 2 weeks for practice . Will also loosen front end to see if i can improve reaction times .

Tex
 
Good luck this season I'll be checking back in to see

cool to have a new track, new facilities, nice flat pits
new track surfaces can be tricky
Is it asphalt/tarmac or concrete ?
or some concrete to like 330 (?) or 660 (?) & finish on asphalt ?
just curious
New TRACKS CAN BE Tricky surface/s until some rubber is laid down
for consistency wise

sounds like it had good-great air,
I wonder is the east side of the island/country
has cooler temps, better air, cooler air/dense cool air ?
 
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Good luck this season I'll be checking back in to see

cool to have a new track, new facilities, nice flat pits
new track surfaces can be tricky
Is it asphalt/tarmac or concrete ?
or some concrete to like 330 (?) or 660 (?) & finish on asphalt ?
just curious
New TRACKS CAN BE Tricky surface/s until some rubber is laid down
for consistency wise

sounds like it had good-great air,
I wonder is the east side of the island/country
has cooler temps, better air, cooler air/dense cool air ?
Budnicks ,
air both sides can be killer . West side , Perth , is maybe 500meters from the coastline so da is pretty good can be very hot . East side , Sydney , is about 40klm(35miles) from coast but below a mountain range @ about 1800ft . So da can be killer to 4000 averages 1800-2200 but more moisture than Perth. The Bend is about 1/3 of way between and a couple klm from coast . This is the great Australian bight nothing from here to south pole can be quite windy pretty much all the time , in fact there was a tail wind @ start and a headwind @ the finish line when i was there . Car ran similar times to da from Sydney- the Bend . Perth is on my bucket list , but 40+ hrs drive and not advisable to drive at night unless in a semi . Too many hoppers and other animals wandering around especially bad once you get towards the Nullabor .

oh , we were meant to race this weekend but excessive rain has postponed it for 2 weeks . Then 3 weeks later its a 12 hr run to Queensland for the Winters , conference final .

Tex
 
Yeah a 40 hr drive would be brutal
wildlife crossing the roads, that'd suck if you had a incident for sure

yeah sounds like 'the wind' could suck/or blow :poke:

thanks for all the info... :thumbsup:
 
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Yeah a 40 hr drive would be brutal
wildlife crossing the roads, that'd suck if you had a incident for sure

yeah sounds like 'the wind' could suck/or blow :poke:

thanks for all the info... :thumbsup:
oh I forgot Budnicks . 90% of the trip is 2 lane only .

Tex
 
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