Guran's NA6 "Little Reddy"

[Guran]

The title strip on the YouTube clip kind of gives it away!

That would be cheating.

[Charlie Brown]

This Sunday is the CAMS NSW Supersprint Round 2 at Sydney Motorsport Park GP circuit. Looking forward to it, especially the turn 4/5 sequence which we don't get to use much anymore. I received an email last night informing me that I'll be running in the "Orange 2" group which is usually occupied by open wheelers and clubmans, but they slotted in a heap of MX-5s to fill the grid. Will be fun watching this thing arrive in my mirrors! Internet points for whoever can name the make/model ... without cheating. It's already doing 58sec laps at Wakefield!

I did a half hour session at Wakie with Andre when he was testing the Radical. It's so fast and he has so many overtaking options that it's simply not an issue. More of a concern would be a swarm of clubman style cars. Those guys scrap pretty hard sometimes and it could be tricky to be caught by a bunch of them. Turn your mirrors down so they can't get under them.

No real problems with the Clubbies as there's only one in the Orange 2 group plus the Stohr Vortx R114.

The Stohr did a 1:39 around EC back in 2011, 14 seconds a lap faster than I did, so theoretically he should catch me going down the straight on the fourth timed lap (+1 warm up lap), the Clubbie shouldn’t catch either Ralph or me as we exit the pits straight after these two, say a 10 second gap behind them.

Of course this all depends on how many laps we get per session. In the past with this number of cars running we only got three timed laps.

Bryan, the Stohr should get you on lap three and the Clubbie a lap later given that you’ll be on the track about 30 seconds after Ralph and me.

[Guran]

14th April 2013
CAMS NSW Supersprint - Round 2 - Sydney Motorsport Park GP Circuit

My last go at the GP circuit was on 21st July 2012, so I was really looking forward to this one. I love the turn 4/5 sequence, where you can really attack it and feel the car moving around underneath you, especially as it gets light over the hump. I was also looking forward to trying out my new Go Pro Hero 3 Black that Fiona gave me for my 43rd birthday earlier this month. After much stuffing around with camera settings and placement locations, I settled on 1080p 25fps with the camera mounted on the inside of the windscreen using a standard stick-on mount. The scrutineers were fine with it provided I also used a tether (cable ties!).

We had 8 minute runs, which was enough for four laps. A few long delays for cleaning up oil spills and recovering cars meant that it was two hours between runs. Plenty of time for socialising in between! Although most only had four runs, the net return of 16 flying laps was pretty good considering that 5 runs of 3 laps has been the norm in recent past.

As mentioned above, I got bumped into the "Orange 2" group in order to fill the grid of 2nd driver open-wheelers and clubmans. It was hilarious seeing the Stohr leading out a bunch of mild mannered MX-5s! I was usually last or near last in our group, and the Stohr would blast past after only two laps, doing about 60km/hr faster than me down the straight (I'll post some videos soon).

The complete times are still not up on Natsoft, but my PBox times were:
Run 1 - 2:03.48, 2:01.94, 2:02.46, 2:01.91
Run 2 - 2:01.66, 2:00.98, 2:03.00, 2:01.99
Run 3 - 2:00.64, 2:00.77, 2:00.93, 2:02.60
Run 4 - 2:01.50, 2:00.98, 2:11.84, 2:02.30

Everyone was a bit cautious for the first run because turn 1 was marred by cement dust used to clean up an oil spill immediately before our run. Just what you need on a 165-170km/hr corner! My second last lap featured a big smokey spin at turn 5 (see second video below).

Officially my fastest lap was 2:00.6382, which was only 0.011s slower than my best on 21st July (2:00.6269) - 6.5 metres at 165km/hr. My quickest times were consistently on the first or second lap, and then the R888s would overheat and lose grip. My optimal time was 2:00.12 on run 3, and I lost time on the first lap with a slight lift for turn 1.

GoPro video of my fastest lap on the day - 2:00.6382. Immediately in front of me was Stewart Temesvary (stock NB8A), then Kevin Addison (Type 3 1.8L NA), then Ed Cory (Type 3 NB8A).


My 4th and final run was delayed about 30 minutes while the marshalls cleaned up a big oil spill starting after turn 4 and going all around corporate hill. When we were eventually sent out, I started ahead of Glenn Thomas' stock NB8B. There was an aweful mess of concrete dust used to clean up the oil spill, but the track was reasonably quick. Glenn followed me closely for the first two laps and then got a very good slipstream at the start of lap 3, and dived underneath into turn 2. The video says the rest.

[Guran]

And this is what the R888s now look like ...


IMG_1850 by Guran5, on Flickr

The two on the left are from the righthand side, and the two on the right are from the lefthand side, ie. you're looking at them front on. Obviously they saw more clockwise circuit time than anti-clockwise. In total, they have seen three days at Wakefield Park, five days at Sydney Motorsport Park (2xGP, 1xBrabham, 1xNorth, 1xSouth), and two days at Phillip Island (dual entered!). So basically they lasted as long as my previous set of Bridgestone RE55S tyres ... but were aweful things in comparison.

I was not overly surprised to notice that the tyre which has the most tread left was also the one which was two and a half years old when I bought them. Obviously the old tyre was significantly harder than the other three.

Time for a new set of Bridgestone RE11S tyres!!!! RRP is $356 but they're a fantastic tyre and worth every cent over the hopeless R888s. After two sets of the RE55S, I'm really keen to see how much these have improved over the old design.

[PaulF]

Always entertaining to watch you drive, Bryan. What do you think of the GoPro so far?

[Guran]

Thanks Paul.

The GoPro has its quirks. I've been trying to figure it out without downloading the user manual! The resolution is HUGE and my computer struggles to play 1080p and 50fps, let alone what it's actually capable of doing. 1080p and 25fps is plenty for me anyway. I'm not totally convinced by the wide angle. It looks great at 1080p but pretty hopeless at normal YouTube resolution. At least the file sizes are decent - 80-90MB for a lap at SMP GP is not much different to what I got with the spy cams. It's prone to image wobble if there's any vibration, and this is a particular issue with the "narrow" field of view setting when I mount the camera on the rollbar. Works fine with the camera stuck on the inside of the windscreen - once I found the setting to invert the image! Oh and being able to wifi to the iPhone is great for previewing to setup the camera alignment. All told I'm really happy with the GoPro. It'll just take some getting used to.

[greenMachine]

I might get some tips off you Bryan, I have a GoPro but not used it yet.

Perhaps at the Club day at EC South?

[Guran]

Sure thing Ed.

Just having a look at YouTube and noticed that Tiit has been having more fun with his Corolla at Wakefield Park.

[Guran]

This is what it's like being overtaken by a Stohr at Sydney Motorsport Park.



He didn't stick around for a 4th run after the oil spill at corporate hill. What a mess!

[JBT]

Bryan, were you parked or something?

[greenMachine]

Bryan, were you parked or something?

As one of the other cars in that group, I can officially confirm that it DID feel like I was parked as he came by.

The first time, I was contemplating a move on Bryan (I think) into T1, and was concentrating on that when he appeared at Vmax beside me - put me back in my box

The blue flags made a difference in the later runs, but I did not see any on the first run.

[mazmad]

wotf - what is a stohr doing in your group?

New camera Bryan?, looks good. I have camera envy at the moment, everyone getting black GoPro's

[Guran]

The Stohr was duel entered and they had it and one clubman in the second "open-wheeler" group. So rather than waste track time on a group with only two cars in it, they filled it with a bunch of MX-5s which are less of a problem for them than the big Commodores, EVOs and WRXs. It was great for us because we all knew our pace, adjusted our running order, and had heaps of clear track time. Excellent day!

Yes, I got a GoPro Hero3 Black for my birthday and this was it's first outing. I'll be using it again tomorrow on the South Circuit.

[mazmad]

Look forward to seeing the vid! Had a great view of 'guran' style from flaggie hut 9 today, very entertaining!

Also well positioned to see RUSS and Ralph's spins there too

[Guran]

5th May 2013
MX-5 Club of NSW Track Day – SMP-South

The last round of the 2012/13 MX-5 Club of NSW Championship was at Sydney Motorsport Park South Circuit. We had 66 drivers entered, of which 63 saw track time due to a few late withdrawals. It was a cool start to the day, but warmed up to a very pleasant 19°C top and mostly clear skies. It felt much hotter than that in my car, and it wasn't until the drive home that I realised I still had the heater on "hot".

The day was interrupted by several recoveries of cars from gravel traps, and sadly there was an hour long delay after a nasty crash (driver is fine). The officials did a superb job to give most drivers five runs of around five or six laps each. Great job by all the volunteers!

After helping out with scrutineering, my student in the first-timer group was Lucie Blom in boyfriend Joel's stock 1992 NA6. Familiar territory then! The first-timer runs were done behind a pacecar at max 80km/hr, so there was no requirement for helmets this time. Lucie seemed to enjoy the track experience, and it was no embarassment for her to take the wooden spoon at days end. Well done for having a go.

I started the day with a 7 point lead over John Karayannis in the Class 4 pointscore. We had some new competition in the form of Ed Cory. John had to leave after only a couple of runs, so his 1:09.99 wasn't enough to beat my 1:09.39 (0.13s slower than my PB on Star Specs), which was good enough for 27th outright - my highest placing this season. Ed topped the group with 1:08.81 and claimed the quickest Class 4 time for the season in the process. Lindsay Burke was fourth with 1:11.70. So it looks like I won Class 4 for the 2012/13 season. But no fastest laps, as I was pipped by Ian Vickers at Wakefield Park, and Ed at this round.

My fastest lap of 1:09.39 (1:09.41 by PBox)


All six laps from my fourth run


Thanks to Scott Walker and Timothy Heppell for the awesome photos.


Turn 5 by bargeNC, on Flickr


Turn 8 by Scott Walker, on Flickr


Turn 10 by Scott Walker, on Flickr


Turn 15c by bargeNC, on Flickr