Guran's NA6 "Little Reddy"

[gobsmax]

Nice, I had my major service done by Mania too, was happy with the work completed.

[Charlie Brown]

Good one Bryan, Little Reddy's preened for an assault on Phillip Island.

[Guran]

I had a fiddle with the tie rods this morning. I knew it was out, but was shocked to discover that I had 15mm total of front toe out!!! I've reset it back to zero toe on both sides with the steering wheel straight. That should improve things for the club trackday on Sunday . And all it cost me was a bit of skin off my elbow and knuckles.

[Guran]

5th December 2010

MX-5 Club of NSW track day - Wakefield Park

The final club trackday at Wakefield Park for 2010 and I got off lightly since my regular sparing partner was at a wedding in Fiji. The forecast was for afternoon showers, but thankfully they never arrived. The track had suffered heavy rain in the weeks leading up to this trackday, just like the rest of NSW. So there wasn't much grip out there, and for the first couple runs there was a trickle of water sitting on the apex of turns 2 and 10. Still, with the low numbers, everyone had the opportunity for eight runs, and I had 36 laps all up (plus warm-up & cool-down). Luckily, the rain held off until the drive home. No complaints here!

Numbers were down with many saving their cars/finances for the Interstate Challenge at Phillip Island, or doing a hillclimb at Bathurst. So we had only 47 entrants, which is the smallest turnout for at least a few years. The conditions meant that most regulars were about a second slower than their PBs, myself included. A handful of drivers managed to improve their PBs. Well done fellas!

The quickest MX-5 on the day was Mark Hellmund (Class 6) with a 1:10.80, which was pretty amazing considering that he'd just finished muzzling his car with a quiet exhaust, ready for Phillip Island. Behind him was Chris Ballard (Class 8 ) with a 1:12.80, and Steve Green (Class 6) with a 1:13.39. Val Stewart was the fastest car on the day with a 1:08.36 in her RX7 (Class 9 / Group 2B).

My best lap was a 1:18.28 in the third run, which saw me finish at the top of Class 1. I also scored 1.59s in the 6-lap regularity with a nominated time of 1:18.90. Three of those laps were within 0.06s so I was thrilled with my consistency. I was following Ian Miller's NC for the whole run and he scored 1:93s. Those scores were good enough for first (me) and second (Ian). Yay!

Other class winners were:
Class 2 (Std NB): Glenn Thomas 1:17.04
Class 3 (Std NC): Ian Miller 1:16.89
Class 4 (Std NA/NB on R-specs): Lindsay Burke 1:18.03 - he also won the "old & bold" award
Class 5 (Mod NA6): Geoff Hempsall 1:17.14
Class 7 (Turbo Road Reg): Luke Kovacic 1:14.11
Class 8 (Group 2F): Chris Ballard 1:12.80
Class 10 (non-MX5s): Keith Bridgement (WRX) 1:11.09
Class 11 (visitors): Wayne Wilson (WRX STI) 1:13.00

I shot heaps of video as usual, but haven't had time to edit it down to something watchable yet. Unfortunately I was pretty boring and didn't have any spectacular spins. I did run wide onto the dirt a couple times, but it wasn't all that dramatic.

Special thanks to Mike, Zan, Cobie, Jenny, Pam, Kevin, Jean, Robert and everyone else who helped (sorry I can't remember all the names), not only today but all year. You guys do a fantastic job and we all appreciate your dedication.

Sprite001 was also kind enough to snap some photos of my car. He was stunned by the attitudes it got in the corners, and hopefully I haven't scared him off the idea of joining Class 1 in 2011.

The dive under brakes into turn 2 is pretty impressive!

DSC_9981 by Guran5, on Flickr

Still a little bit of track that I could be using

DSC_9978 by Guran5, on Flickr

Hurtling through turn 2

DSC_9979 by Guran5, on Flickr

[Guran]

On Monday night, I finally found the time to fit my new brake pads. I'm going with Hawk HP+ on the front and Bendix General CT on the rear. I've read that many Spec Miata guys use a similar combination (although stock pads on the rear), so it'll be interesting to see how this works out. I was honestly stunned that the Hawks ($150 from MX5 Mania) cost me less than what I've been paying for the Bendix Ultimates ($165 from Autobahn). So I don't think I'll be using Ultimates any more! The rotors were still good apart from a few very fine cracks, so I didn't bother with having them skimmed. It bucketed down rain just as I was cleaning up, so I had to wait for Tuesday evening to bed them in. I think these things are going to be good.

[Guran]

And then on Wednesday night, I attended my first MX-5 Club committee meeting in my new role as Publicity Officer. The two hour drive to West Ryde was a pain in the bum (heavy traffic from two separate crashes), but it was a constructive meeting and I enjoyed chatting with the other committee members. 2011 is promising to be another great year for club members.

I've been spending a fair bit of time talking with alternative printers and editors of the other MX-5 Clubs. Club members should look forward to some nice surprises when my first issue of Club Torque arrives in January. I'll say no more!

Tomorrow, I'll be meeting up with Mark Hellmund for the long drive to Phillip Island for the Interstate Challenge. We'll be bunking in with Phil Munnings at a motel in Cowes. The bloody weather isn't playing ball sadly. It looks like we'll have rain and wind, just like my first visit to the track in April. I only hope it holds off for at least one run so that we can sample a dry track.

[Guran]

12th December 2010

MX-5 Club NSW/VIC Interstate Challenge - Phillip Island



Click here to view my full set of photos

When I drove down to Phillip Island in April for my first ever run at the GP circuit, I considered it one of those "once in a blue moon" events. Afterall, it was my 40th birthday present to myself! But when it was announced that the 2010 Interstate Challenge would be held there on 12th December, and that the day would be run by AROCA rather than the WRX Club, I had no hesitation in signing up. Incredibly, 25 other NSW club members also entered, which was a huge commitment from the club! So often these interstate challenges are a one-sided affair in favour of the home team, due to the combination of track familiarity and differences between classes from state to state. However, with such a strong turn-out from NSW, it was destined to be a very close battle.

For the drive down, I opted to take the coastal route as I did last time, although with some company for a change. I met up with Mark Hellmund at the Albion Park McDonalds carpark at 7am on Saturday 11th December, and we did the whole drive in convoy. Mark was pulling a trailer filled with his wheels and tools, and was also afflicted by diff-ratio-induced dodginess in his speedo and a very difficult new button clutch. So I was on point! With Mark in mind, I took it easy through the twistier sections, and we stopped only for fuel and lunch. Mark had some fuel dramas since he had trouble finding 98RON and was forced to buy some 95RON at Eden. Immediately thereafter, his car was plagued with a throttle hesitation which seemed to come and go, even after finding 98RON at Cann River. We bypassed Lakes Entrance via Bruthen, and Sale via Maffra. After a final re-fuel at Traralgon,we trudged on and finally arrived at Cowes at 6:30pm. We were just in time to unhitch the trailer, drop our gear, and head off for dinner with the whole crew at the RSL. It was great fun catching up with all the Victorians I met back in April, and swapping yarns.

I had a great sleep overnight ... for six hours anyway. A massive thunderstorm hit Phillip Island at around 11pm, which kept me awake for a while. Then the morning birdcalls woke me at 5am and that was it for me until the alarm went off at 6am. I was sharing a motel room with Phil Munnings and Mark, so we all got up, had a quick bite of breakfast, packed the cars and were at the track by 6:45am. God it was cold and windy waiting outside the gate! Once inside, there were MX-5s everywhere! We even outnumbered the Alfa Romeo hosts.





The weather forecast looked really horrible during the lead-up. My goal for the day was to hopefully improve my PB from 2:15.16 to something below 2:10. But if it was wet, there'd be no chance of that. We had several rain showers pass through during the morning, but miraculously the track was completely dry every time I went out! I started with a sighting run in the passenger seat of Randy Stagno-Navarra's NC - a great experience! Then on my practice run, I did a 2:09.1 on my third lap despite having a brief lock-up at Honda and overtaking a couple of cars. Mission accomplished already. Rob Downes' Standard NA record of 2:08.833 was within touching distance.

On my first timed run, I got on the tail of Colin Denman-Jones' NC and on the 4th lap I was close enough for a perfect slipstream down the main straight to clock a new PB of 2:08.2761. The slipstream added ~5km/hr to my top speed and shaved about a second off the lap. It was the best I could manage all day, and subsequent runs produced 2:09.3511, 2:10.6006, 2:09.7200, and 2:09.9079. But who cares?! I was having an absolute ball out there! I even had to drive into Cowes after lunch to get more fuel!

Video of my 2:08.2761 lap. I was obviously pretty happy when I saw the time come up on the PBox at the end of the lap!


PerformanceBox data for my PB lap. After completing this lap, I reached 181.1km/hr before turn 1!


So there it was - I'd beaten the old Standard NA record by 0.55s! Unfortunately, Rob Downes had already smashed his old record only 20min earlier with a truly amazing time of 2:06.6179. He later improved it further with a 2:06.4908, and finally 2:06.1522 on his last lap of the day! He was 2.1s quicker than me, which shows the benefit of much greater experience with Phillip Island, and better utilisation of the class rules.

Still, I was firmly in second place in Standard NA and it stayed that way ... until Noel Heritage did a 2:08.1979 on his third-last lap, to push me back to third. Noel and Rob share the same dual-entered NA8. Brendan Beavis was a close fourth with 2:08.7032. I suspect that if Brendan had stuck it out for one last run, he might also have beaten me.

AROCA did a superb job of managing 125 drivers split across five groups, giving nearly everyone the opportunity for at least five runs. I had one run as a passenger, plus six runs as a driver (34 laps!). I was absolutely chuffed with the whole day. And so was every other MX-5 Club member!

The Interstate Challenge pointscore was a very close run thing, but the home team prevailed. The official result was 4.88 for VIC versus 4.33 for NSW. Everyone who drove an MX-5 was eligible to score points, which was a nice fair way to do it. The VICs vowed to put on an equally impressive challenge when they visit Wakefield Park in 2011.

Lots of smiling MX-5 drivers after a fun day at the office!


That evening, Phil, Mark and I were invited back to Peter Phillips place for a BBQ with several other VICs. It was wonderful to get to know everyone a bit better and share experiences.

On Monday morning, Mark and I said our goodbyes to Phil and hit the road at 7am. Mark's throttle problems had mostly fixed themselves, but he needed to carry an extra set of wheels as a favour for another club member. So with his button clutch making starts difficult, we were keen for a quick run home via the Hume Highway. After refuelling at Koo Wee Rup, a horrible noise started in Mark's diff and we were forced to stop so he could top it up with oil. Thanks to Greg & Lesa Bunn and Ray & Pam Estreich who stopped to offer assistance! The fresh oil (eventually) fixed the diff, but it was still a worrying drive for Mark. The GPS led us astray near Healesville (we were briefly sent down a dirt lane!), but we were soon on the Hume Highway. We took a detour to my home-town of Corowa for fuel and lunch and encountered swarms of locusts around and in town. And again, we couldn't find any 98RON for Mark! Thankfully he had enough in reserve to make it to Holbrook, where we again bumped into Greg & Lesa! The rest of the drive home was boring but trouble free, and I pulled in at 6:30pm. Not bad considering all the delays along the way. I slept VERY well that night!



The whole weekend cost me about 170L of fuel to cover ~1930km, at an average of 8.8L/100km, including ~150km of WOT at the track. Bloody impressive! Little Reddy performed faultlessly the entire time, and the odometer ticked over 180,000km during the return journey. I love this car!

[evil_weevil]

Awesome!!
top work Bryan! and great write up.
I wish I could have made that event - next year!!

[Guran]

The continuing adventures of the bunny killer ...

Parental guidance is recommended.

[Twiggy]

The continuing adventures of the bunny killer ...

Parental guidance is recommended.

Bryan! Another bunny?! Are you hiding carrots in your car or something?

R.I.P. Bunny. Let's hope he didn't mess up your times too much along the way.

[tbro]

Poor Bunny,


Bloody hell, Bryan it is obvious you didn't grow up on a farm., the only good bunny is in the POT with the carrots.

Still gotta hit em in the mx with the tyres not the spoiler

When Nicole was a little whipper snipper in Kindy, her teacher at a private Christian college ask what we do with bunnies.
Quick as, her hand shot up and she answered " you shoot em miss", That cost us a visit to the office where they couldn't understand why you would to hurt bunnies

Bloody Wankers!!!
Terry

[Guran]

Hey I'm with you Terry! Only good rabbit is a dead one. I was disappointed that there wasn't any red stuff splattered up the wheel arch. If I hadn't swerved I would have hit it with the front bar rather than the left tyre. Couldn't have that.

[de Bounce]

Hey I'm with you Terry! Only good rabbit is a dead one. I was disappointed that there wasn't any red stuff splattered up the wheel arch. If I hadn't swerved I would have hit it with the front bar rather than the left tyre. Couldn't have that.

I'm a little sad as I managed to avoid him on his initial trip from right to left, looks like he tried to return home when you got him.
I did get the red stuff under my MX5 as you left him on the racing line

[tbro]

What you left a good fat bunny laying there in the middle of the track???????


Bloody wasteful!!!!! or didn't ya have any carrots???

Terry

[Guran]

What you left a good flat bunny laying there in the middle of the track??????

Fixed.

After being flattened by several MX-5s and the odd Alfa, there wasn't enough left to use as a garnish, let alone a full blown stew!