Guran's NA6 "Little Reddy"

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Fri Aug 26, 2011 3:17 pm

I've done a couple club runs this month and had forgotten to post something about them here. And so ...

MX-5 BreakFast Club - Iceberg Run
7th August 2011
I've done every one of Jimi's Iceberg Runs over the last three years, and this was no exception. This year we met up at McDonalds Dural for the traditional 5:30am dawnbuster start. That meant I had to leave home at 4am! :shock:

The run would see us cross to Windsor via Cattai Ridge Rd, Putty Rd and Blaxlands Ridge Rd, cross the mountains via Bells Line of Road, stop at Lithgow for a natter and photo opp, then continue to Hartley via backroads, climb Victoria Pass and descend to Megalong Valley Teahouse for a delicious hot breakfast. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't playing ball and we had to contend with drizzling rain and slick roads, so despite encountering little traffic, the run was taken at a very leisurely pace. Still, it was great to sample nice twisty roads, some new and most familiar.

Click thumbnail for the full photo set

MX-5 Club - Paul's Dam Run
21st August 2011
I had not done any of the Club's "cruiser runs" before, with the exception of a midweek run a couple years ago. So with a miraculous gap in my schedule last Sunday, I checked the event calendar and saw that Paul Byers was leading the "Dam Run". We met at McDonalds Eastern Creek at a very civilised 8:30am for a 9am start. The route was along deserted rural backroads via Mulgoa, Wallacia, The Oaks, and Nattai for a morning tea stop at Burragorang Lookout. From there we returned to Oakdale, then headed south to Mowbray Park, Thirlmere, Hill Top and Colo Vale, before turning around and taking the Old Hume Highway back north through Yerrinbool and Yanderra. We then crossed the Hume Freeway, entered the catchment area and zoomed down 5km of wonderfully tight and twisty lane to the Avon Dam picnic area. Lunch was a BYO picnic cooked on Paul's homemade BBQ trailer. My steak sandwich went down nicely followed by a bit of Mainland Vintage Cheddar and Paris Creek soft cheese. Oh and a couple of cans of Coopers Birell too :beer:

. I adopted the role of club photographer for the day and got plenty of shots to use in the next issue of Club Torque. It was a wonderful day out with excellent company and great roads. :mrgreen:

For the drive home to Albion Park, I "forced" myself to take the fun route, skirting around Mittagong and Bowral via Old South Rd and Range Rd, then twisting through Tourist Rd and Macquarie Pass.

This is one of my all time favourite routes! :mrgreen:

Click thumbnail for the full photo set

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 7:48 pm

So I'm all set for the club trackday tomorrow. But it nearly all went to custard! My routine is a simple one: load my car numbers, tools and gear into the car, fuel up and check the oil and fluid levels. No problem. But in the process I noticed that the bracket that holds the coils onto the engine had fatigue fractured so that the coils came away in my hand! :shock:

Lucky I spotted that one. Anyway, I put a washer on each of the two top bolts (the bottom one is not there anyway), and clamped it down tight. It's not going anywhere in a hurry, but I'll be starting the hunt for a replacement next week.

The photo shows the two broken bits of the bracket displayed on the cam cover, and you can see the washers under the bolts that are now clamping down the coil bracket.

IMG_1927 by Guran5, on Flickr

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 3:47 pm

Yesterday morning at Wakefield Park, I was excitedly talking about the analysis that I posted on 17th August, which highlighted a correlation between my laptimes and the atmospheric pressure on each day. The reason for my excitement was that the atmospheric pressure at Goulburn Airport was hovering around 1027hPa -- a bit higher than anything I've seen before at this track. So I was forecasting a high 1:16 on RE001s. Sure enough I finished with a PB and new Class 1 record of 1:16.80!!! Many many others also returned excellent improvements on their PBs. I reckon that's a pretty convincing proof of the theory!

Imagine rocking up to a cold, cloudy & dry day with 1039hPa like on Monday 22nd August. With those conditions, it appears there is a chance of a high 1:15 lap in my car. :shock:

However, I expect to see it sooner rather than later because I'm hoping to swap to a set of Dunlop Z1 Star Specs before the next club trackday. They should be worth about a second a lap.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Thu Sep 08, 2011 10:10 pm

Fathers Day - 4th September 2011

MX-5 Club of NSW track day - Wakefield Park

I’ve done 14 Wakefield trackdays with the club during the last few years, and this one was the best yet. Several reasons ...

Firstly, it was made extra special by being held on Fathers Day, with many dads and their kids in attendance. Fiona and Alex drove down to spend a few hours with me, and Alex had a ball sitting in my lap and "driving" slowly around the pits in Little Reddy. It was one of those moments that leaves a lump in your throat. Perfect Fathers Day!

IMG_1363 by Guran5, on Flickr

Secondly, it was a glorious spring day that suited both the drivers and the officials. Wakefield Park can be a gruesome place for marshalls who need to cope with either freezing cold, pouring rain or stifling heat. But a day spent in clear sunshine with slightly crisp 18C air temperature is nothing short of perfect. And as I wrote in the above post, the weather conditions also made sure our cars were very fast.

Thirdly, the new classes worked a treat and it was great to see some new names at the top of the results list ... including a first-timer winning Class 5! :shock:

I'm not sure if Phil Mayo thought much of it, but at least he managed a PB too, smashing 0.70s off his old time.

Lastly, the day went ultra-smoothly with plenty of track time for an incredible turnout of 78 drivers, in spite of the delays for a few retrievals for broken cars. How on earth did they manage that? It's a miracle. :mrgreen:

So a sincere THANK YOU to all the club officials who put on a fantastic show.

After this one, I don’t know how they can top it. Oh wait ... a round or two next year on the new circuit at Eastern Creek ought to do the trick! I’m already looking forward to that.

My trainees in the first-timer groups were Dan Jolly (NitroDann) and Paul Fraser (PaulF) who were sharing Dann's rough & ready NA. Armed with a pink cushion in the fixed seat, I guided them around the circuit and then repeated it from the passenger seat. Paul managed to loop it after turn 4, and the car needed some surgery on the ducting because it was overheating. But that was easily fixed and both guys improved their times steadily through the day, and finished with 1:14.46 (Dann) and 1:17.14 (Paul). Well done fellas!

The quickest outright on the day was Bob Welsh in his turbocharged Datto 1600 who set a PB of 1:06.61. Patrick Bramston kept Bob honest with a 1:06.75. Matilda Mravicic would have been up there too but for a busted gearbox (1:07.78), and she returned in one of the MX-5 Racing NCs to finish fourth in Class 7. Mark Hellmund (1:10.06) and Chris Gough (1:10.17) had a ding dong battle to finish as the third fastest MX-5.

This was my first club trackday in which Allan Cruz and I were competing in different classes, as he'd been moved to the new "Clubman" Class 4. Not to worry, we were still bunched together in the same group and duked it out for ourselves. Here's how it went:

Run 1: Allan 1:16.87, Me 1:17.10 - Hammer had me by 0.23s with his first 16
Run 2: Allan 1:17.34, Me 1:16.92 - My first 16 but Allan still had a 0.05s lead
Run 3: Allan 1:17.33, Me 1:16.86 - Now a 0.01s lead to me! Lunch tasted very sweet! :mrgreen:

Run 4: Allan 1:17.54, Me 1:16.83 - I found another 0.03s but Allan must have overdone the pies at lunch :wink:

Run 5: Allan 1:17.17, Me 1:17.03 - No improvement for either of us
Run 6: Allan packed up, Me 1:16.80 - Finished with a 0.07s margin to me. Allan you should have had one last go, mate!

My nearest rivals in Class 1 were first-timer Tony Maxwell (1:19.54) and Phil Lea (1:19.54), so it was a comfortable win. This time! I'm coaching up the Class 1 guys and would love to see them challenge for the win.

On 29 Jul 2011 Guran wrote wrote:On each of those laps in the teens, I lost a few tenths here and there, so I feel that a high 1:16 is not too far away.

And here it is! A new PB and Class 1 record of 1:16.80 on RE001 tyres. It took me over a year to knock off that 1:17.00 PB, but today I did it five times! Wait till I swap to Star Specs. :mrgreen:

Some videos:

Guy Coles takes a dirt bath on the first run

Complete footage of my entertaining second run, which included chasing down Allan's Clubman

Run 6, Lap 2, 1:16.80, new PB & Class 1 record

PaulF · Postby **PaulF** » Fri Sep 09, 2011 11:44 am

Congratulations on the 1:16, Bryan. It was great to meet you on Sunday. Thanks for all your help and advice, and keeping me fairly calm after my little boo-boo. :oops:

For what it's worth, I only spun once after that... :roll:

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Tue Sep 13, 2011 5:25 pm

I know there are a few non-believers out there, but I've updated this graph of my Wakefield Park laptimes to include my latest 1:16.80 PB

. I fitted a curve to the RE001 data and then replicated it for the RE55S data but shifted downwards. It appears that significant improvements on these times will be a bit of a lottery: Goulburn has about 40 days per year with at least 1027hPa, and only 4 days per year with at least 1035hPa. :lol:

Regie · Postby **Regie** » Fri Sep 16, 2011 8:29 pm

i love reading about your track days Bryan...im still to do a club day, i will get down there eventually haha.

keep up the tops effort on the club mag also mate!

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 8:05 am

Thanks for the feedback Regie. The club trackdays are a highlight that I always eagerly anticipate. They're great fun. You definitely should try to do one someday.

I'm two weeks away from starting to put together the next Club Torque. Just gathering the last lot of contributions.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 12:11 pm

I'm suffering trackday withdrawal symptoms! :cry:

After a very busy winter, in the last six weeks I've had only the Fathers Day event at Wakefield Park, and still have another two weeks to wait until the next Supersprint (16th Oct, Wakefield Park), followed by the NSW/VIC Interstate Challenge (23rd Oct, Wakefield Park), capped off by the Supersprint Nationals a few weeks later (12th/13th November, Eastern Creek), and another club trackday (4th Dec, Wakefield Park). Then that's it for a while until 2012 kicks off in February. I'd like to squeeze in a visit to Marulan somewhere in between.

So on Friday (my day off), I "forced" myself to get a pie for lunch :wink:

. Here's the route. The run up Jamberoo Mountain was perfectly clear until I got to the top, where I passed a P-plater on the straight bits. The run down Macquarie Pass was much busier unfortunately. Still, it was a satisfying drive and it's great to have these roads in my backyard. :mrgreen:

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 8:50 pm

I realised recently that Little Reddy is only five months away from celebrating it's 20th birthday: a February 1992 build. With that in mind, I thought it appropriate to try to uncover something about the car's history. The service records in the Owner's Manual were enlightening, and I also invested $18 with the RTA for a Vehicle History Check. The RTA have a bloody hide charging so much for so little, but there were a few nuggets in the report. So here's what I've learnt so far ...

The car was first purchased from Canterbury Mazda on 18th August 1992 by a woman named Lauren Haynes from Roselands NSW. It's safe to assume that this is not the same Lauren Haynes who Google informs me is an 18 year old model and Miss Universe WA contender; that Lauren wasn't born until a year later! Anyway, Lauren apparently didn't drive much because the service records indicate she took five years to reach the 15,000km service! :frown:

Talk about mollycoddled!

All servicing to this point was done at Canterbury Mazda. The original premium licence plate was ABA29K although they were replaced with regular plates in recent years.

It's interesting to note that I bought my first new car on 18th December 2002, only three months after Lauren bought her red MX-5 (which would eventually be mine). It was a Suzuki Swift GTi, which cost me $24,530 and I kept it for the next ten years.

Ownership of Little Reddy changed hands to an unknown person on 5th September 1997, apparently in a private sale, and the car was registered for business use. The 22,500km service was done at Peak Performance in Parramatta NSW, but after that the service history is mostly unrecorded. At least it was being dríven more regularly, with the average use climbing to about 13,000km per year. Unfortunately I have no other service records from this period. :frown:

On 21st August 2001, Little Reddy found it's way onto the yard at Thomson Ford in Parramatta NSW. After four months of neglect, on 14th December 2001 a gent named Robert Lennon from Blaxland NSW bought it for $19,300 with 70,126km on the clock. His phone numbers are listed in the warranty documents and I'm tempted to give him a call -- or would that be too creepy??? Anyway, the next two services were done at Sinclair Ford in Penrith NSW, taking the car up to 86,078km on 6th September 2002. Robert averaged an amazing 21,000km per year during his ownership! The timing belt was replaced at 106,000km on 28th August 2003, but it appears to have been a DIY job, and my recent experience suggests that the waterpump was not replaced at that time.

Then the history gets really murky. I don't know when Robert sold the car (my guess is late 2003), but the RTA records say that it was at another dealer on 3rd March 2006. An unknown buyer snapped it up a month later on 1st April 2006 and the car has remained in private use since then. Usage during this period averaged about 10,500km per year. At some stage I'm pretty sure it was used for pizza deliveries judging from the rubbish I found under the seats. The truly shocking part is that the RTA say it has had a total of 14 registered operators! :shock:

What a slut! :oops:

I bought Little Reddy for $6,900 on 31st January 2009 from a young guy named Chris Barratt at Berowra NSW. Chris had owned it for about a year, and he fitted a new clutch at 157,000km. The car had 162,950km on the clock when I got it. So counting all the above owners, the two dealers and myself, that means there were apparently 7 owners between 2003 and 2008

. Wow, high turnover! But things have changed; I've owned the car now for almost three years and have every intention of keeping it for many years to come.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 3:29 pm

16th October 2011

NSW Supersprint Round 8 - Wakefield Park

It's been a tough year for organisers of the NSW Supersprint Championship. Entry numbers have been consistently down on previous years. This round was no exception with the Mini Car Club of NSW struggling to find only 59 drivers for Round 8, despite dropping the entry fee to only $150. We had seven runs of four laps, which was a pretty decent effort. I got put into the faster "yellow" group (1:09-1:12), which was a bit of a surprise, but didn't cause any problems at all. I had perfectly clear laps every time and didn't get lapped either.

The weather was a bit of a mixed bag. It was warmish (17C) and dry, but there was a cold & strong westerly, and MSLP peaked at around 1017hPa. Not bad conditions, but not ideal either. Certainly not as good as it is down there today: 18C max, hardly a breath of wind, and 1032hPa!

I followed behind Peter Browning's modified NA6 for most of the day. Once his new brake pads started working properly, I couldn't catch him. Little Reddy ran with no problems, except for one solitary soft brake pedal moment (must bleed brake fluid again). Ben Sullivan had a run in my car too, after suffering a small fire in his Class 3B MX-5.

My best laps in each run were:
Run 1 - 1:15.984
Run 2 - 1:15.395 (followed by a spectacular spin at turn 5)
Run 3 - 1:15.621
Run 4 - 1:15.413
Run 5 - 1:15.434
Run 6 - 1:15.400
Run 7 - 1:15.392 best of the day

So I couldn't beat my PB this time (1:14.978), but at least my times were nicely consistent after the first run to tweak tyre pressures. My PBox laptimer flashed up 1:15.4 six times during the day!

Stewart Temesvary had a great time following behind me for the last four runs. Lately Stewart has been competing in his NC2, but this time he opted for his NB8A fitted with a set of new Dunlop D03Gs. His PB in the NB8A was 1:15.416. On the sixth run, I put my spare spy cam in Stewart's car, and he went and did a new PB of 1:15.362. Cheeky bugger! With that one lap, Stewart pipped me by 0.03s to take second place in Type 1. But I reckon I had more fun bouncing off the ripple strips and sliding my way through turn 5! And I got some great video of my car viewed from Stewart's NB.

There were six class records broken on the day (1D, 2B, 2C, SVB, SVC), although most were at least a few tenths off their best. The club championship will go down to the wire on 12th & 13th November at Eastern Creek. At the penultimate round, NSWRRC (882) clawed back an extra 13 points lead over the MX-5 Club (846), and ARDC are now a distant third (732). We'll need a very strong showing of MX-5 Club drivers to have any chance of retaining the title - but we have to make up 36 points so it's a tall order.

Natsoft Results

kris · Postby **kris** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 3:40 pm

Brilliant Guran and thanks for the videos- I watch and study them all ;)

Tony · Postby **Tony** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 4:00 pm

Looking at the results it was interesting to see that with one notable exception, all the fastest laps for the day were under 1:20.

I was also "promoted" to the Yellow group :shock:

and followed Stewart for most of the day. In some respect it looked like an MX5 club day with us all lined up together! Having Stewart to chase helped me to snare a new PB too.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 4:48 pm

Glad to hear you're enjoying the videos kris.

Congrats on the PB, Tony! Half a second is a very decent improvement.

Especially considering you weren't feeling the best yesterday.

I hadn't noticed that about the sub-1:20 times. Ben was just nursing my car around too. He apparently didn't want to abuse the favour! :lol:

I suspect he'd have gone under 1:20 too if he'd been having a go.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Mon Oct 17, 2011 5:07 pm

The Spring 2011 edition of Club Torque is finished and members of the MX-5 Club of NSW should receive it in their mailbox this week. If you miss out and believe you should have received it, please let me know. A PDF version will be posted on the club website in a few weeks.

Club_Torque_2011-10 by Guran5, on Flickr