Joe's NA6

[Jeo]

Yeah buddy. 2nd outright, 1st in class.

Scary thing is that my brother came 4th outright, 2nd in class. Not bad for a first timer in a car he'd never driving before.

[Jeo]

Little bit of a delayed posting but Nationals! Hosted by the Mini club of NSW on the 4th and 5th of October, the weekend was a world of fun. End results saw me 5th in class, 16th on handicap, 15th of production cars, 32nd outright, and team "Not quite ACT" came second in the team competition.



Saturday practice was a little slow to start but those who were keen still got plenty of track time. I managed a couple of runs practically back-to-back and only stopped around 3pm when a power steering hose went pop. I now also know that my bonnet vent has yet another practical purpose - when the PS hose split, it sprayed straight through the vent and covered the windscreen in fluid. Somewhat of an unnerving event at first but far less so once I got it off the track and figured out what it was. I then put the call out on the forum and a few different FB groups if anyone had a spare hose lying around and Lou came to the rescue. We did the dodgy on it using electrical tape and a hose clamp which was good enough to get me to Lou's. Unfortunately, once we got there, we realised that neither of us had bothered to check the model in question; me having an NA6, Lou having the hose for an NB. Damn.

Oh well. Had another go with the electrical tape and a hose clamp, running with the logic that it will hold as long as it holds, and if it lets go I'll just remove the PS belt and have a functioning, albeit manual steering car. Made it back to my mates place where we were staying, and back to the track the on Sunday morning with no noticeable loss of fluid. Ran all day Sunday, 12 tests in total, in stupidly hot conditions, and the tape almost made it. On literally the last throw, of the last test, my windscreen was showered yet again. Eh, stuff it, we're <10m from the finish garage, nothing I can do now, slammed it back into first and powered home. Then pulled it off to the side to assess the damage - yep, same as before, fluid everywhere. Took it back to the pits to wash it off as best we could, then reapplied the tape to get us back to Canberra. Logic being that if it survived the torture of a khana, I'm sure the tape would cope with a run down the highway. I was right - lost practically no fluid on the trip home and still haven't lost any sitting unused in the garage for a month. All in all, a pretty great weekend.

Got back from my honeymoon last week and called MX5 Solutions this morning to track down a replacement hose for me. Hopefully we've got that sorted before the next ACT khana next weekend!

[Jeo]

Posting in dot points today. Very exciting.

Power steering hose - fixed
Busted shifter bushing - fixed, and feels about 8 billion times better than before
Dodge wheel alignment - at ACDC today, will pick up this afternoon

Khana - this Sunday, dual entered with my brother again. Will report back shortly after.

[Jeo]

Whoa... delayed postings apparently.

So at that khana back in November my car actually ended up being triple entered. Reece has been toying with the idea of picking up an MX5 and wanted to have a go in one in anger ahead of that possibility. Net result was that my little black car came 1st, 2nd, and 4th outright! ...and I wasn't even close to Reece. Jerk...

A little bit of basic maintenance between now and then saw new fluids throughout, new air and oil filters, and a new shifter bushing. My brother and I then entered in the club's driver training day at Marulan. The new extended track made for a nice change and saw about 10 laps in the 49's, with my best as a 49.73. Unfortunately that day was cut short by my diff finally packing it in. The stock 6" had lived a hard life and started making a pretty horrible noise during my fourth session (the car's 7th that day). A quick inspection in the pits and we decided to call it a day.

Silver linings though! She spent the day with Dave at MX5 Solutions last week and came back with a shiny new Mazdaspeed clutchpack LSD. Initial thoughts so far are good, but I'm looking forward to having a real go with it next weekend. More khana!

[Jeo]

Also photos from Marulan by Josh Fitzgerald

[Jeo]

More khana! More podium! (just)

3rd outright, 1st in class.
Tom pulled 6th outright and 3rd in class (just 0.04 behind Ian Vickers in his NB)

The cool thing though was that we managed to have one car from each of the four classes in the top four outright. Fiesta, Cuppachino, MX5, Megane.

[Jeo]

Back-to-back weekends coming up soon. Another MG Car Club of Canberra motorkhana here on the 21st, then trekking up to Sydney for the MX5 club event at Eastern Creek on the 28th.

The new diff makes a big difference on the road but not so much in the very tight khana stuff. Is a little sad but I'm sure we'll cope through.

[Jeo]

More khana, more podiums.

3rd outright, 1st in class. This time I was just pipped by Burnie in his Fiesta, as appears to be the norm recently, and smashed by an Evo6.5
Tom managed to pull 4th outright, 2nd in class, and even beat me on three of the six tests.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend, although mildly scared of the wet skidpan. Hey, at least my handbrake will finally work though!

[Jeo]

Bye car...

The new owner is on here. I'm sure he'll check in soon enough.

[Jeo]

Hi car...

Long story short: new owner had difficulty registering it in NSW and has since sold it back to me. Now I just need to figure out what to do with it.

[Magpie]

So you rented it for a few days

[bruce]

That is silly.

[Jeo]

In a manner of speaking. Yes.

[speed]

Wow, makes me wonder why he couldn't register in nsw.

Sell the focus and keep the mx ;)

[Jeo]

Something about the VIN being unable to be registered in NSW? Honestly I'm not sure.

But the Focus is the most sensible form of transport we own! Not selling that any time soon.