Mx5, Chapter 2

[The American]

Congratulations - I'm betting few people would have guessed that you'd even be competitive, now they know better!

The final results were posted today -12th outright (of about 120) is not too shabby!

[The American]

Thanks to Collie George Pix for these images:

[The American]

I did not make it to the Oakey Street Sprints on the weekend and have never been there. Looking at the final times, it must be a big power track as the fastest times (outside of open wheelers) came from two GTR Skylines and a VE Maloo ute.

Entry for the Wondai Sprints is in!

[Magpie]

Good luck at Wondai? Taking the family?

[The American]

No, probably will be just me for this one. The Noosa Hillclimb makes for a good weekend away with the family - lots of accommodation options and a beach etc. Wondai will be camping in a paddock, and I can't see it being much fun if you're the one stuck at the tent with two bored toddlers and a sleeping (maybe!) 5 month old.

Leyburn might be ok, as it's a bit of a festival with lots of people, food, displays etc if we can find some accommodation. I should get on to that.

[Magpie]

I have the same problem

Would be nice to have a 'truck' that can tow a few MX5's and have a weekend away without the family and just the smell of E85

[The American]

Wondai Sprints Day 1
Fun fun fun!

At the end of day one, I'm second in class and fifth out right. The cars ahead of me outright:
1) Skelta GForce
2) V8 Open wheeler
3) turbo rotary open wheeler
4) Mitsubishi EVO

I'm not calling it yet, but there's a decent margin between them and me, so Sunday will probably be a case of defending 5th and not finding a wall. Not bad for an little old Mx5!

It's a fast track, and I'm getting into fourth a few times on the way around.

[The American]

Note to self: remember to not forget a mattress when planning to camp at a Motorsport event. Cargo netting should not be forced to this level of versatility.

[smy0003]

Ouch. Did you try to sleep in the car?
Surely that's the comfiest option in lieu of a matress?

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

[The American]

A folded up cargo net and an extra sleeping bag in the tent was manageable. Not keen to repeat though!

[The American]

Cross posted from the Wondai 2016 thread...

...Wondai is a good 3 hours drive from Brisbane. I'm not far from Samford, so I decided to take the slightly inland route over Mount Glorious. I won't be doing that again. My little Hilux ute found the haul up to the top of Mt Glorious a little too much. I stopped for a coffee at the cafe popular with bikers to let everything cool off. Down the otherside was equally slow - I was not confident that my brakes would handle slowing from any real pace, so I crawled down to the bottom in second gear. The rest of the way was quite a nice drive.

I arrived to Wondai early afternoon to find a good sized tent city already set up in a large mowed grassed field.



I set up camp and then headed to the scrutineers - no issues - and was issued with the stickers and competition numbers to apply.



I then wandered off to have a look at the competition in my class which consisted of this Skelta G-Force dríven by Ray Vandersee (Ray won the event outright in this car):


Note the gentlemen in the background with the Red ND - he's 77 and spent Friday night in a 1 man tent to be at the event.

This M3 (29th outright):


And this twin turbo V8 powered Rx7 which finished 9th outright:


I thought I'd have no hope of beating the Skelta, as it weighs very little, has loads of aero, and extracts a lot more power from it's Honda powerplant. The BMW and the Mazda would be my competition.

About this point, I realised that I'd forgotten some useful camping equipment which included both a bed and a towel, so I wandered into town to see what I could find. At the IGA, I asked the lady running the checkout if she knew anywhere in town one might buy a towel, other than Vinnies, which had already closed. She didn't know and asked her other customer who confirmed that towels could not be bought in Wondai - we used to have them. I wandered down to the bottle shop to collect beer, and same lady customer who'd been in the IGA, followed me into the bottleshop and gave me a towel. This is how you know you're in a real country town:


I wandered back to the campsite and made a bed out of a cargo net and a spare sleeping bag. I will not be forgetting a bed next time.

With all my domestic crisis sorted (mostly) I went for a track walk. Lot's of men were still out positioning concrete barriers, tyres and huge hay bales until after dark. Fixed objects were all protected with hay bales and tires. The hay bales were larger than some of the cars entered:



The following morning was 3 or 4 degrees at sunrise. The temps were no deterrent at the drivers briefing and sign on:



And then the first runs began. The aero on the open wheelers that ran at first pulled impressive plumes of dust of the track. I did not catch the best one - this is also a lot of smoke...


And then the lap times began rolling in, fast and slow




By the end of day 1, my best time was a 63.78. Ray in the Skelta had already pulled out an unassailable 59.02. The M3 and the Rx7 on the other hand were in the high 60's. About this point, I thought I'd get second in class, and I realised that I was 4th or 5th outright and so I decided to focus on trying to maintain overall position. It's worth mentioning that Saturday was warm and still, and blue sky all day.

That night there was a band. They were pretty good. Someone said the next morning that they had played on until 11pm. I think I went to sleep somewhere in the middle of 'Sweet home Alabama'...


Sunday morning was cool and overcast, and it stayed that way all day. Cold track, cold tyres and the remains of a heavy dew made for some fairly cautious first runs, before the times started to fall. My times for the Sunday:
Run 6: 66.75
Run 7: 64.86
Run 8: 62.93
Run 9: 62.20
Run 10: 62.09

After my last run, I was already taking my helmet off in the pits, when they called me and two others back for a re-run due to a timing gear issue. Yes!! re-run on hot tyres - best chance of my fastest time of the weekend and here it is:



For comparison, here's some in-car from Ray's Skelta:



In the end, my last run at 62.09 put me on 5th place outright. 4th was taken by Chris Ching in his EVO6 with a 62.03, followed by Darren Duffield and Vickie Paxton in their open wheelers, with Ray Vandersee in 1st place in his Skelta G-Force.

Trophy time! Presentations were assisted by two fellows from Downer and Stanwell who were major sponsors of the event



Some other notable cars
John Provan's Red NB which he has competed and finished the Targa Tasmania for 5 consecutive years, took out 1st place in the Modern Sports 1501-2000c
John Goodwin's Red 1989 NA, which he literally just bought, put tyres and roll bar on it and then ran it in the event.
This car, which is all MX5 underneath:


And the oldest car in the event, Peter Trapnell's 1935 Ford V8 Special which had only just had it's engine reassembled the night before:


It was a great event, well-run, and a fun track on a very good surface. Definitely worth putting an entry in for next year! Will Hagen was the commentator for the event, and his last comment of the weekend was (not an exact quote because I didn't think to write it down!):


"This event is everything modern motorsport isn't".

[The American]

I little while ago I relocated my already relocated washer bottle to the area under the cowl with the Nopro washer bottle kit (now it's re-relocated?), with a view to installing a pair of Moroso oil air separators that would have looked something like these:


Then Dann put the word out about his catch can kit including all hoses and fittings, so I messaged him, he asked a few questions about how I wanted to use it, and a few days later it was sitting on my desk.

It's now fitted and it looks like this:






I was a bit concerned about the clearance of the drain tap and a bracket on the turbo and Dann had sent me a visual to show how close it would be and it was spot on:


I have not decided yet if I will run the drain line, or just connect a line each time I want to drain it. My thinking is that if the drain line is a fixed fitting, after some oil has passed through it, it would probably continue to weep for a while afterwards unless it is bunged at the lower end.

In any case, I am happy with it, and will see if it accumulates anything (car does not currently appear to consume oil even with the event use it gets).

[The American]

Earlier this year, I named these candidates for this year's motorsport, and here's the status:

1) Gatton Sprints, 4-6 March - entered, run, 1st in class and 1st for sports cars of all capacities
2) Leyburn Sprints, 20-21 August - Entered
3) Pittsworth Sprints, 2-4 September - Entered
4) Wondai Sprints, 11-12 June - entered, run, 2nd in class and 5th outright
5) Oakey Street Sprints - missed it (and don't yet have the mandatory HANS device)
6) Maryborough Street Sprints (no longer running as an event)
7) Millmerran Sprints (these are a regular dirt event throughout the year, by the same club that runs the Pittsworth Sprints. I don't want to run dirt in this car)
Grafton Hillclimb (no plans to attend at this stage)

And the supplementaries:
Noosa Hill 6-7 August - Entered
Noosa Hill 5-6 November - hope to attend

[The American]

While ferreting around for an exhaust rattle, I found a broken PPF:



With two weeks, and one weekend before the Noosa Hill Climb, it might be an event I don't quite make it to.

[ManiacLachy]

That sucks, but it's good you spotted it now.