Monday, November 30, 2009

The definition of sabotage.

How do you go about successfully sabotaging your own team?
It's quite easy really, you just forget what ratio your spare diff is and fit it up to your mates car and tell him it's a 4.86 when its really a 4.11, then when he struggles all night you just let him know it's not the car it is just he is not driving hard enough, this I fingd works really well and recommend you all try it at least once.

Now he has caught on I need to be even more vigilant around my own car as revenge is no fun when you are the one being targetted.

Went to the open state title, not a bad night but the field could have been a bit higher in number, sounds familiar doesnt it.

It was good to see David Priolo take it out, he has had a run of bad luck while leading a lot of events the last 2 seasons, I spoke to Prino prior to the meeting and asked what motor they had in the car, he replied the good motor but that it was a temperamental thing and they hoped it lasted, they need not have worried about the engine, the left rear was going flat with about 10 laps to go and the car was pushing and hanlding shocking, but credit to David he kept the boot in and got home.
Pino must have leapt over the fence he was in there so quick after David pulled up, it was a great family win, bet they still have headaches.

Catch you.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Mango beer drowns sorrow.


Hi all,

I am in Broome on my way to our site on Koolan Island so I thought I would just put a few words in here.

We had our evening meal at a place called Matso's brewery, it makes the best beer around.
One of their top beers is Monsoonal Blonde, but they only sell it in bottles now, so we have to put up with a Mango Beer, it is fabulous and really has a mango flavour.
Tuesday morning at 6am we fly to Koolan Island, so today first thing we were on the phone before flying to get all our parts ordered to repair both cars, Parr Motorsports had the gear in stock and another call to Maxwill Motor sports and parts were on the way, a quick call to Murphy Race Cars about how much to strip off the car for the chassis repairs and the job was organised.
Now if everything turns up on time we will put the cars back together during the week leading up to the next Fast Friday.

Glen does not get another run until around the state title due to work and family commitments, this also means the budget may get a breather as it has not been a good start to the year.

In summary of what we have used in 2 cars this season.
1 x New motor failure- meeting 1 Me
1 x Old spare motor needed freshening after fuelling it up and dropping compression-meeting 2 Glen
1 x Diff/drive shaft/torque tube-meeting 3 Glen
1 x torque tube/drive shaft/jacobs ladder/top wing side panel-meeting 4 Glen
1 x right rear rim-meeting 4 Me
1 x front axle-meeting 4 Me
1 x front tyre and rim-meeting 4 Me
3 x radius rods-meeting 4 Me
1 x drag link-meeting 4 Me
1 x jacobs ladder-meeting 4 Me
What started out as a good sized budget has shrunk somewhat, bring back the simple life please.

Gavin gave me some driving tips at Kwinana, he took me down to the turn 3 wall and told me I drove like a man with no right foot, I thought for a minute he was going to toss me in the mud.
We had an animated discussion about where you should be turning in to the corner and whilst there I finally worked out why I kept hitting the ruts there, it would appear that where I thought they were 2 thirds of the way through the corner they were actually in the middle of the corner, once I realised that we ran a lot quicker in the feature and managed to get through without all the bouncing and launching into orbit.

Catch you

Sunday, November 22, 2009


Hi all,

Well another weekend of racing has come and gone.

I have come to the conclusion that running 2 cars and helping others is a sure way to enjoy all the benefits of sleep deprivation.
We ran fast Friday and Glen had a failure to start for warm ups, on start for heat one I was following him around and saw a whole heap of fluid pour from under the middle of his car, he pulled in and when we looked at it in the pits he had lost the torque tube to the diff and bent the drive shaft, we really need that.

I won heat one and 2 and was almost enjoying the run except for the track was a bit rutted, I felt like an astronaut on occasions thinking I was going to go into orbit.

Mick Doble won the feature we think, I rounded him up going into turn one but the checkered flag may have already been waved, we are just not sure, so we gave the win to Mick as he must have seen the flag because he stayed down under another car as we entered the turn and I went past. Confusing hey.

I won the night and headed off to the garage to help Glen replace his diff and drive shaft.
Well at 2pm we head out of the shed and refilled all the fuel cans and went home, some sleep and some preparations on Saturday morning and we were headed for Moora, we left Mandurah at 10am.

On arrival in Moora at the track we unloaded my car and stripped it ready for cleaning.
It had around 100kg of mud on it from Kwinana, the clay was tacky at Kwinana due to the rain during the week and it stuck like s$%t to a blanket.
We spent about 2 hours getting it somewhat presentable for the Moora meeting.

We had 7 cars for the meeting, the best this year but still very poor, as a guide the 320's had 11 cars.
Drew 5 for the first heat and 4 for the third with an outside pole for the second heat by reversing the grid.
Finished 4th in the first heat, and lined up alongside Kingy for the second heat, lost the start and followed Kingy for a couple of laps, tried running his line but it did not suit me, then I switched back to a higher line but had no luck eventually having my first ever encounter with the wall, and that was it for me. Special thanks to Darren Francis for helping me get the car off the track and Michael Robertson for also helping me get the spare front end in.
Glen had a similar encounter with the turn one wall during the feature and guess what, he broke the torque tube and bent the drive shaft, lucky we have some experience in fixing that.

The night was a draw with Mick, King and Nathan Chant all on 115 points.
Mick won the feature with all 3 cars within 20m of each other.

So back to the shed we go, 2 cars too repair, more lack of sleep, yippee here we go again.

Robbie Robertson has made the transition from a "shed racer" to a "returned not retired anymore" racer and looked quick by the end of the night, Peter Wodj by default also returns to the racer list, so from here on no more mentions of shed racers will be used to describe these 2 gents.
The new motor sounded crisp and when driven for a couple of hot laps by Michael Robertson went extremely quick.
Welcome back guys.

Looking forward to the 410 state titles next weekend and have already got the new parts on order to fix our cars.
Will I make the 11th and 12th of December, only time will tell.

Catch you

Monday, November 16, 2009

Time for the blog again.


Hi all

Apologies for the tardiness in my blogging, got carried away head down bum up changing motors and working and just plain forgot you all actually do read this.

Narrogin came and went, ran 4th for the club, not too good but ok, led the feature for 17 laps then had Michael Robertson pass me, still first limited home was a good effort.
I have finally overcome the fear of running high and have actually started to like running up there, I even made a few passes around the outside, someone came and asked me who I got mad at to drive around 3 cars so quickly, I was mad because I got put to the rear of field on a restart and was sure that's not where I was during the heat.
Again we lost a motor, this time in Glen's car, just ran out of compression and pumped some oil out of the breather, we took the motor out and replaced it with the spare engine that was doing duty in my car while we repaired the melted one.

We travelled to Bunbury on Saturday night to have another run and to bed in the good motor that had come back from being repaired, I have never seen so many cars in a speedway, there were sedans everywhere.
We had 4 limiteds turn up and a pretend limited show up, also there were 5 320's who refused to race with us, I find it hard to fathom why people refuse to run out of class, surely running against quicker and slower cars teaches us more about race craft.
3 cars lined up in grid form and the other 2 ran off the back.
Shane Webster a new member who we have been helping moved from "Shed Racer" to Racer with some spirited drives, he had a few close moments and got lapped in the first heat after 6 laps, a good first up effort, in the second he held out for 7 laps but had to pull in with a lack of power steering fluid (fitness issues I reckon, when I said this someone reminded me of my first race at Ellenbrook where I didn't breath for 3 laps before near blacking out and pulling in), but it was a great first up effort and Shane put in a couple of quick laps before retiring hurt.
The first heat saw me pull away from Glen and Todd and hold on until the flag, the second heat saw Todd and Glen take off from the front row and as I followed I thought Kerry Madsen and Ryan Farrell had joined us, they were wheel to wheel for a lap and a bit before Glen got by on the outside and drove away, the third heat saw me off pole with Todd on the outside, Todd pushed me into the sloppy lower part of the track and I went there like some beginner and as we hit the straight he hooked up and drove away, I followed him about half a straight behind until the flag just holding Glen off.
So each of us had a 1/2/3 for a draw on the night, it was just good fast racing on the new track that just hooks up, I had the car way to tight and could not spin up the engine, I had elected to run lower gearing to keep the motor low in the rev range to run it in but I should have gone a gear change, it was good to get a run with no motor failures and the only damage for the night was 2 wing adjusters that cracked on Glen's car.

So now we go to Fast Friday at "The Plex", Mick Doble is coming down from Geraldton and we are looking forward to upping the pace to stay with him, Mick is certainly setting the pace this year and we are looking forward to getting up to his level, Saturday sees us off to Moora for an official meeting, Martin is talking 14 or more cars, we are looking forward to a run with some serious Limited numbers.

Some Gossip:
  • Gavin is back Thursday and we are hoping to get him to have a run with us at Fast Friday, he just needs some understanding from his crew to get his car down to the track for him, Hint Hint JD.
  • Todd may come out, we tried twisting his arm but he has a crew with a caravan problem, Hint Hint GD.
  • Carolyn has had a motor failure at Geraldton and we hope her team can get it back on the track soon.
  • Shane W needs an arm transplant, or some non leaking power steering lines.
  • People formerly known as shed racers should make the move back to racers at Moora and we are all hoping they have a great run and a cheap and successful season.
  • Glen has found the outside line is ok and none of us are safe anymore.
  • Ian Dhu is hoping to be with us this weekend if his staff continue to perform, we are hoping he gets it back on track as we are missing the crabs and prawns and the after race mudslinging, not to mention his dashing good looks and quick wit.
  • Some of the Geraldton crew other than Mick are going to be at Moora.
  • Anthony King had a run at Moora and looks like he is ready to go.
Well folks, hope we see you all at Moora this Saturday night.

Bye

Friday, November 6, 2009

Narrogin here we come.

Hi all

We are down at the workshop putting the finishing touches to Glen's car.
He loves making work for us, why he wanted to practice and dirty the car is beyond me.

Glen had a good run against some quick 410's with only Kerry Madsen and Todd Wadell getting past him, when he came in a mechanic from one 410 team came over to check out what we were running.
Again we had fuel system gremlins, fuel pressure was off and temp was up, after much debating we replaced the fuel filter and got some pressure back, but still had not enough to be happy with.
We have got the high and low speed bypasses from a fuel injection system and set them at 12psi, hopefully this sorts our dramas out.
Gavin has been called back to South Australia to work on a tank and Anthony King is still sorting his car out, so we will a bit short of cars at Narrogin, still Glen and I will enjoy ourselves.

Keep an eye on the blog site during Saturday night, we will update it as we go keeping all who are interested informed of what's happening.

Catch you.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

From shed to street to super 6 division?


Well folks just a few more days and we are off to Narrogin.

Not too many cars, starting to sound familiar isn't it, hopefully soon we will get a field of more than 10 limiteds so we can show these tracks that we can field more than a couple of cars at any one time.

Looks like Watto is going to be a non starter due to 410 commitments, Dhuy is unsure as he is still inundated with fish eating folk who are keeping him chained to the filleting table.
Kim Collins is doubtful but hopeful, and who knows about the rest.
Gavin, Greg Harvey and myself will pick up where we left off at Ellenbrook, should be good hard racing, Glen Oliver is back from the rigs and ready to have a first up hit out, local hot shot Glen Carstairs is running so it should be a good meeting.

The rumour mill is ticking over and I have heard a couple of good stories.
Greg Harvey after years of backing into a drive way finally wore it out and fell through it, just as a limited sprintcar member went past and saw Greg's truck at a very strange angle.
The retired gents who have rejoined us to race have decided they will join the Super 6 division instead, a good story this one but best left for you all to ask them about it at the track.

Word is Anthony King will be back in action at Narrogin, this will lift the pace to another level.

If you are interested in a non club run then a few of us are racing in Bunbury on the 14th November, let Gavin know if you are interested in running there, but remember the next weekend 20th and 21st November are a double header so it will be a big couple of weeks.

Shane and Glen will be at practice on Wednesday at Kwinana, so if you are bored or just want to catch up come on down and see us there, and stay for a beer afterwards.

Catch you later.