Some rumours and info from the weekend.

Racing:

• A 320 was quicker than the rest of us limited's, Gibbo has his car on rails, 5:85 gears and not pulling more than 6200rpm, how good is that.
• A motor was loaded into the Armstrong truck, Carol tells me that it is in fact Caroline's new motor and it would be ready for the muster.
• By the close of nominations we had 6 entries only from the Limited Division, by 6:00 pm this evening we had 12, so hopefully we have more than 10 turn up.
• All the big 320 engines are having major head problems, even the ones not yet run (new in sheds) Anthony King is the worst affected and may need an engine transplant prior to the muster.
• Tim King is building a car ready for the muster and has nominated.
• Todd Davis will be working over Christmas to get his cam changed and the car ready.
• Gavin Davis is learning Arabic and may miss the muster.
• The Harvey family have not nominated for the muster and are not answering their phones, have you seen them?

While at Bunbury I saw one of the worst behaviours from a driver and cannot understand how these people are allowed to keep racing, the limited sprintcar official was asked to run the sprintcars for the night and a driver refused to attend the drivers meeting as he had a beef with the club some years back, "Get over it" and move on, why should we all suffer because of non compliant individuals.

The 320 drivers from Moora who showed up are a great bunch, we consumed the odd beer into the wee hours, also a driver from Perth who also had a good evening.

Team SJ Crushing shrinks to one car now until the State Title, this should ensure the budget gets some light relief, it was good to get through the weekend without a tear up or failure of any type other than driver failure.

Martin used some memories of days gone by and gave me some great advice that saw me go ahead in driver knowledge, thanks Martin, he has been trying along with others to beat this information into me for a long time, it pays to listen.

To all our club members and the 400 people who read this blog we at Team SJ Crushing wish you all a merry christmas and new year, keep safe and keep those cars coming out to the race meetings with us.

Catch you.

LATE BREAKING NEWS===== The Dhu Meister has nominated for the muster, he may in fact be there showing us some new tricks he has picked up in his temporary retirement.

His race suit has shrunk and he is awaiting for the arrival of his new suit so he can go racing.

So folks get ready for the muster.

We need to get out there and show all the patrons of the speedway we can

a) muster a good sized field

b) put on a good show of close and clean racing

c) and most importantly have a great time with fun and comraderie the main focus

Another great weekends racing completed.

Good evening all,

Well another two meeting weekend has come and gone.

First we ran the Fast Friday meeting at Kwinana.
We ran 2 heat races and the feature race.

First heat we ran with the 320's starting from the front, we were supposed to start 200m behind the 320's but Michael Armstrong was too keen and only sat back about 50m, Martin in confusion signalled for me to move up with Michael and the green flag dropped, what was I to do but get on the gas and go hard, I had rounded up all but two of the 320,s coming out of turn 2 and had past them before turn 3, I had the race shot to pieces and with 3/4 of a lap to go I went to go around a 320 putting him 2 laps down, he went high and the old Crabbe returned, tail tank blindness I call it, this is where you just sit on their tail and not make a decision to go high or low, as we ran through turn 3 with the checkered flag insight Mick Doble ran under me to greet the flag, it has to be the easiest win he ever had.

The rest of the night was a blur of changing car setups and chasing a set up that would hook the car up, in the feature we had the car handling not bad but suffered from the car jumping out of gear 10 or so times, it stayed in if I ran at half throttle so that was where we stayed, Michael Armstrong was unlucky not to get past me, each time he pulled off a pass he had the ambers come on and was relegated back behind me.
Gavin flipped out in the feature and Todd struggled with engine gremlins.
Mick Doble took out first place after I went down and gave him some set up advice, should have listened to my own advice as he was hooked up and quick beating the 360's as well.

Saturday night and off to Bunbury we went.
Todd was out again hoping they had resolved the mechanical gremlins that had plagued him Friday night. Michale Armstrong was there as was Shane Webster and Peter Wodj.
Heat one was a runaway win by me with a car that was fast and hooked up.
Going into heat 2 with confidence high I was given a set up lesson by Rick Sawyer and a driving lesson by Michael Armstrong, they had an underpowered car running on rails and they drove into the distance, before the race I joked with Michael about where he was going to pull over to let me pass, it was nearly a case of where I was going to pull over to be lapped by Michael.
So before heat 3 we had a team meeting, looking at how we had missed the setup for heat 2 and we decided to make some wholesale changes to the car.
Todd discovered a cam lobe was gone and his night was done.
Heat 3 and again we had the car hooked up, however Michael with his engine running down on power but all of what was left was getting to the track was quick but could not get past me but he did give it a few goes.

So into the feature we went, Michael and I off half a lap, Shane Webster off 1/4 lap and Peter (Alias Greg) off the front with a 410 alongside him.
Prior to the start we worked out a cunning plan on where we would start from, it is obvious that as we came off turn 2 the front runners had to be coming off turn 4 so as we came off turn 2 I gassed it up and started the long haul over 10 laps to run in the front cars, Peter Wodj (Greg) had other ideas, he jumped the start to show the 410 he meant business, the yellows came on and we reformed, I thought that was it and Michael would come out of turn 2 on full noise to negate any advantage that I had previously, but he was struggling to see the lead cars and missed the start, I ran as hard as I could with a car that had no tyres left and not much side or forward bite, after 8 laps I had the lead cars a straight in front of me but the checkered flag came out and it was all over, I did not even see the white flag get waved to us.
So I ran first for the night, but the most impressive thing was to see the 3 new guys and how fast they were getting their cars to go, Wodj (Greg) excepted has a lot of experience, but after a lot of years enjoying the spoils of "Champion Shed Racer" he is back and keen on revenge against all you people who crowned him "Champion Shed Racer". We are looking for a new King of the shed racers as I write this so to all you not on the track yet beware.
Michael looks the goods for a big year but the motor he is using still needs some fine tuning.
Shane Webster has the smallest horsepower motor in the division but is showing some good turns of speed.

Catch you.

Who is Kim Collins?

Has anyone seen the elusive Kim Collins? Kim who you ask?

He's the guy we once raced with who is car number 9 on our member list.
Last seen at the Watson's express day at Ellenbrook.

Well after seeing his name on the nominations list all year I gave him a call.

Apparently he is still putting an engine together and should have his crank back from the machine shop prior to Christmas, given severe budget constraints he has had to scale back on his engine program and is putting it together himself.
Kim has had a few offers to help with engine assembly so lets hope the Watson team boys can get the time to go around and give Kim a hand.

Kim is fast moving to shed racer status but not by choice. He hopes to be ready by the Muster.
Last muster Kim fed me a wheel at the start of the Feature, well maybe it was me cutting down on him, either way the shiny red bead lock had some severe scarring, at Bunbury just after the muster I saw Kim's wheel and it was looking sad as well.

Catch you

I'm in Sydney- Why you ask?

Hi folks,

Janette and I are in sunny Sydney, we flew in early Friday morning, had to get out of bed at 2:30am to make it to the airport on time, sometimes it sucks to live so far away from the city.

So we flew in and headed out to Homebush bay and booked into the Pullman Hotel, not a bad place.

So why are we here?

We are not here for TPCR World Series Sprintcars surprisingly.

We are not here for the V8 Supercars either, although I did spend the whole day there today.

We were here for the Cold Chisel concert, and what a concert it was, they are timeless.

In the words of Jimmy Barnes "we have not played for 25 years, we are just f*&()^%g old bastards" and I know how he feels.

I last saw Cold Chisel at the Belmont Hotel in about 1980, back in the days when I drove a HZ Sandman Panel Van and had hair.

Rob Watson went to Parramata and tells me that Jason Jonson won, Farrell was 4th, not a bad effort.

All our parts have arrived for repairs needed to both cars after Moora.

Wednesday and Thursday are the days I will get my car ready, hope to have it packed into the trailer Thursday afternoon so Friday will be nice and easy.

The new motor ex USA is on its way over, we are sending it straight to the dyno room and fitting up a different type of fuel system, we are putting our faith in Craig Vosbergen and his late model prowess, they run a BG fuel regulator so we think it may be the go.

Looking forward to racing both Kwinana and Bunbury, this will be the best shake down we can get before the muster in January.

Hope the crew is up for some hard work this weekend, we will try a lot of different things especially in the gearing area where we have struggled to get it right, when I say we I really mean me, they have suggested we change gears mid meeting and I keep saying "No it's alright" but they have been right on every occasion, so we will run a lower ratio and try to spin it up more.

Michael Armstrong and Mick are coming down for the weekend, looking forward to see how much Michael has improved, also hoping Caroline gets her motor sorted soon so she can get back onto the track.

Norbert sold both his cars some time back and we are hoping they are on the track soon as well, we really need to get the car numbers up at each meeting.

Well time to go to bed and keep listening to the Cold Chisel Concert in my head.

Catch you later.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.