Day 1 at Bathurst was a difficult one for MY Racing.
An early start led to several hours of waiting around while some problems with officials were sorted, and it wasn’t until after lunch that Dave was able to hit the track with some kind of vigour. Unfortunately just before the first practice session (behind a pace car) the heavens opened and a wet track greeted the drivers.
Despite very gently approaching the track, Dave noticed a problem with the performance of the car. Between about 6 and 6500 rpm there was a significant flat spot where the car seemed to be leaning out. Once over that rev range, the car was as good as ever, but it struggled up mountain straight, and was very difficult to drive on part throttle.
The next session brought more of the same, with more rain, slightly higher speeds and still the persistent problem.
A trip to the TAFE shed, where tafe mechanics were able to help out people in need was in order. Despite their best efforts, they were unable to solve the problem. As it stands, we’re heading back there first thing tomorrow morning for them to try again.
Worst case scenario for now means that we qualify with a slightly sick car, and continue trying to find a solution for the rest of the weekend. We will update again tomorrow night and let you know how the results of our efforts pan out.
The highlight of the day for Dave would have been having his Daughter Ella show up in a MY Racing T-Shirt sporting Dave’s race number as well as the MY Racing slogan Fading Away to a Shadow.
Qualifying
In one sense our weekend was almost over before it began. The Corona was on the doorstep of the TAFE mechanics at 8am to attempt to cure our ongoing problems. While the crew pulled the carbies off, Dave managed to find a supplier who had some soft mount gaskets that would fit, and hopefully solve the problem.
It did, however when restarting the car it was running very rough, as if only on 2 or 3 cylinders. At this time qualifying was only just around the corner, and the Tafe guys suggested taking the car and running it in qualifying, then coming back to see if any improvements could be made. The fact that Dave struggled to get the car back to his garage, meant that qualifying in its current state wasn’t an option.
Further diagnostics by ‘chief mechanic’ Phil led us to believe that cylinders 1 and 2 weren’t getting any fuel. As Dave went down to see how much time he had before qualifying, only to find Improved Production cars already in pit lane ready to qualify, he was almost resigned to the seemingly inevitable reality that he wasn’t going to qualify and that his weekend was over.
In the meantime, a Tafe guy had come up to have a look, and had the top off the carbie. He discovered that it had been reassembled incorrectly, and could have Dave back on the road in about 5 minutes. While he raced to fix the problem, Dave threw on his race suit, strapped in, and was ready to go. When the thumbs up was given, the Corona fired on all four and he was off.
When Dave arrived at the marshalling area, the rest of the field was still in Pit lane. Some overzealous marshalls tried to prevent him joining them, however some quick talking by chief mechanic Phil and Dave led to him joining the back of the pack.
A short 20 minute qualifying session meant that Dave only ended up with 2 flying laps, the best of which he just broke the 3 minute mark and qualified 49th after only 3 laps of the circuit in the dry. A satisfying position to be in after being so close to packing up and going home.
Race 1
After the emotional roller coaster of the morning, Dave was just glad to be out on the track racing. The Corona had performed well during qualifying, and he was looking forward to finally getting to know the track a little!
Gridding up for the start, Dave was right on Murray’s corner, and thus had great difficulty seeing the flag drop to start the race. Finally everyone else started moving, so Dave thought it best to follow suit. While he missed the jump of the start, he actually made a couple of positions in the run to hell corner, and was in the thick of the action heading up Mountain Straight for the first time. Heavy traffic, often 2 or 3 cars wide meant that Dave had to bide his time a little and feather the throttle so as to not run into the car in front.
He managed to make up another spot passing Lake in his Escort going into Griffin bend, only to lose the position to him again as a result of a pretty aggressive move in traffic coming over Skyline for the first time. Dave was passed on Conrod by Mennell in the BMW and a turbo Bluebird (the mountain likes grunt!) to finish lap 1 in about the same position he started.
Two more cars (rotaries) passed Dave up mountain straight on lap 2, to leave him with a bit of work to do in order to get back into the race. Over the top of th mountain this lap however Dave started to get a little rhythm, and made up quite a bit of ground on the way down the hill to Forest Elbow. It looked like this was going to be his strength around the circuit.
Coming out of the Elbow hot on the heels of a few rotaries, it was a little demoralising to watch them drive into the distance on Conrod Straight, and then have Justin McClintock power past in his freshly rebuilt Toyota Sprinter.
Lap 3 (the final lap of the short 3 lap races) saw a little more confidence as Dave reeled back in Lake, to put some pressure on him over the top of the hill and down into the Elbow. A good tow down the straight meant that this time the Corona was doing some passing and Dave took the position and held it to the end of the race.
An interesting phenomenon was how much the car moved around at speed. The Corona was reaching speeds of over 210km/h down the straight – at which point it became very light, and would move a metre or so to the left of right without notice. We’ll definitely need an aero package before next year!
Enjoy the in car video of this race below.
After the excitement and emotional rollercoaster that was days 1 and 2, Dave was pretty happy to reach day 3 relaxed, and confident the car was running well.
Race 2
More of the same story here as race 1. Getting passed by rotaries on the straights, and catching them across the top and down the hill. There were however a couple of incidents in this race.
At the start the 2 quick turbo 4WD cars of Geoff Fear (GT-R) and Ross Street (Evo) came together while trying to avoid slower starting cars. Ross was able to complete the race, however Geoff was out. Dave backed out of the gas so as not to pass under yellow flags, however there must have been a change to that rule, judging by the number of people who went past him while he was concentrating on not doing the same to others. Have a look at the video, and make up your own mind!
Towards the end of the first lap, Scott Bucton had a BIG moment coming into the chase in his V8 Commodore and clouted the wall, ending parked backwards in the sand pit. That was the end of the weekend for him. This led to yellow flags being shown at the chase for the whole race – effectively ruling this out as a passing opportunity for the rest of the race! Or did it? Again – I’ll refer that one to the video ref! (Note lap 3!)
The remainder of the race was highlighted by an exciting passing move through Skyline under brakes to get past one of those ‘rotary things’, only to have said rotary blast past again near the end of Conrod straight… (is that the chase?!).
Thanks to Jim of PB motorsport for the video editing of this one, and the extra camera for the ‘picture in picture’ action. Look at the view out the back… it is almost authentic race-cam!
Watch the video action of this race here.
Race 3
Another good start saw Dave in the thick of the 3 wide action heading up Mountain straight for the first time. However this traffic worked against him going through the cutting where he was baulked (to avoid scratching Justin’s freshly painted sprinter!) and lost momentum in 2nd gear. The car bogged down, and he was passed by 2 cars going up the hill.
The rest of the race then seemed to be spent catching and re-passing those cars, this time there were no yellows into the chase, so that became the favoured passing spot!
Dave also posted his fastest lap time of the weekend in this race of a 2:52 on lap 3, while being held up quite badly coming down the hill. He was pretty pleased with this, and confident that it would have been a sub 2:50 lap without the traffic to deal with.
Click here again to view the race 3 video.
Race 4
Was a very short lived affair. When Dave started the car to head to the dummy grid there was a very nasty knocking noise coming from the engine, and he decided to call it a day. Disappointing to end on that note, however given the state of affairs on Friday, it could have been MUCH worse.
The noise turned out to be an intake valve guide crunching between the piston and head. Not real nice! Hopefully not too much damage has been done.
Weekend Summary
So, what was Bathurst like? Nothing short of amazing. While we only did about 12 laps of the circuit in dry conditions, it was enough to START to get a feel for the place. Dave’s strength has never been learning tracks quickly, preferring to ‘creep up’ on them, and we have no doubt that we could go quite a bit faster here in the future.
We must thank the Festival of Sporting Cars for giving us the opportunity to race here. Hopefully we’ll be welcome back in 2009!
