Sydney track championships round 3

Well it was off to Sydney for the track championships 16 April. We started off with 5 cars, Ezio, Dave driving Steve D's car, Jeff, Gerard and me. The day started badly for Jeff when his engine started making a knocking noise just after taking it off the trailer. He'd changed engines but the flywheel was grinding on the back of the block so this was the result.


This is how his day ended. The track announcer once referred to our cars as having as much technology as a Flintstone car.

 

I'll post some videos tomorrow night as it's beddy bye time now.

 

Waiting with baited breath. And nobody likes worms in their mouth.

 

Unless you're a university/college student on a dare.
Okay, back to the advertised program.
Dave has been crewing for just about all of us at some stage but he's finally been given a chance to do some driving while Steve D is recuperating after a serious car accident. His first stint was at the Day of the Drags which was memorable for all the wrong reasons. His first run was a 42 second because he had trouble with Steve's gear change mechanism. The track announcer made a snide remark about measuring the run in days instead of seconds. Dave's moved on from that and is running in the 15s. Once he gets the hang of leaving on the orange he will trim that down a bit (he thought you had to wait for the green). Our fault for assuming he knew that and didn't school him better.
This is Ezio and Dave.

Ezio runs a 170 cu.in Ford engine but has a reputation as a good bracket racer because he runs so consistently and he's a nice bloke as well.

 

First run for me was against Gerard with a reasonably close race until the flathead gets its legs. The car gets moving nicely too.
14.3 for me, 13.7 for Gerard.


Next run was against Ezio. He pulls a .020 reaction with a 16.419, mine's a 14.546. A tad slower than the first run but by then it's a much warmer day. My car likes cooler, moist air like around dusk.
Third run was with Dave. His reaction time was .835. That's when I asked him which light he leaves on. He ran a 15.654 to my 14.527. He ran through at 90.05 mph to my 90.68 so he's getting his act together nicely.

 

OOPS! I blundered. The first video was actually our first Chicago shootout which didn't end well for me. Prior to this run I'd experienced clutch trouble with it not disengaging completely. I adjusted it and all seemed good until that run. As you can notice I had trouble finding 2nd gear and lost to Gerard, just. When I came back to the pits I occasionally had no clutch so it was back on the trailer for me. The clutch felt and sounded like when the flywheel came loose a couple of years ago. I pulled it down the next day and yep, one sheared off bolt. The bolt head was stopping the clutch from working. Good thing I didn't race any more as these Holden engine only have 4 bolts to start with.
This is the video that should've been first.

You'll have to wait for tomorrow night for the finals result.

 

Thanks for the ride alongs Spanners, That little Holden sounds great.

 

Now, that was fun!

 

Great viddies. I thoroughly enjoy'em, next best thing to being able to be there.

Interesting problem with the flattie. Our friend Dimitri had one similar with his flat slingshot (the Antique Doll) when he bent the frame and didn't get the engine mounts lined up properly with the tranny again during the straightening process.

 

Thank you for the positive comments regarding the videos.
After I pulled out there was only the 3 left. Ezio took the win, 16.25 on a 16.17, against Dave who only just ran off his dial-in, 15.59 on a 15.50. Getting better. Gerard had a bye run so took an easy win.

The upshot was that Ezio and Gerard ran the final with Ezio taking the win which puts him in front in the championships. Congratulations to Ezio and Gerard and Dave just needs to get his starts fine tuned and he'll be up there.

 

Who said smoking is bad for your health?

 

Yes, thanks for the videos.

 

Cool vids as always Pete