29 July 2011
Racing, Rain, Babies and more Rain. That in a nutshell is the 2010/2011 racing season, well here is a little more detail and a recap of our year and our future.
The season started in September 2010 at Sydney dragway.
We hurt the engine in the 1st qualifier and needed some welding done to the cylinder heads. So we asked Aaron Hambridge if he could help us out. We had the car back together for the 3rd qualifying session. We ran a 6.58 ET, which placed us in 7th position.
Racing the next day and we were up against Justin Walsh in round one. Justin beat us, but we went home happy, with a track record of 6.58 and we learnt plenty about the new fuel system we were running and had some fun.
Mackay was the next round. Last week of September, we were ready after a busy two weeks. With servicing the car and repairing little issues we discovered in Sydney. But wait ! It had been raining up and down the coast of QLD for that last week. More in Mackay than anywhere else.
That’s all from Mackay. Meeting cancelled. Oh well, we stayed at home and had a beer. Little did we know that set the precedent for 2011?
January 2011 was the next round for us on the east coast. Well what can we say? Rain, Rain and more Rain resulting in the worst flooding since 1974. So no racing, but racing was insignificant compared to what was happening with the floods.
In between all this, we had a new addition to the team, She is fast becoming the new crew chief. What she says goes! We also moved house back to the big smoke, Brisbane. It was all systems go.
March 2011, we had entered the Willowbank round. Our new addition needed some TLC and a tune up, so we missed the round.
April, in Sydney we didn’t contest.
So roll on the final round and the biggest meeting outside the USA. The Winternationals, Willowbank Raceway June 2011.
Testing the week prior had shown great promise, with some shut off early, 6.55 second runs.
Yep you guessed it, Rain was again showing us, that Mother Nature is boss.
We had made some changes to the engine, with compression and also changed gear box ratios. So we were hoping we would be competitive.
We qualified in number 4 position with a PB 6.47, but then rain. It rained the rest of the weekend and the meeting was postponed until July. The team serviced the car had a good BBQ and we were ready for July.
July rolls around. We have a test session on Friday prior to our final qualifying session. We had taken some advice from a legend (secret source) and played in the clutch department.
Bingo! 6.33 was the result and under the National record. We knew we were in with a shot.
Here’s that word again. RAIN!
Our final qualifying session Saturday was rained out, but we were in the top half of the field.
Sunday dawned nice and fine. Racing was on. We get ready for our 11:30am first round.
We run a 6.40 against current champion point’s leader, Jeff Clarke. We win.
We get lucky in the second round and win. Semi finals now and we win.
(semi final video)
We are into the final round of the biggest meet of the year.” You beauty”
All that work and R&D is starting to pay off.
Everyone is working well on the car. The crew is turning the car around between rounds with no fuss. No breakages, this is the best we have ever run.
Hey what could go wrong???
Yep, that’s right. RRRRRRRain.
The finals were rained out and the meeting, called abandon – No result.
So with that, we ended our season. Which some are calling the season to forget? But for us it was our best. We showed we can mix it with the best; we set 2 track records and ran under the national record. The car is undamaged and is easier on parts than ever before.
For the future,
We plan on a holiday from the track and to have some family time. We hope to return some time in 2013. Maybe in a new class with a new engine, who knows?
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our partners who have supported us. We would like to wish our fellow competitors, tracks and official’s well for next season.
Thank you, especially to our crew.
JClay, Steve, Mum and Dad, Tessy and Mikey plus special thanks to Steven Ham.
Our sponsors,
http://www.rdw.com.au/ (excavator parts)