Antilag

Random rubbish from the motor sport world

Sunday, April 9, 2006

And in a late call, went racign again

Probably not the wisest of things to do with the rally coming up… but what the hell. The car is pretty close to be honest to being ready to go so I decided to go burn rubber.

Today’s event was in a different place than usual – Ringwood is a place I aint been to in 10 years. A lot has changed too. The khanacross we did there so many years ago was the first event Peter ever did in the RX2. It was the first my then fiancee did, she damaged the Commodore. We laughed. As I remember, I did okay too. It was one of the LAST events I was to do before marrige.

Now I’m heading for divorce, it seems funny it’s been so long since I’ve been there. 10 years is a long time and a lot has changed. Then iwas one of the ones making up the numbers, these days I have an honest chance at winning outright. I am a much faster and more dickhead driver than then too, I take some real chances that I wouldnt then. The cars have changed too – then it was a 5.3 litre V8 Commodore. Now is a 2 litre turbocharged Galant VR-4 RS rally beast. The VR4 is actually a heavier car, even has less power too than the Commodore. But what the Commodore doesnt have is AWD. And frankly, since I’ve begun to really drive AWD properly, my results are somethignng I couldnt dream about then. I dare say I could never have driven the VR4 like I can now too.

When the VR4 was first used, I got 20th outright and was battling to stay within 2 seconds a test of the quicker sedans. That was 2004, got 2nd in a test which showed the potential.

2005 of course was a fuckup in the personal life, but with the ability to race when I wanted, things changed. 4th outright first up in the RX2, then the VR4 broke loose in a rally, 7th outright at Ansell Park with first ever test win and first class win in the Galant. Then, a badly thought out suspension change and 29th then 20th. Ugh. Undo change, then 14th at a State round motorkhana and I was into the fastest sedans. The real breakthrough came not long after with 1st Outright verses all comers at Ansell Park which included the current Aust motorkhana champ. The thing that WTF’ed me was the Galant is biiiig car, too big for motorkana and yet it showed it’s real potential and since the 14th outright has not been beaten in class. In fact, it usually wins by huge margins now. Another 7th, three more 4ths, blew 2nd outright at Oran Park at the NSW WRX event that closed out the year. That was a day to forget, things on the car were falling apart and a busted front end.

All in all, 2*7th, 4*4th, 1*1st, 6 class wins. Not bad, 8 test wins, 16 events.

2006 is treatening to beat that easily. I’m right now 1*4th, and 2* 3rd, 3 test wins out of three events. And the guys I was fighting with in 2005, I’m now 10-15 seconds on the days faster.

Simply put, the offseason work and the work I’ve been putting in on my fitness and getting the car to run well are paying off. At the State khanacross I wasnt real happy, but today I had more fun than should be legal. I think the results showed it – 7 seconds closer to 1st outright, 1.2 to 2nd. The killer was one test that was a bit too tight, the specials got away. Not on the other two tho!

Ringwood was a great suspension test too, it was godamn rough but still, the VR4 handled it really well.

I’ll write more tomorrow, but for now 3rd outright, within striking distance of the fastest special. Man, there’s no fucking way a VR4 should be doing that.

posted by admin at 11:41 pm  

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