NEWS

WINTER'S WRAP UP - MY STORY! October 10, 2000

My trusty crew (Lee, Eric and John) and I arrived in Brisbane Thursday morning at 4.45am. Ansett were great letting us take an extra 100kgs of luggage (car parts, header pipes and last minute "better take that" type stuff). Had a hire car booked but Thrifty didn't open until 5.30am - no problem, we can wait - anyway we're here to win a championship and nothing can upset or stop us.

Drive to Ipswich (70 klms) - 3 toll gates and $5 poorer we arrive at the motel. It's 6.30am so we should try and get a bit of sleep before going to the track to set up. Our room's not ready but the Motel owners give us a spare room to crash for a few hours. It's hard to sleep - could be the excitement or was it the 9 horsepower MaCulloch chainsaw by the name of Lee in the bed next to me?

11.30am drive out to the track (via Woolies for supplies). Our 20 ft Sea Container (with car and gear) is there and in position in the pits - so far too easy! Open it up - oops...the wooden shelf under the steel bench at the front has collapsed during the long train trip and rubbed a gouge in the freshly painted bonnet. Lucky it's fibreglass. Worry about that tomorrow. Put up the awning, car on jacks and start getting ready for Friday's 2 qualifying sessions (yes it's still Thursday). It's amazing how quickly the time flies.

6.00pm Crank it up for the first time in 4 months. Now these things run on methanol (alcohol) and are supercharged, which means the air is mechanically forced (50lb+ of boost) into the engine together with a bucket load of fuel - that's how they make 2500 horsepower. All seems OK - cylinder temperatures are a bit warm according to our data logger (computer). Quite pleased we go back into town for some dinner and a reasonably early night.

Friday - Up at 7.00am, tea and toast and straight out to the track (via Woolies and hardware store). By this time a lot more racers from all over Australia are arriving. Total entries number about 400 ranging from nitro burning 5 second dragsters to junior's which are propelled by lawn mower motors. Only 8 of the entrants are Top Doorslammers (our bracket) from the rain-delayed meeting back in June.

Fix the gouge in the bonnet with some body filler then cover the repair with a bullet hole (our car is called the Moonshine Bandit, part of its livery is a few bullet holes to make it look like the car's been shot at) - can't notice the repair, well done!

5.00pm - 1 1/2 hours before the first run. Warm it up - motor cuts out - Oh No! what's wrong? We fiddle around and find an electrical problem. The data logger also decides to stop working - with no data we will be running blind. Thrash around and try this and that - change the magneto and re-install the data logger's flash card configuration - we're back up and running again - Phew!.

6.30 pm First run - RH Lane - Leave the line OK, sensing tyre shake I short shift into 2nd (ie change gear early - this sometimes helps!) get tyre shake anyway RHS oil breather pipe comes off and sprays oil everywhere including the header pipes (exhaust) creating a bit of smoke and a big mess. Car moves to the right near the wall - the commentator calls that I've hit it but it's the smoke from the oil burning on the headers confusing him. 400-500 ft out the supercharger belt decides to let go, wacks the magneto in the process breaking the distributor cap on it's way through - not the sort of start we planned on. No problem - we have spares.

9.00pm Second run (final qualifier). Leave the line OK, run a 6.33 @ 215mph - second quickest for the night - we're happy with that but motor still not right - motor was miss-firing a bit at the top of each gear - spectators told us there were a few flames and pops as the car moved down the track. Decided to pack it up and wait 'till the morning. We have all day tomorrow to worry about it because the eliminations don't start until 5.30pm. Hit the sack around 11.30pm.

Note: At the rained out meeting back in June we qualified No 1 with a world record 6.17 second run. The next quickest was a 6.25. We hold the Australian National Record of 6.24 but to back up the 6.17 have to put in another run with a time that is no more than 1% slower. The atmospheric and track conditions were much better in June so it was unlikely we would be able to do it - plus given the problems we were experiencing. In the championship points chase we were only a few points from the lead and only have to finish 1 round in front of our main rival (and 4 times National champion) Victor Bray to pull it off.

Saturday - Up early and out to the track. Fields are set. Being top qualifier (for which we received a medal at a special presentation) our first elimination is against No 8 (a guy that never had run quicker than 6.60) so we set the car up to try a few new things.

Round 1 - All goes well - another 6.33 @ 218 mph. Left the line OK, strong through the gears (no shake) but at the end of the run the motor back-fires and blows out the burst panel on the manifold (it's supposed to do that) and throws the s'charger belt again! At least it was at the end of the run. Something's obviously not right!

Get weighed at the scrutineering shed (as winner of that round) - the car and driver must weigh a minimum of 2550lb. We weigh in at 2549lb - would you believe it? Friday we weighed 2559lb - 9lb is normally a good buffer. Eric runs up to the pits and gets another belt - it weighs 3lb so we're OK. I couldn't believe it was so close - you should have seen the look on everybody's face as we stared up at the read out!

Round 2 - Bracket Marshall tells us we have 20 mins to turn the car around and be ready for the next race (semi-final) - you've got to be joking it normally takes an hour or so to get ready - when there's NO damage! We thrash around like idiots again - the s'charger and injector hat come off the motor - we need to check nothing has gone through the intake into the motor. We have no time to check everything properly - other guys from losing teams come and help - it's a real family affair. Time is ticking away and we have to get out there. No time to start it up for a final check. I'm told by the Bracket Marshall to get in my driving suit now before being towed out to the start line. This is the big one, if I win this race we win the Championship (overall for the season) as the guy (Victor Bray) I'm up against is the only other person who can win it - all other contenders are out. Just as we tow out there an oil down occurs by another racer and there is a 30 min delay - we could have done with that time in the pits! Lee checks the timing by torch light while we wait.

The starter calls for us to fire up - the Bandit doesn't sound well at all - unburnt fuel spits from one or two of the header pipes as I back up from what was a pretty lame burn out. We go into stage and bring the revs up for launch - doesn't sound the best. Lights flash and we're off. Victor wins his 5th title with a 6.47 - we run a very sick 7.86 on only 6 cylinders. We discovered later it was an electrical fault that was causing the problem. If only we had more time we may have found it and fixed it. I guess we'll never know.

The "if only" statements came thick and fast. We had gone from zero to hero back to zero - "Oh well, that's dragracing" a lot of people said. On the positive side from what was a very ordinary weekend we are still very be pleased with our achievements over our first season on the Group 1 circuit. No other WA team has achieved what we did. We hold the National record at 6.24, equal world's quickest run of 6.17 and finished second only to the National champion who is also a full time racer and had one more event than us to accumulate points.

It all starts again in November......we're going for No 1 next time!