Well the first race weekend out of the way with better than expected results.
We would have been satisfied with somewhere in the top ten, but on Friday qualifying David managed to qualify in third place, so we were very happy.
The program had quali on Friday with a race in the afternoon, Saturday had two races and Sunday two
In race one we finished fourth with our driver complaining about a lack of power as all drivers do, we put it down to rustiness and a couple of minor mistakes that David was making which was costing him momentum particularly onto the main straight.
In the second race we finished in 8th place after David made a couple of minor errors, he was still losing momentum onto the main straight which was costing a lot of time. Of course he was still complaining about a lack of power and blaming that on the lack of grunt onto the main straight.
With one race to go on the Saturday there was not much we could do other than a compression test which checked out o.k. In the next race we finished 8th.
It seemed the car was exceeding our expectations but our Driver was still insisting that it lacked power especially coming onto the straight.
We were running a slight overdrive top gear and decided to change it to 1:1.
When we tried to start the car after the ratio change nothing happened the starter wouldn't engage.
Upon inspection we discovered that the pinion gear was completely stripped, fortunately we had a spare and replaced it. While Luke our spanner, was testing that all the gears were working when he shifted into third the car stalled. We realised that the start button was in the wrong position and shifting into third the drivers fist was pressing the starter button and engaging the starter, hence the stripped pinion gear and apparent lack of power. Driver looking smug although he never actually said I told you so.
We relocated the start button! In the next race we started eighth, in this format you start the next race in the position you finished the previous. We finished 4th by less than a tenth of a second. So we were all looking forward to the next and final race of the weekend.
We started in fourth and on the second lap while attempting to gain third the car in front closed the door firmly as you do, David had to lift ant that was enough to cause him to spin, in turn one at Phillip Island the cars are going as fast as a FF can go in excess of 200kmp, chaos ensured with cars going everywhere and unfortunately one of them had nowhere to go and t boned our car, causing a lot of damage to both cars. A sad way to finish the weekend but as they say that's motor racing, or as I say fuckit.
Thanks to David Roberts, Luke and John Ellery, Alice Piccolo and Craig Burns. Great effort team.
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