2015 South Australian Scaleauto Endurance Championships

[Guest jazzbell]

Guys it doesn't matter who's got the biggest dick right now anyway.

 

It's 10 pm Saturday night all that matters!! I've been doing these events long enough now,being fast is nothing to me if we don't win and coming in 2nd means nothing either,it's just first of the losers !!

 

In saying that I'm off to the track to see how much bigger it can go......

 

Regards Shane a

 

Team Nsr

 

[BigMick]

I'll tell you why I'm so slow!!

 

It's called lots and lots of testing. The difference between my testing is that I drive stop,change something,drive stop,change something.

Over and over again. When I watch others, it's just lap after lap after lap without touching a thing on there cars other than put some s#!t on tyres and off they go.

 

I can say I hardly ever put a car on the track before any changes. I haven't been to the club or touched a car for 3 months. But the lead up to this event I've been there 3 weeks straight with every opportunity I get. As for the rest I've seen 3 people.

 

Shane

 

6.3s with a scale auto is slow!!!!!!!

I had a wet dream the other night about a 6.3 lap and at my age it was quite the achievement

 

Mick

it would have been all over in seconds Mick... Just like in reality

 

But Noel I though 6.3s was a marathon session I guess I am a lot older than I think!!!!!

See you Saturday

Mick

 

PS If I pull a 6.4 lap in the race I may need to go and brush my teeth it may take some time

[Camber]

Big day tomorrow, hopefully I can keep up with the local talent.

 

Should be a great event.

 

- Cam

[Guest jazzbell]

Thanks everyone for another great scale auto endurance race.

 

The driving of the locals I'd like to mention first. Well done on your driving this year. The teams all drove clean and were all faster in this years Event. Definitely your cars were prepared much better this year .Good to see the new faces have a crack this year.

 

Thunderbird raceway owners Chris and Cathy for the use of the best venue In the Country. I'm not one eyed because I've been part of the Tbird family for the past 10 years,I've been to a lot of centres and I'm great full and very lucky to have this commercial centre 5 minutes from my home.

Remember locals,appreciate what we all have here in Adelaide because where all so lucky.

 

Bill J thanks also on everything you do at the club also. Track was at its best.

 

To my good friends that keeps me interested in our hobby the interstaters. It's Always good seeing them at these events because the travelers make the racing and the atmosphere. Thanks Gary and Greg for the racing and coming. Gary thank you for Scrutineering.

 

Now my 2 team drivers and good friends of Team Nsr. Both interstaters Noel (Qld) Cam(Nsw) thanks for coming.

Great team drive for our first together. For those who don't know Cam he's one of the best drivers in this country and a good all round person. I think Noel and I have found our third driver for many more events to come.

 

I won't say to much more about Cam,he's still on probation. The win we had we need to win again just to make sure me and Noel didn't carry him over the 8hrs.

 

Now to my side kick best friend Noel . We've been racing together over the years now,this was the fastest easiest best handling Winning Scaleauto car ever to hit the track. We know the Viper builds is one of the best cars we've raced of Gary J, but this car we raced was the all time car.

 

When the results are up everyone it won't show how good our car was. Team of three all raced 28minutes at a time each team member first 2 lanes(brackets) know offs. Then as things happen in racing,luck can turn for others. A marshal tryed to do the right thing to stop another car hitting our car and in doing throwing our car . Say know more, looked like it just lept from the 10 meter diving platform straight onto the concrete floor. Gear mesh gone so into the pits. Over the 8hrs the body come off more than once. Car sounded like a chain saw on wheels.

 

People who know Noel and me put endless time into our testing at these events and it was all worth it. We talk like s#!t to each other pay each other out . Wouldn't have it any other way

 

But if he ever uses all my hot water when he showers next time at the Jazzbell kingdom ,the add is going in the paper looking for new team mate. Wife had to boil the jug to fill the bath so my poor kids could wash.

 

Did I mention that team nsr top qualified . I did a time of 6.4 not far off a 3. Not bad for a hand out motor that Gary past to Noel for the handouts,one person only at table per team for fit !! Racing we lapped in 6.6's and after 7 hrs last bracket broke into a 5.

 

With the scale auto enduros the rules and parts really have not changed Over the 4 years but where still going faster.

 

Thanks again everyone

 

Shane a

 

Team NSR

Edited November 1, 2015 by jazzbell

[Camber]

Top day on Saturday on a great track and facilities.Thanks Chris, Cathy and everyone behind the scenes.

 

The car was fabulous to drive, best Scaleauto I've ever driven by a long shot.

 

Great to catch up with everyone, hope to see you again in Hornsby.

 

Cheers,

 

- Cam

[kash15394]

Shane and Cam you are so right.Even tho I did not race this year and sat on the sidelines for 7 of the 8 hours it was a great event again. Everything seemed to go smoothly and great food by Cathy once again.All very well organized as usual.

 

Kevin

[Chris @ Thunderbird Raceway]

Thanks to all who attended another great event at Thunderbird Raceway and thanks to everyone who helped out behind the scenes. I think everyone who raced will agree, the event ran very smoothly and was well organised. Also, the track was above standard and I never heard one complaint about it. Maybe because its a Gary Johnson design that everyone loves racing on it as it is a great layout with a bit of everything.

 

As usual, there were hand out motors for each team and once again, the NSR 25k King motors performed flawlessly. The motors were all very even in performance so it mainly came down to car set up and driver ability. We have now had three 8hr Scaleauto events and I can't recall an NSR motor ever giving up! In fact, they just keep getting better and better as the event goes on.

 

A bit about the event organiser. I know Shane has his knockers but if it wasn't for him, there are lot of slot racing events that just wouldn't happen in this country. I don't know of anyone else who is as passionate about the hobby as him. Take our recent MCN for example. The amount of sponsors he had come on board for the event was pretty impressive. The guy has the 'gift of the gab' and I'm pretty sure he could sell oil to the Arabs or ice cubes to the Eskimos! Imagine if he got a job with V8 Supercars chasing sponsorship deals, he would probably be able to get Bill Gates or Donald Trump to back the V8 racing! He may be a bit outspoken at times but, he can back it all up with his car set ups and racing ability. (he's not as good as me yet but he's getting there :-) And he does spend a lot of time fine tuning and testing his cars while others are sitting at home watching TV or picking their nose and complaining about him. All in all, I think we are lucky to have him and I am glad he is such a supporter of our raceway and our hobby in general.

 

Once again, thanks to all for a great weekend and thanks to everyone, especially all the interstaters who make the effort to cross the border to race at the best slot car raceway in Australia, and to everyone else who supports our raceway in general.

 

Thunderbird Slot Racing.

[BigMick]

True words Chris Shane is a credit to himself with his outstanding ability and to the sport side of the hobby with his drive and force to get the events running.

Also to yourself Chris and your staff for the great facility, you to Billy ( I still know where you live LOL).

I had a blast this year the racing was faster and closer than last year and that only bodes well for the future of racing at Tbird

 

Regards

Big Mick

[Ratracer]

2015 South Australian ScaleAuto 1:24 GT 8 Hour endurance race

 

 

Last Sunday we held the annual ScaleAuto 1:24 GT 8 Hour endurance race at Thunderbird Slot Raceway and once again it proved to be an outstanding event enjoyed by all. A great event at Australia's premier slot car venue arguably on the countries best track.

The Gary Johnson designed track built by the raceway by the great track build team Bill J, Bruno, Sheppo, Chris O. The track has matured greatly since its first race and we are seeing the lap times drop dramatically over previously years.

 

Teams

This year we had a few unfortunate drop outs at the last moment this year. Family illnesses, knee operations, interstate holidays and the like did see the driver line-up change somewhat, however these spots were quickly filled by the long list of reserves that were keen to participate in this great event. Talking to a number of the keen spectators we could have easily fielded a couple of additional teams the interest was that great. My Team did lose one of our young gun drivers Iain as he could not commit to the event only to fill in at the last moment for Team Martini (I have my suspicions that Team owner Frank made him an offer he could not refuse).

 

Scrutineering

Scrutineering was held after the allocated time for the installation of the hand out motors (NSR Evo 25k motors).

The scrutineering panel was very thorough with a couple of cars sent back for minor adjustments mainly with of front and/or rear track dimensions. A couple of tweaks were also suggested to a couple of the team thanks Noel for the help with our gear mesh.

 

Concours d'elegance

 

 

All of the cars were placed on the track after scrutineering for the judging of the concours, there were two stand out cars, Bill J Red White and Blue patriotic USA Viper and Frank M's Mobile car both were stunning but Frank's car won the trophy with it's incredible fine detail and finish well done to both for outstanding presentation of their cars.

Qualifying

Qualifying was run with each team selecting their preferred lane and aiming to set the fastest lap time for lane choice. Not unexpectedly Team NSR's Shane set the fastest qualifying lap with a 6.4. Shane did admit to me that he was nervous and had one off so did not make the 6.3 second time he was running in practice bloody quick!

All the teams this year were clearly quicker than they were last year which was evident by the lap times

 

Qualifying

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SCALEAUTO 8HR 2015

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SCALEAUTO GT Qualifying

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1:00 Minutes per Driver - No Bye Round

Start - 2:06 PM - 31/10/2015 Finish - 2:14 PM - 31/10/2015

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POS DRIVER TIME #1 TIME #2 TIME #3

1 NSR 6.4710 6.5050 6.5274

2 MONSTAR 6.7006 6.7038 6.7050

3 PHOENIX 6.7111 6.7337 6.7467

4 BRABHAM 6.7450 6.7652 6.7929

5 THUNDERBIRD 6.8614 6.8628 6.8687

6 PIRELLI 7.0104 7.0120 7.0275

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Racing and Race Control

 

 

 

After 8 hours of hard racing the results were:-

1^st Team NSR 4113 laps

2^nd Phoenix 4061 laps

3^rd Monstar 4061 laps

4^th Team NSR 3998 laps

5^th Brabham 3873 laps

6^th Team Pirelli 3333 laps

 

 

The grid post race

 

 

 

100 MPH Race Tape and tools

Each year we run one of these national events we learn something new (improving the breed) Out team car had a huge shunt late in the race taking out the entire front grill, lights and splitting the bonnet. This incident was in no way the fault of our driver at the time it was a pure racing incident with no time to react to someone else's crash which we ended up running into at high speed just over the overpass (John H felt so bad about it but no one could have avoided it). So we got the car into the pits and Gary Johnson came to the rescue with some 100 MPH tape we pieced the front together and taped over the bonnet and grill, many thanks to Gary to get us back on track so quickly. I will be off to Autobahn to pick up some of this tape for my tool box prior to the next one.

This type of interstate get together is also great to get an update on the latest trends and tuning tips. I have been working with young Rhyse' dad Wayne on some jigs and small tools which there is some interest in.

 

 

My poor car body post race, also the body mounts were damages and front axle bent but was still good for 6.8 second laps.

 

 

 

 

 

Third Corner Crash

As some of you would know Trevor P's user name on the forums is First Corner Crash well this got changed to Third Corner Crash after a marshalling incident which involved Trevor trying to save Team NSR's car from a crash which saw Trevor pick the car up and accidently throwing it up into the air subsequently crashing hard on to the concrete floor. When it was re-slotted the car sounded like a chaff cutter, it was still quick but not ballistic like it was prior to the hard landing and it took several trips to the pits to get it back to peek performance. Team NSR dropped a lot of laps during this period but managed to get back on track with a 45 lap buffer which quickly built up to about 50 laps again.

 

Entertainment

The best entertainment all weekend was listening to the old married couple Shane and Noel rag each other. If you did not know them you would swear that they were heeded for a divorce. From what I have read above Noel used all of the hot water up in the shower at Shane's!!!

Next Year

There was a lot of discussion after racing on the night and it was floated that we start earlier in the day next year and also run a team's Slotwox V8 1:24 class, count me in.

Organisation of the event

Once again an outstanding job of promotion and running of the event by Shane, support of the raceway thanks you Chris, Cathy and Bill, strong support during the event from Gary Johnson, Cam. I can only echo Chris's comment above.

Ray

Team Thunderbird

 

 

Edited November 6, 2015 by Ratracer

[Springbok Racer]

Hi Ray,

 

Thank you for the nice race report and sharing of the usual friendly banter that goes on at these events.

 

This class and the endurance racing it provides is definately very special.

 

Well done to all the organisers, raceway owner and participants who made it possible; to the podium getters, awesome driving and car prep for sure......now for the next event to prove it was not just luck.

 

Cheers,

 

Jan

[Ratracer]

More images added to the above post, will try and get a print out of the laps and times tonight.

 

Ray

[Ratracer]

Race results sheet and qualifying posted above

 

Ray

[Garry J]

Ray, if you have the original text file of the race results can you send it to me please.

 

Thanks.

[Ratracer]

Ray, if you have the original text file of the race results can you send it to me please.

 

Thanks.

 

Hi Gary yes I do PM me your email address and I will send it over.

 

Ray

[Garry J]

Thanks Ray.

 

I've printed the results to a pdf here - http://ascra.com.au/images/stories/Thunderbird/2015_Thunderbird_8HR.pdf

[Ratracer]

Thanks Garry I have also reformated the results into a PDF of better formatting on the race report.

 

cheers

 

Ray