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Birkdale Raceway


Garry J

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I thought group c total weight was 160 ?

 

Jason, you are absolutely right....between you and Kim studying the rules in such detail, I will have to start reading them too.

 

Sorry for the confusion....my oversight indeed.

 

Jan

Edited by Springbok Racer

'The older I get the faster I was.'

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  • 3 weeks later...

Birkdale's 3 hour opening race is only 10 days away... Tuesday 18th of March - race starts 7pm sharp.

Each of Brisbane's "Garage tracks" Nerangba, Ecurie Elite and Birkdale have entered teams and times are getting faster every week. Garry's got the 4 lane track working beautifully with a version of his very successful race programme thats normally used in commercial centres around Australia. Best of all with this programme you no longer have to enter footage after each bracket. Instead the programme times how long each car takes to complete its final lap at the end of the race. ( Bell lap feature ) That means no more entering lap footage after each bracket.. and at a 1000'th of a second timing i doubt there will ever be a dead heat!

Edited by axman
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Kim,

 

Thank you for putting this race together. It is going to be good for all of us to get some race practice and enjoy a team event with our mates.

 

I am sure Garry will also use this event to race test everything and fine tune it to his usual perfection.

 

Cheers,

 

Jan

'The older I get the faster I was.'

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Jan, you will be pleased to know the bell lap problem has been fixed. I found it helps to have the relays controlling the correct lane.

 

 

Ha ha, that's not like you mate....LOL

 

Anyway, that is good news because it means we are one step closer to getting your system onto my track.

'The older I get the faster I was.'

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Hi Paul.. Come along for Monday night practise and we'll see if there are any other teams needing another driver. Its a very tight schedule to get 3 hours of racing so we've limited it to 4 teams with up to 4 drivers.

 

be good to catch up'

 

Regards,

Kim

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Hey Kim, sorry I did not see this till just now so I will not be able to get there tonight (no Cars with me).What other nights do you practice? would be good to catch up

 

Paul,

 

At this stage Garry is having Monday nights as a regular test and tune night.

 

Cheers,

 

Jan

'The older I get the faster I was.'

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  • 2 weeks later...

Kim will be posting a race report, but for now suffice to say the Narangba team kicked butt with a Paul Stevens built rocket and some excellent driving.

Edited by Garry J
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Cheers,

Garry J

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Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill

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Race Report.. Garry J's opening race at Birkdale.

Its been a long time coming.. a "neutral zone" race on a brand new track strategically placed between Brisbane's North and South premier garage tracks...

Up North at Nerangba its Plafit territory on a very fast flowing track with constant radius turns, Down South at Ecurie the heavier "Euro" style chassis seem to be the way to go with the tightening radius turns.

Birkdale as a completely different track design was the unknown ... Lots of straights with very tight turns at the end of each one, then opening up into huge radius turns to really wind up the speed... which chassis would work best and who was the team to beat... 3 hours of teams racing was about to find out.

Race power comes on... and.. well.. we could have all gone home after about 28 minutes.. the positions just didn't change after that. Nerangba was just warming up but getting further and further in front... the "Big Guns" of Plafit racing that have all won at APC events proceeded to mop up.. It did'nt seem to matter which driver, or on what lane.. their lead just kept increasing. Had this been a manufacturers Championship Plafit had it won. The only real race was the one for 2nd with Ecurie #2 and the Birkdale boys in a close battle for most of the race. Jan had teamed up with a couple of his "locals" and put on a great race to hold 2nd for the entire night. Birkdale came 3rd and often had their hands full with the the "other" Ecurie team racing lap for lap beside them. Although Ecurie #1 came 4th their car was fast and a great effort for an all local team with not as much race experiance.

The format worked out well for a week night, Each driver had a 15 minute "stint" on each lane so it worked out well with 3 man teams. One driving, one marshalling and one eating... 45 minutes on each lane x 4 lane = 3 hours. What was surprising on the night.. (or planned) was Narangba's speed. The couple of weeks before the race Narangba was noticibly absent while the Ecurie Teams and Birkdale were beavering away getting the track times down. By race night we'd got down to 6.4's so thought that was the benchmark. So much for that theory when Narangba started reeling of 6.3's.. under race conditions! Oh well, back to the pit bench. We'll be ready next time! NOTE.. Already had a couple of calls for a re-match!

 

 

 

 

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Bit of a Pretzel but great to race on... the long straights leading into "hammerhead" (the name of the corner) not the "shiney" heads in the pits and "the finger" got the most crashes.

 

5rcanam.jpg

 

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Left to right .. Ecurie #2 Team - Mazda/Scholer, Birkdale Boys - Mazda/Scholer, Nerangba - Mazda/ Plafit. Ecurie #1 Team - Mercedes/ Nik De Watcher

 

Thought you might like to know what everybody was running. This event was a good shakedown to see how the Open Mini Z chassis formula worked and it was great. The Scholers were "out of the packet" and handled very well. With NO lead added they come up to correct race weight, Bruce's Team (Ecurie #1) had on of the new Nick De Watcher Z Chassis looked really nice and was hard to shake off but Bruce later conceded is was way overgeared for an Enduro. The Narangba guys ran one of Paul "The Texans" cars. One of his fleet of very fast Plafits set up beautifully. Interestingly, Pauls car had quiet short gearing which gave it heaps of punch and brakes.. obviously a winning set-up. Our car had lousy brakes - especially with Noel's 10 year old Defalco. I definately see a new controller purchase coming up soon. Anyone got a ACD pro 5 for sale?

 

99GEl65.jpg

 

Garry J's new 4 lane race system work perfectly ... Even showed us how slow we were... Like I said.. positions never changed after 28 minutes!

 

* Disclaimer .. Race sheet below may or may not be correct ... How do you look someone directly in the eye on race night and ask if its really what they're running? :wacko:JfzAcVU.png

Edited by axman
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Just to rub salt into the wound , the clock counted down from 45mins.for each lane ...... 28min51sec on the timer is only 16 min into racing :blink: .

 

I had a great night and a rematch would be interesting. The other teams had problems like bent wheels and controller issue to contend with while Bruce's car was so over geared it gave me third degree burns when I marshalled it , so next time would be a lot closer ..... hopefully :P :P :P

 

Next time we'll be running in the 6.2s. though , bring your A game :angry:

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With 8 passed and present national title holders in the room as well as weeks of preparation it was never going to be a casual run.

 

Anyway , my comments are tongue in cheek , bit of friendly banter , don't read too much into them. Look forward to the next one.

Edited by paulthetexan
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Yep.. as you say Paul, pretty much everyone from Queensland that has finished on the Poldium in an MCN or APC was at Garry's opening race. A great result for a new Raceway and I'm sure just the start of us all getting together on a regular basis for similar racing.

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Trying to post the result sheet but the forum doesn't seem to allow preformatted text.

 

Anyone have an answer?

 

For the moment I've posted it here - http://forum.ascra.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=997

Edited by Garry J

Cheers,

Garry J

Slotworx_Logo_Small.jpg

Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill

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