hrd-hr30

damn, i was trying to keep that a secret too... but the way I remember it you were lucky not to do it at walking pace exiting the pits...

his name's not Jason by any chance is it? He offered me his ARC GTR intercooler pretty cheap out there on the day.

massive thanks to Ben (Marlin) for towing me home too.

forget Ferrari at this race unless its wet. Pirelli are bringing the hard tyres again. Alonso got lapped in spain on them after leading something like the first 18 laps.

yeah, a sensible bloke would have slowed down a bit after that big moment onto the main straight... that would have been worse, no doubt. Richard, the car was very planted with the wing on - just too understeery for my liking. I decided to try a run with the wing off to see exactly what difference the wing made, and got my answer. Heaps! it was nasty with the wing off, but that's not how it normally handles. Its just superficial damage - panels, intercooler and a slight bend to the radiator support. Pretty lucky - it could just as easily have gone in sideways or backwards and done some proper damage.

I was back out at Lakeside today with a whole bunch of changes including a big wing and bunnings spec splitter, ~30mm lower rear ride height, and a rear sway bar - previously did not run a rear bar. Also tried a new camera position which wasn't great - bit hard to see the track. Was hoping for a bit more of a driver's eye view. but you can see what I'm doing with the throttle on the boost gauge. New PB on semis by 7tenths to 59.07, but had a fair bit of understeer. Every single flying lap of the day except the first one was a 59. So that's a decent improvement. But I'm no fan of understeer, I like the car to go where I point it. So I decided to try a run without the wing to see what effect it has. Put it this way, I no longer have any doubt as to the effectiveness of wings! Lets say it didn't end well:

don't like the "factory bodywork must not be modified in any way" rule for street class. almost every street car/weekend warrior out there has either lipped or pumped gaurds.

yep, and Luizzi has heaps of F1 experience. You can bet he'll be motivated to beat the hotshot rookie too. Ricciardo is good, but don't expect too much for the first few races is my tip. I'd say racing the HRT will be a very different kettle of fish to testing the Red Bull. Ricciardo has to be looking good as a long term prospect. He's still slated for Torro Rosso next year, which is the same path RBR put Vettel through. He's got the opportunity and certainly seems to have the speed & ability.

they have completely different cars for 'road racing' than ovals. they turn equally well (or equaly badly?) both directions.

they'll probably have to team up with an American driver (similar to what happened in surfers) to ensure some local interest in the circus over there.

there's no standard, each manuacturer writes whatever they want on their spring. eg my Swift springs have Swift 070 or similar on them. That's a 7kg spring. My King Springs have thier part number and rate in lb written on them. any decent/proper suspension shop that specialises in race cars (not franchises) will probably have a test rig to measure the rates. or for linear rate springs, there is a formula you can use to calculate the spring rate - google "spring rate formula" irrespective of what rates they are, you probably don't want a progressive rate spring in a circuit car.

very intersting look at the Cyber Evo!

this should help http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/understanding-corner-weights/

sway is mainly caused by insuffient ball weight versus total weight of the trailer. When towing with a normal car, they often have low ball weight limits. And if you load them up properly, the arse of the car is dragging on the ground. So you end up with people putting the car further back on the trailer to take weight off the tow car's rear axle. Inssuficient ball weight is the result and sway becomes a real risk on rough or uneven roads, crosswinds, passing trucks, sudden manouvers etc

more single detection point, double DRS nonsense this weekend:

double post

which is different to my experience on KU36 as well! I found them best from cold and would purposely not do any warm up on the out lap. 1 corner and they are at their best. 3 laps and they were a bit hot and squirelly. The battle was to stop them getting too hot. But Brisbane weather and track conditions are alot hotter than down south. And this was on a 1540kg Supra. 245 & 275 tyres. So its probably a matter of car and conditions. I also found the performance didn't deteriorate over their life. I was basically going faster every time I went back to the track. Very progressive on the limit and easy to control. I got about 15,000km and around a dozen track days out of them. Even then, it was only the rears that wore out. Fronts were still going strong. Great on the road and very good in the wet. I drove home from Sydney when they were well and truly on the TWI in heavy rain almost the whole way - no problem at all. Also used them on my Legnum as a pure street tyre.

depends what you mean by CAMS classes. The classes you run in NSW are made by your state panel. They shouldn't be used in a national competition. Last year was the first time the Aus SuperSprint Championship ran to CAMS categories, albeit Race categories. But I do think there should be National speed event rules if they are going to have a national title. Seems like it would be an obvious pre-requisite! Schedule C would not be followed as its not a Race event. But the scrutes up here check the obvious aspects of A&B. Speed Events do not have any formal CAMS categories. Race Events do. Sport Sedans is a race event category. Organisers of Speed events (sprint & supersprints, hillclimbs, autocrosses etc) can make their own classes. And they always have. Autocrosses up here run different classes to sprints, which up here use the race categories and in NSW have their own "made-up" rules which are made by the NSW state panel. Hillclimbs up here run by historic clubs have different classes to hillclimbs run by MGCC. And Superlap have every right to make their own rules too. There is no CAMS rule requiring unregistered cars at speed events to have a Log Book. As always, event organisers can specify it in their SuppRegs if they so wish, like MGCC do up here for State & National title hillclimbs; OR in the Sporting Regs as is the case for the Aus Supersprint Championship. Maybe this is also the case in NSW Supersprint Championship, and that's where the assumption its a CAMS requirement comes from. Superlap are well within their rights not to force cars to have log books. And given they are trying to attract OS entrants, it would make no sense at all to do so.

I think you've got it the wrong way around. All other things being equal, if you raise the subframe you raise the roll center and Cg is also raised slightly by the higher cradle and diff. Alternatively, if you raise the subframe AND lower the car by the the same amount, then the RC remains the same as before, and the Cg is lowered.

Alonso braked very late yes, but made the corner no problem at all, while leaving room for the other car AND putting all but a car-length on him in the process! It's Button who didn't slow enough and couldn't make the corner without running into the other car. quite often the racing line is more slippery in the wet and that probably contributed to Jenson understeering into him. I don't think he hit him intentionally, those smart arse remarks were more putting shit on Louise.

I call that leaving room (which is yeilding - he certainly did not turn in on him) and being punted in the rear tyre.

add a load levelling device - that's a requirement to make any falcon (auto or not) rated above 1600kg according to Ford.

fixed that for ya. it wasn't a 'spin'. He left room for Button. Button didn't return the favour and decided to use the 2011 McLaren tactic of "if you can't pass them, punt them" and barged into his rear tyre. Good thing they engineer the McLaren front A arms to be Lewis proof...

I think that's the way the whole world was expecting it to work - the car that got passed in the first DRS zone would get a go in the 2nd zone. Not the car that just passed him! what were they thinking? but the fundamental problem with DRS is it takes the sport out of the racing. Its just a free uncontested pass, irrespective of the stupid second zone

I've seen fish more sure-footed than that marshall flooping about on the ground!