The Great Day/night Race Adventure

[Duncan]

Just thought I would give an update on the day/night race at Oran Park yesterday.

As you guys probably know I have had an "interesting" start to the year including being on my third motor already. Thankfully this one looks OK now - but I am getting ahead of myself.

Yesterday was the annual Day/Night meeting at Oran Park, and this is probably the last one they will ever hold since the track is shutting down. Which is a damn shame because it the best race meeting of the year

Car was finally run in and tuned during the week, scruitineered on Wed and was prety much ready to go. (Nothing like a deadline to help get things completed). New tyres and brake pads in before Qual.

The entry list was pretty short, only 16 cars. But because there weren't enough production cars they put sports sedans (of all things) in with us. Yes, spaceframe 6l chevs and turbo rotors with fibreglass bodies against a poor old standard GTR. Ouch.

Qualifying was poor really. Lost a couple of laps to bedding in the brakes and tyres, and getting the tyre pressures right. Once that was out of the way we had about 8 laps to put in a decent time, and it just didn't happen. Driving the car was lie trying to drive a pogo stick. The rear suspension is way to soft and the shocks are stuffed - so the tail would roll into oversteer at every corner, no matter how much front drive I dialled in. Final time was 50.06 which put me in 7th (3rd in the production cars). On the final lap one of the 2 commodores that qualified in front of me tripped over at turn 5 and ended up on its roof. Driver was fine but car was not. Quickest sports sedan was doing a 45, slowest car was 1.00 so there was a huge range of pace out there

Race 1.....got a decent start as usual with the GTR and took 4 cars by turn 1. From there it was a brilliant all race battle with the Tony's commodore and Troy's corolla sports sedan all over the back of us lap after lap. Because the rear end was so loose I just could not get away from him and we did about 3 laps mostly side by side...can't wait to see the footage from the car behind. However, during all this I was a little generous with the amount of track I was using and on one of the off road excursions I heard a huge thump. I figured I had broken the front left suspension, but apart from pretty bad wheel alignment it continued to drive OK. But....halfway through the last lap I lost all power in a corner, thought I had done a cooler pipe or something - so I backed off and coasted to the finish - 5th behind a commodore and 3 sports sedans.

Back in the pits it turned out the big thump was the sump smashing into the ripple strip - the sump plug was half ripped out and the sump had buckled but not cracked. Very lucky and a new sump plug from Jess' car had me back on the track. Oh and some fuel which was the cause of the motor cutting out on the last lap

Race 2....starting from 5th (inside of 3rd row) I again got a good start and overtook the commodore and 2 of the sports sedans, and then I got inside the rx7 in turn 1. Great feeling leading a race including having 300k sports sedans behind me Until I lost fuel pressure in turn 3, lap 1 and had to park it for the rest of the race. At least i had a grandstand seat to watch those guys having fun.

Back to the pits again (towed in this time). The fuel pump had come loose in the tank in the big hit in race 1 and the wiring had come off. Neil and Brad sorted the wiring and off we went again.

Race 3. It was dark by now, very dark. And because I had a DNF last race I was starting rear of grid. Great. Anyway, off I went, had a good start and made good progress through the field, ended up in 7th. Its really hard to describe racing in the dark, but it is just impossible to pick braking points, corner turn in, even where the outside of the track is. And of course you can't see any other cars, just headlights behind you. It is brilliant fun but very challenging. Not being able to pick the braking point on the straight meant sometimes braking too early, and on one memorable occasion way too late - that ended in a 3rd gear full lock drift all the way around turn 1...thank god for attessa.

So....back to the pits again. By now my complaining about the pogo stick rear suspension had given the guys the shits enough that they changed all of it for a set Mark had brought along. The guys were swarming over the car changing it, all I could hear was lots of bashing, swearing and complaining about how hot I had left the brakes. Before the next race had even finsihed the new shocks were in and we were ready to go again. A quick drive around the skid pan told me all the bolts were done up but nothing about how it handled now.

Race 4. Starting from 7th this time and once again the 4wd did its thing off the start. I was a little (only a little) more sensible this race, took a couple of commodores and came home in 1 peice in 4th place. And set my fasted lap for the meeting 49.7. In the pitch dark. The new suspension was much better but still crap because it was a tarmac rally set up (very soft).

Back in the pits. Sorry guys nothing needed to be done.

Race 5. The trophy race. Well from here the plan was simple. There was 1 commodore ahead of me (and 3 sports sedans but who cares about them). The plan was to take the commodore off the line and cruise to victory in the class. Red light off, great launch right into second place (would have been first but the falcon sports sedan ran me off the inside of the track). However.....by turn 1 the car was just free revving straight up to 8k - I had toasted the clutch on the last launch and it was all over. So the difference between my first race win and a DNF was using a tiny bit too much clutch at the start. But "thats racing". And I got to drive the race car home from a race for the first time ever.

Huge thanks to Kel, Neil, Brad, Jess, Mark and Brad's mate (whose name I forgot ) You guys were an awesome pit crew - we had plenty of troubles throughout the day but it was running great by the end....and in fact half the problems were caused by the driver anyway. And the amount of spare bits and trips back to Brads to get them can't be counted. And of course thanks to Nissan for making lots of stagea bits interchangeable with GTR bits

On to Eastern Creek in 4 weeks!

[Dave R]

Sounded like great fun, i wish i could of made it and dropped in and said hi

Hmmz production Sport sounds like alot of fun, maybe this is a possibility alongside Improved Production..

[MCWB]

complaining about how hot I had left the brakes

Indeed, crazy stuff going on with the front brakes!

More pics from the day/night here.

[Risking]

was a really good event and extremely well driven by Duncan!

Damn shame about the clutch but there's always next time!

There appears to be sparks coming those photos......

[MCWB]

There appears to be sparks coming those photos......

Wasn't just once either, it was pretty much every lap! Certainly spectacular!

Edited May 4, 2008 by MCWB

[JAS-25T]

You're a bloody legend mate. Mixing it up with the big boys and showing what the GTR can really do.

Looks great in those photos.

now that the motor is sorted, hopefully the rest of the car can be sorted for 4 weeks time and you should be able to chalk up a win!

[blk180]

4 weeks you say nice im off work will have to come cheer you on.

[Duncan]

holy sh1t what is going on there?

I did ask the guys at racebrakes to get me some really agressive pads due to the problems I had been having with the standard brakes but that is a bit much I think. Incidently the discs are unslotted dba4000 and look in great shape this morning despite that sort of abuse. Trent was that at suttons corner, not turn 1? I had been left foot braking a fair bit at night to keep it all under control which was a bit nasty to them.

[MCWB]

Trent was that at suttons corner, not turn 1?

That was at the final corner. There were a lot of cars with glowing brakes there last night, but yours with all the sparks coming out was just something else! 

[Duncan]

fark. anyway, assuming you are selling the pics - can you send me proofs and prices to [email protected]? thanks

[giant]

awsome pic! sounds like a great day of racing duncan! unreal! good work

would have been good to see ya off the starts!

those brake pads ferodo's ? i seen them doing that a fair bit!

cheers russ

[msnismo]

Awesome news...

Think il pop out and watch the EC one. The photo of the brakes red hot and sparking is amazing!

[evil_weevil]

Good write up Duncan....but you still missed the texi

hahah

yeah I'll check my dairy and if ya need more pit crew, let me know, Im a good supervisor

[DRD-00F]

Great read Duncan

I would be your pit bitch if your stereo ever broke mid corner just so you know

Damn shame about the clutch too, at least this motor survived! The day night would have been fantastic to watch, I might come egg you on at your next race meet...

[Beer Baron]

nice one duncan! you are a champ mate, good to see you out there battling on. a credit to you and your helpers.

[Sinful]

Was a great day/night at OP my first time and there was plenty of action..Nice write up Duncan

Brad, Jay and me were happy to assist..Glad my parts went to a good cause

Was a shame your clutch went but the guys were swarming all over the car in the pits was so good to watch and the on lookers just stood there a bit dumbfounded when the suspension was getting done..

All 4 corners done in about 10minutes was pretty cool!

Loved the launches off the line Duncan, was best seeing them at night cause all you see is these headlight moving so quickly up the grid and in front!!

Gave those sport sedans a good run to turn 1 in the last race!!

P.s you did do under 50's at OP nice work!!!

[JAS-25T]

It was that extra 20 killer wasps he had that fried the clutch! lol

[Duncan]

fark I tell you what it was about 1/2 sec too much clutch slip that made the difference between 1st and DNF

yeah that new suspension was 2/10ths better straight up, but it was still way too soft....been chasing that today.....hope to have the good stuff for next round.

thanks again to everyone it was great to have a good story to tell for once

[Neil]

Duncan,,,never a problem helping you out tiger.

I'd also like to thanks the boys that helped out,,,I don't think Duncan and I could have done it on our own.

Also special thanks have to go to the Donut Princess for feeding and drinking us all day. Oh and not forgetting the fuel runs.

Giant,,,the pads are rock hard hawks of which the compound aludes me at the moment.

I certainly had a great day,,,bring on EC.

Funny little note,,,I went up to the driver of the corolla sporty at pre-grid and told him to watch out as Duncan would be coming up the inside off the start,,,the look he gave me "Oh Yea right in ya dreams". Seems he followed a basically modded car in Combined touring car around all Saturday. I'll bett there will some talk about 4wd cars in Sports Sedan going on about now.

Neil.

[Marlin]

Excellent read Duncan, thanks for sharing it! Were those pads Ferodo 3000's? We used to run them in the 34 but switched to Endless for Targa this year, something I was not alltogether happy with when we ran out of brakes 2/3rds through Cethana.