Round #3 2009 Nsw Sprint Championships, Wakefield Park

[LSX-438]

Phew what a wild and whacky couple of days leading up to this round. First up, yesterday evening was set aside to remove the harness bar, so i can fit the 4x track wheels/tyres into the R35 for the trip to Goulburn (200km from Sydney). So i take the harness bar out, no probs, however putting the factory b-pillar belt points back together and SNAP! The top point thread dislocated from the b-pillar!! Oh fark! Without a functioning seatbelt i thought my round was gone. The only option was to fit the 4 point harness sitting in he wings. I'll spare you the details, except for the fact there was a couple of frantic calls to a mate... anyway several hours later drilling holes through the bottom of the R35 (after careful consultaion of the service manual) i had the harness installed, for a bedtime of 1:30AM and 4:30am start. Suffice to say i didnt get much sleep, head was swimming.

The drive to Goulburn was hell - with the odd hellucination - driving through pea soup at 110km/hr..

Unfortunately i was not able to get any practice in with the new car at Wakefield before the round today. I think i would have found perhaps another 0.5sec (i wish) if i was able to get a decent amount of clean laps in (excuses excuses!). The first few sessions were a tad 'sloppy', running 1:07's and 1:06's - trying to figure out what gears work where and when. I was held up on those first few sessions too.

Finally getting a few clean laps later in the day, i managed to post a 1:05.35 PB. About 2.6 seconds faster than my PB in the munro. Pretty happy with that, but i would have loved a 1:04.xx I think the car can do it, it should happen next time at Wakefield i reckon, if i can gorw some balls of steel.

Anyway this means a NSW Sprint class + type record by some margin (perhaps 2 seconds or so,not sure). We'll see.

I have a little video which i will post to youtube soon.

Oh, and btw, how good was it cruisng home in leather clad comfort with the factory tyres back on.

The car just behaved like the day NEVER happened.

I am pretty amazed at this car.

[Roy]

Awesome effort and awesome times....kind of scary how quick they are around tracks like OP and Wakefield. Cant wait to see the times it does around EC as no doubt you can steer

[LSX-438]

thanks Roy.

here is a little youtube vid

it's a little more 'clinical' vs the monaro granted, almost video game like. I reckon anyone can get 80% of what the R35 has to offer, the other 20% becomes the challange; and you are moving at a great rate of knots, so it's a tad scary.

I am working on that 20%!

[Martin Donnon]

Great work Duncan! What kind of Trans Temps were you seeing?

And how are the brakes holding up?

[LSX-438]

Great work Duncan! What kind of Trans Temps were you seeing?

And how are the brakes holding up?

Hi Martin. This round is was one "out lap" and 4 subsequent hot laps (so an extra lap each session this time, but WP is a short track i suppose) anyway i was seeing up to about 120* or thereabouts. Ambient temps at Wakefield Park are low though, probaby 10~15* cooler vs OP a couple of weeks back (it was 1* on the way down to Goulburn yesterday morning!) i havent put your midpipe nor oil in yet, but will as soon as i can and report findings. Surprisingly the stocker brakes+pads are holding up well... a lot of the USA blokes show pics of their rotors cracked badly, mine still seem ok? I've probably done about 40 laps of OPGP + 20 laps of WP. Maybe it's just the supersprint format, with only 10~20 laps per round, which is relatively easy going vs what you can get up to at an open day. I've done 100 laps at an open day at Wakefield before (in the munro).

Edited May 3, 2009 by LSX-438

[e240]

Congrats on your times Duncan, although it is a very good car, it won't be doing those times without a good driver to harnessing it properly.

It was good to meet you - Next time, I would like a closer look at your car if you don't mind.

Last time I worked on a GTR was almost 7~8 years back on an R34 V-Spec. Busily changing the gearbox just the night before a Race in a friend's backyard! Was also the first time I went insanely fast on a public road (Not Australia).

I am abit cut by the what the Dorian Indicated vs my laptimer. It certainly felt a faster lap (I I do have a apologise a a WRX STI driver has I dove in hard on his inside at the kink). Oh well - Moral of the story is - always wait for official times. I guess I have my work cut out to find the 0.5 second needed @ the next round.

[evil_weevil]

Great result Duncan!

[Martin Donnon]

You need to work on your 'hardness factor' I think Duncan. Heres the front brake discs of our GTR after 5 or 6 track days (noting that Mallala is notoriously a hard braking track with three big stops per lap)

Looks like a 5th day MCG pitch thats for sure....easily fixed though

Edited May 4, 2009 by Martin Donnon

[LSX-438]

wha can i say Martin, i'm a big softie.

For that initial set of factory rotors, were you running the stocker pads?

[Martin Donnon]

Till the very last outing they were stock pads....then in went the Endless pads and the rotors just fell apart - beware those with aftermarket pad intentions on the stock rotors!

Now its AP rotors and Endless pads...

[LSX-438]

Congrats on your times Duncan, although it is a very good car, it won't be doing those times without a good driver to harnessing it properly.

It was good to meet you - Next time, I would like a closer look at your car if you don't mind.

Last time I worked on a GTR was almost 7~8 years back on an R34 V-Spec. Busily changing the gearbox just the night before a Race in a friend's backyard! Was also the first time I went insanely fast on a public road (Not Australia).

I am abit cut by the what the Dorian Indicated vs my laptimer. It certainly felt a faster lap (I I do have a apologise a a WRX STI driver has I dove in hard on his inside at the kink). Oh well - Moral of the story is - always wait for official times. I guess I have my work cut out to find the 0.5 second needed @ the next round.

Hi James!

Looky what i found...