2011 Rnd 2, Barbagallo - Perth

2 May 2011 10:00 AM - Round 2 - NEWSLETTER by Cliff Campbell

Hi all

I started my week (Monday morning, ANZAC Day) by driving a 5 hour drive from the North of Tassie to the South with my wife, kids and caravan onboard. Yes you mainlanders it is possible to drive 5 hours in Tassie without having to turn around!!!
Then I hopped on a plane to Sydney, where I met up with the other guys from Brisbane. We all then had a 6am flight on Tuesday morning bound for Perth to prepare the cars for the weekend’s race.
Special thanks to the guys from Rentco (Truck Rentals) for allowing us to use their facilities.
Also many thanks to the Perth Auto Masters Car Servicing Group for their support over the weekend.
Most importantly thanks again to John Wilcox & the boys from Australian Transmission Components for supplying flawless driveline components for both ours and Ryan’s XR8.

Also on another note: The kids and I missed our 1^st ANZAC Day march in many years, however we all took time out on the drive home to acknowledge the sacrifice of the many Australians that have lived and died to help make our country such a safe place to live & to allow us to pursue such things as motor racing.. 

‘Lest we Forget’

TECHNICAL STUFF –
Part of the vehicle preparation was to remove the factory computers (ECU) and fit the new MoTec harness & ECU – This applied to both the 5.4 Litre Fords & the 6.0 Litre Holden’s.  My assumption is that this change is to improve the parity between the manufacturers and to allow for more transparency in data acquisition.

This view is only an assumption, as I am not a member of the V8 Ute Board..  One thing I was happy to do was to say good bye to the old Drift Box, Grrrr bloody unreliable thing got us into hot water more than one occasion ‘Good riddance’

PRACTICE SESSION 1 –

The first practice session revealed that our Falcons were very loose on exit (that is oversteer ‘tail out’)

1   51  Rick Gill Motorcylcles        Rick Gill (WA)              Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400   11     3   1:07.6130*
 2     1  Revolution Roofing            Grant Johnson (WA)   Holden SS VE            6000     8     6   1:07.7817  0:00.1687
3     8  Aust. Industrial Supplies    David Sieders (NSW)  Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400   12     5   1:07.9106  0:00.2976
8   15  Rentco                               Charlie O'Brien (NZ)    Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400   13     6   1:08.4910  0:00.8780
16   6  Truckline Racing                Ryan Hansford (QLD) Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400   15    12  1:08.8360  0:01.2230

PRACTICE SESSION 2 –
The second practice session the cars looked even worse, but a very good friend of mine always makes this quote to me. 
‘Loose is fast, & on the edge of out of control’  -      Days of thunder
I will get back to this, please read on.

1     6  Truckline Racing                Ryan Hansford (QLD) Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400   12     3  1:07.5836*
 2   61  Bundaberg Racing             Cameron McConville (VIC) Holden SS VE    6000   10     5  1:07.8349  0:00.2513
3    15  Rentco                              Charlie O'Brien (NZ)    Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400     6     2  1:08.0253  0:00.4417

Top 3 – Hansford, McConville, O’Brien   ‘Sounds more a Bathurst grid of the 80’s ha ha.

QUALIFYING –
Qualifying was a dead set shocker for both Charlie & Ryan, missing a clean run in the early laps & this meant tyre pressures went through the roof and fastest laps weren’t achieved until laps 6 & 12 respectively. 

1    61  Bundaberg Racing             Cameron McConville (VIC) Holden SS VE    6000      9     7  1:06.8814*
 2    42  Ice Break Racing               Chris Pither (NZ)         Holden SS VE            6000      7     4  1:06.9695  0:00.0881
3    51  Rick Gill Motorcylcles         Rick Gill (WA)             Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400      8     5  1:07.1639  0:00.2825
12    6  Truckline Racing                Ryan Hansford (QLD) Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400    13    12  1:07.6345  0:00.7531
16   15  Rentco                              Charlie O'Brien (NZ)    Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400    13      6  1:07.8394  0:00.9580

The saying ‘From the penthouse to the out house’ Springs to mind!!!

RACE 1 –
Starting from 16^th position = rubbing. Midfield seems to be the busiest part of the track. Ryan’s luck ran out when he hit a patch of someone’s coolant and slide of into the gravel trap leaving him with a DNF for his efforts in practice and qualifying.

1    42  Ice Break Racing                Chris Pither (NZ)        Holden SS VE             6000   14   16:06.4776    2 1:07.9923
2     1  Revolution Roofing              Grant Johnson (WA)  Holden SS VE             6000   14    16:07.9665   2 1:08.2038
 3    51  Rick Gill Motorcylcles         Rick Gill (WA)            Ford Falcon XR8 BF   5400    14    16:11.6643   3 1:08.5275
11   15  Rentco                               Charlie O'Brien (NZ)  Ford Falcon XR8 BF   5400   14    16:30.3374   5 1:09.4241
DNF 6  Truckline Racing                Ryan Hansford (QLD) Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400     8      9:24.4811   4 1:08.7681

RACE 2 – 
Another tough race, our Falcons seem to suffer as the race goes on.

1    58  VIP Petfoods                      Ryal Harris (QLD)      Ford Falcon XR8 BF   5400    15   19:26.3962   3 1:08.7691*
2    21  Williams Race Tech           Allan Letcher (WA)     Holden SS VE             6000   15   19:29.9387   3 1:09.2776
3     1  Revolution Roofing             Grant Johnson (WA)   Holden SS VE             6000   15   19:32.4506  13 1:09.5225
 13   15  Rentco                              Charlie O'Brien (NZ)    Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400    15   19:40.1713   2 1:10.0497
 26    6  Truckline Racing                Ryan Hansford (QLD) Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400    15    19:58.6938   5 1:10.1254

RACE 3 –
By race three we got the fact that the Holden’s seemed to have an edge at this track, be it the new MoTec tune is more compliant to the 6 Litre Chev or the fact the IRS is suited to the conditions or a bit of both ???

1     1  Revolution Roofing             Grant Johnson (WA)   Holden SS VE            6000    14    16:10.9473   8 1:08.3328*
2    42  Ice Break Racing               Chris Pither (NZ)         Holden SS VE            6000    14    16:12.3675   6 1:08.6121
 3    56  Monster Energy                 Nathan Pretty (VIC)     Holden SS VE            6000    14    16:12.9060   8 1:08.7454
10   15  Rentco                              Charlie O'Brien (NZ)    Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400    14    16:28.8382   2 1:09.1667
19    6  Truckline Racing                Ryan Hansford (QLD) Ford Falcon XR8 BF  5400    14    16:37.4703   4 1:09.4218

Congratulations to Grant Johnson, his local supporters loved the drift onto the main straight on the final lap to take out the round win. Just quietly I thought it was pretty good also.

DEBRIEF
Cast your mind back to my mates comment ‘Loose is fast, & on the edge of out of control’, I think forgetting this is where our weekend fell away, as we made adjustments earlier on in the weekend to tighten the car up. The end result was the front tyres got more of a work out and at the same time as the tyre temps went up, so did the engine temp. I believe the conservative MoTec tune did not help at this stage (As a safety measure engine tuners program the ECU to take ignition timing out and add fuel as temperatures get a tad tropical).  Therefore retarding ignition timing really hurts as most would understand, what most people (that are not mechanically minded) don’t realise is adding fuel does not necessarily mean more performance (Just think about what you lawn mower does just before it runs out of fuel –Yes it revs up! More heat longer burn. Great killer of engine but also a great way to get performance when on the edge).

Next stop Hidden Valley Darwin – 16^th-19^th June

Cheers Cliff