As the title says MGCC are hosting the next round of the NSW hillclimb Championship next weekenk. This will be a pretty jammed packed weekend with this event being a test run for the Australian Championship which will be run there later this year. Some of the countries best race cars/hillclimb cars/drivers are entered for next w/e so it will be a great event to come up and watch. GT and I are both entered in our Beetles.
GT has made a few minor changes in his bug and is looking at going quicker then his times at the club event last week and Im just looking forward to getting kermit out and having drive for the 1st time in ages. If anyone decides to go, come up and say hello. Hope to see you there.
White Knuckle Racing Team [/i] "Drive it like dirt"
Gee wizz what a fun day. This weekend was one of the best days of competition I have had for a long time. 5 drivers were entered in the imp pro class with GT and me making up 2 of those entries in our beetles. The other entries were made up of 2 different datto 1200s and and pretty quick escort. There was about .5 of a second between the 1st four postions in class thats how close it was. The 5th placed driver was about 1 sec further back. Man it was close. One of the 1200 drivers, Steve Brydie was debuting a new car. A copy of his last one, only with a twin cam sr20 and about 40 more hp. His other car was driven by his best mate Warwick whilst north coast driver Steve Sauer made the trip in his escort.
I will have to say my next investment will be a new set of tyres. I was running on an old set of borrowed tyres and I would have to say the bug was diabolical to drive. It was like I was driving on an oiled up rd and the bug was a real handfull. I have some external and internal footage I got on the go pro to show how out of control it was. I will load this up within the wk.
Steve Sauer in his escort scored the win (congrates). I managed to keep the bug on the rd and pulled into 2nd behind Steve about .2 of a second behind. Steve Brydie in his 'new' twin came 1200 was about .2 behind me and GT was about .1 behind him. This was a good practice run for the Oz champs in Nov so I got some good data for that event.. after tax time Im buying a new set of tyres and fingers crossed I think I will see a fair reduction in my lap times.
White Knuckle Racing Team [/i] "Drive it like dirt"
A mate of mine took some footage from his phone on Saturday pratice. One of those vids is below. On race day he brought up his box of go pro cameras and we strapped them into my bug and GTs bug. Plus we got some quality outside footage too. Only issue is my mates computer is getting fixed so can not down load the footage to edit and upload.. if that makes sence. hopefully come next wk I will have some stuff I can share.
Plus a couple of photos. Courtesy of Eilane Barlow. Who said you cant drift a Beetle. Lol. Well thats what a club offical thought. They acually told me I was driving too hard during practice.... WTF. I thought thats what you are suppose to do when competing. Actually drive a race car hard! Apparently not if you own & drive a MG!
Thanks Greg. I guess many years of driving and racing on dirt rubs off on me when Im on the black stuff.
Sometimes I use the philosphy of former world rally champion Peter Solberg when he drove in his first world rally. The journalist asked Solberg what was his plan on his first world event, "Win?". "No." Peter replied, "Jump longest and highest and get most exposure!" I agree. Whilst it may not be the fastest, it most certainly makes for a good photo. I may not have won but people will remember the green bug. .. lol
The above photo was taken on the last bend in a series of 5 corners when coming down the hill off a relatively fast straight. It looks like it was pratice day as the pratice form is still stuck to the side window. Once the rear stepped out up the top of the hill on the first in those series of corners, you just had to hang onto it until you made it to the bottom and over the finish line. Im guessing backing off may have helped but lifting off is for pussys and would have made for some very boring photos.
White Knuckle Racing Team [/i] "Drive it like dirt"
Yes Paul. Its pretty much a copy of your old car and it generally behaves very well the previouse time I have ran it. However this w/e it was a pig. Understeer, oversteer. I recon it had a hell of alot to do with the 'old' borrowed tyres I used. I gradually changed setting throughout the day and the car improved remarkablely.
White Knuckle Racing Team [/i] "Drive it like dirt"
A few years back there was a bloke who moved from dirt-track racing to road-racing. He found he was quicker when he changed his 'tail-out' style of racing, to a smoother style. You may have heard of him.....his name was Jack Brabham. 😏
I'd rather wear a Beetle out by racing it than by polishing it!
Craig Torrens6 times Australian, 7 times State Hillclimb Class Champion
HappyDaze wrote:A few years back there was a bloke who moved from dirt-track racing to road-racing. He found he was quicker when he changed his 'tail-out' style of racing, to a smoother style. You may have heard of him.....his name was Jack Brabham. 😏
Engine sounds lovely and smooth right through the rev range👍
Can,t believe I,m going to say this, but really accurate driving Nath 😁 except the finish line, now that's the Nathan we all love to watch spectacular.👍
