Hi,

If anyone else is interested, there will be an Autocross run by IWMAC (Ipswich West Moreton Auto Club) on the dirt circuit at Willowbank on Sunday the 20th. I'll be entering in a 68 beetle. (It's a retired ex Endeavour rally car, now only driven on Sundays!)

Beetles are pretty competitive on this track.

Cool.
I'd love to participate in an event here, unfortunately car not ready, but let us know when your next there. Good luck for the 20th.

There is usually an autocross or sprint each month at Willowbank. They are typically on the Sunday nearest the middle of the month.

Had a good time at the IWMAC Autocross today. With fewer entrants than usual, everyone had 7 runs of 2 laps each.

Unfortunately the roller under my accelerator pedal got (in the closed position) on my 3rd session, and that pretty much took me out of the hunt for trophies. I did a quick fix at the track, but did not have full throttle for the rest of the day. Missing a couple of horses did not really matter as there was not a lot of grip today. The worst part was the pedal position and feel was different after the fix, so had to re-learn how much I could flex my right ankle through the sweepers.

Apart from the throttle pedal issue the beetle ran well and got me to and from the event without drama, so I can't complain. I did a little over 35km of racing all up.

Highlight of the day was catching up with a celica GT4 and getting a re-run. Lowlight of the day was discovering that the SD card in the camera was full, so I didn't get footage of it.

Well done, always good to drive home in the race car!

I admit that I get a real kick out of taking it to the "Trailer Queens".
Historic rego for the beetle is about the same cost as rego for a trailer.
It probably helps the reliability by arriving with everything warmed up.

I'd just like to remind everyone about the IWMAC Autocross under lights at Willowbank (beside Queensland Raceway) on this Saturday Night. Entries need to be in by Wednesday to get the reduced entry fee.

Thanks. One day

The day/night Autocross/sprint was excellent. There were 43 cars competing, including my 68 Beetle and a Baja powered by Toyota twincam 2 litre. I finished up 16th outright and 7th in class. I had a clear handling advantage over the Baja which easily overcame any difference in power - give credit to the flat 4 engine for that.
Looking at the class results, I was fast enough for second in the up to 1600 class (won by a late 80's Civic), second in the 2 to 3 litre class (won by a well sorted first generation RX7), or first in the over 3 litre class (won by a Datsun Turbo ahead of a few Commodores). There are lots of well sorted cars in the 1600 to 2 litre class.

As a sprint event, only the best runs on each track counted. I knew I had some decent times in my earlier runs, so i drove may last stint at twelve tenths. I was going well until the approach to the second last corner when I was carrying too much speed. I ran wide and must have bumped my sump on a half buried tyre. It was just enough to dislodge my home made sump extension. The oil light came on as I crossed the finish line. Perfect timing! No serious damage. I re-fitted the sump and put some oil in and drove it home without a problem.

Hi

Any vidoes or photos?

Steve

Unfortunately my Camera was not very successful under lights.
There are some photos on IWMAC's website.

The last IWMAC autocross for 2009 is on this Sunday at Willowbank.
I've sent my entry in.

Cheers

I just bought a Datto 1600 that competes at the Autocross (white with yellow stripes, rollcage all the usual stuff) Pick it up in the morning then bringing it home for a once over before an autocross at Hirst Glenn (20 min past Gatton) on the 5/6 December.

We will be running the Datto and an offroad racer (dub powered) next year at both the locations - so you shall have some company.

I am too lazy to change the suspension on Herb not to mention polishing it afterwards.

Cheers

Peter

It will be good to have another Voksy at the events. The track is quite smooth lately, so Herb 's suspension would probably be quite suitable. Some of the fastest cars are dedicated hillclimbers. I think I know the Datto you are getting. We should be fairly evenly matched. I will tease you however for driving a "trailer queen"!

I had an unlucky run with the water truck at the last event, so i ended up 21st out of 44 cars. I beat the Baja with the toyota engine though, and would have been fast enough to get a trophy if my engine was over 2000CC.

Third fastest car outright was a first generation Civic of all things. That is a properly built hillclimb/Rally car with a thoroughly tuned 1400CC and good suspension and tyres. The driver sure knew how to use it too.

Could you post details of the Hirst Glenn event. I might be able to swing by for a look.

Here is the link :

http://www.aarg.org.au/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page...

If you have a look at the YouTube link you will get an idea of the track, I dont know the driver of the RX2, just found the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YahfhBE75TA 

and I dont mind being a trailer queen, those days of having to nurse a car home finished about 20 years ago. If it was closer to home i would drive, but not that far with a locked diff.

If you do pop along make sure to say gidday.

Cheers

Peter

I took the family for drive to Hirst Glen on Sunday morning and saw a bit of action.
It looks like a rather exciting, if bumpy track.
One Starion had an incident and ended up parked on his roof.
I might have to think carefully about suspension set up before trying this track.

Looking forward to next season!

First round of the 2010 IWMAC Autocross series is on this Sunday at Willowbank.
I'll be running the 68 Beetle, same as last year.

Hope to see a few of you there!

I'll get there one day to race ya, be looking foward to it.

Good luck this weekend.

Graeme,

Send me an email at dcrossley@golder.co.id about the semis. They are yours to use if you want them.

Cheers

Drew

Thanks Drew, much appreciated.
I'll contact you on Monday.

Another excellent event.
I managed to win the trophy for class C (2000CC to 3000CC). This year I've decided to run as a 2056CC.
In my class was a BMW 325i (E30 series) with roll cage and semi-slick tyres and a Nissan 300ZX (the curvy shape from 2 models ago).
I haven't seen all the times listed but I don't think there was much in it between me and the BMW. I saw the Nissan travelling sideways across the finishing line a couple of times, so I was pretty confident of beating him overall.

The beetle ran better than ever. I replaced the Bosch blue coil with a stock coil from my old, long gone 76 Golf. That seemed to cure the intermittent misfire I've had around 5000rpm in the past.

There were 42 cars running on the day. Typically we got a run every 45 minutes or so. There were 6 runs of 2 laps for the day. That was made up of 4 laps in the forward direction and 2 in the reverse direction.

The next event will be a sprint in 4 weeks time. I can't wait

Congrats on the win Snap, well done. Sounds like a real fun day with plenty of track time.

You have to get some action pics or even better some video, show us what this track is like and how your winning style shapes up .

I didn't take any pics or video myself, but there are some videos attached to the IWMAC website showing some events from last year.

Sounds like A fun day out. I will have to see if there are any on in early june.

Ps do you want the rest of the golf to go with the coil?

Most events are the middle Sunday of the month, but you might be lucky.

I'll have to decline on getting the Golf back. My wife would kill me if I got another car while the 1303 is in the shed half assembled.

I'd be curious to compare times against the old Golf. The Beetle is definitely more exciting (or scarier if you are of a sane disposition) though.

Cheers.

Hey Snap,,, great to catch up with you at the autocross,,,& yeah it was a top day, you did really well, good on ya man!!!

I had a little slow trip around on the first 2x runs, just "feeling-out" my buggy, & the new tyres were weired for a while,,, very goo-y sidewalls & wasn`t used to the amount of flex they gave me,,, but after the 3rd run i was starting to get the hang of it :-)

I did have a couple of issues with the gearing (final-drive ratio) was simply way too tall geared so i was having to spin the wheels a fair bit to get it off the mark at the start, (otherwise it was just stall) & was only needing 2nd gear for the whole track, so i`ve bought a smaller front sproket & having that fitted before the next meeting

I also couldn`t do my "Left-foot-braking" technique as my steering column was in the way & the brake peddle was too high & too far to the right for my left leg,,,so i`ve already modified the brake peddle pad to make it easy for my left foot to reach it now :-)

3rd , 4th & 5th runs i was posting 3rd fastest times Outright :-) just behind the 2x Mitsubishi EVOs so i was pretty happy with that, first time, straight out of the box

nothing broke, all went well really & had an absolute ball :-)

Video here if anyones interested-->

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-mwAYsytWo

see you at the net one Snap & good to see you got rid of that pesky miss in the ignition

Read on the IWMAC website 'no offroad tyres'....WTF . I plan to race my Baja somewhere....eventually.
What top speed do you see on that track, maybe I can use other rubber for the event.

yeah, by that they mean "Rally" type agressive chunky pattern tyres,,, i ran my Kombi there once a while ago & they weren`t too concerned about the tyres , but they`re not really an aggressive rally/off road tyre, so they let me through
'
the idea with that rule was to """TRY""" to keep the classes fairly even & fair... with little or no advantage from tyre choice,,, & also so the track doesn`t get chewed up--> the main reason

but now that there is quite a lot of good sticky road-legal tyres getting around (R-Spec) they have relaxed somewhat & they have approved the speedway tyres , but still no rally or aggressive chunky tread "off-road" type tyres allowed

i was just pinning 100mph at the end of the front straight :-) But i honestly doubt many others (if any) were doing that speed :-)

My Beetle only barely sees 100km/h on this track, of course the speedo comes off the front wheel, so no wheelspin included.
The front drive cars which lap in similar times to me reach around 125 km/h, but a fair bit of that would be wheelspin.
The "4wd turbo nutters" can nudge 160 apparently.

The big track (Dirt Sprint) is 14th of next month,,, can`t wait for that one :-)