The videos from the night until she went boom.
Events
ARDC NightShift – 15/04/2021
Short post to cover the ARDC NightShift event this week
It was dry!
I got the RaceBox to work!
I set some new PB’s!
We raced with some mates again!
We broke the car…
I broke the car š
Not entirely sure what has failed (not a rod out the block), but billowing oil smoke out. Will investigate if it’s turbo, head gasket or a piston….
ARDC NightShift ā 18/03/2021 – Videos
I finally got off my ass and edited the videos for this track day.
Enjoy!
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Extras
ARDC NightShift – 18/03/2021
I was hoping the weather was going to get better, oh boy was I wrong.
It rained for the week leading up to the event and the whole day and night of it.
Setting up the pits with a friend and his Nissan NX.
Checking the fluids and preparing for the first session.
My broken camera on my phone doesn’t emphasize how wet the place is.
As apart of the event we all were given a free pizza, so I kept mine here…
I had the RaceBox datalogger setup, however ran into issues with it. 
Running the AR-1 tires was a massive mistake, but it was a great way to learn to drive in such conditions.
My first session… This sums it up.
I had followed the NX for the warm up lap and was pretty confident that I was faster, so I decided to get pass him on the straight. Problem was while over taking I lost track of how far down the straight we were, how fast I was going, got distracted by the car trying to change lanes when I grabbed 5th gear. Then it was a bit balancing act of trying to knock of a bunch of speed with out throwing the car into a spin down… Well that worked hahaha.
After recovering, we made it around to last corner before the red lights came on and the session was cancelled. Two other cars had come off and needed retrived and a Porsche had broken down in pit lane entry.
The rest of the night went fine, a bunch of sketchy moments but some good sessions none the less. I put a few slices of the drama here.
Track Day ā Queensland Raceway ā 22/08/2014
So we had a total of 5 MR2ās on this damp day, not a bad turn out really considering itās a Friday and the weather was meek.
First session out, the SlushDub decided after just half a lap, the intercooler hose should no longer be apart of the intake path.
Thanks to BEN77 for the spare hose clamp!
The best place for a P Plater to be getting to know their car and their limits.
Red ones go faster!
Ben found out what happens when you come into a corner too fast in the wetā¦. Lucky it wasnāt Mt Neboā¦
Graham also found his way off the track, but didnāt bring half the field homeā¦
Eric back in after a session of chasing Excelsā¦
Goodbye head gasket!
The main reason why the SlushDub did so many circlesā¦
Backyard Brawl – 08/06/2014
This was an small backyard event using the QRSC arena in a 3×3 configuration instead of the usual 4×4. There was no roof, so spinners were told to stay home.
Knightrous Wedge was slapped together in a hurry the day before, taking the remains of Schmackhed and adapting the Dewut drives from Farmboy/Annoying Box Rush to the rear. Lastly, I welded a bit of stainless bar in a v shape to the top to allow it to drive upside down, self right and to push other bots with.
I didn’t take any photos during the event, so I’ve only got a couple of screen shots from the videos. Thanks to M&J for putting the fights up on youtube.
Fight 1: Aussie Battler
A nifty lifter and grabber robot built by Phil. Not an overly fast robot, but Phil is a consistent driver and just waits till he can make a move. Luckily I was able to keep wedging Aussie Battler and push him into the walls before eventually putting him into the ‘pit’.
Winner: Knightrous Wedge
Fight 2: Mental Bot
A boxy pushy bot built by Tim.
This fight wasn’t exciting, as it mainly consisted of both bots dancing around each other and lining up. However, I was consistently doing all the wedging and pushed Mental Bot around the arena. Towards the end of the fight, Mental Bot was having drive issues and ended up stuck in the pit.
Winner: Knightrous Wedge
Fight 3: Monkey
A boxy pushy bot built by Scott, who was hosting the event.
This fight was a lot of dancing, Monkey was a little faster and even when wedged could drive off relatively easy due to 4WD. We both made a few trips into the pit and drive back out, I managed to also get a few decent pushes, sending Monkey into the wall each time. The fight went the full 3 minutes and the fight ended up being given to me.
Winner: Knightrous Wedge
Fight 4: Wanda
An axle bot with fast winch motor drives, built by Jules. Normally Wanda has a big thwackbot tail on it, but Jules arrived at this event with a couple of fork type wedge attachments. This fight was mostly spent chasing after Wanda, trying to wedge it so I could get it’s forks stuck in the hoopty and then push it into a wall. The match went the full distance and was given in our favor.
Winner: Knightrous Wedge
Fight 5: RUMBLE!!!!Ā
All working robots jump in on this fight and kick the crap out of each other for 8 minutes! Nothing left to do then show the video.
Downshift Track Battle ā 21/04/2013
This event turned out to be a pretty good event for the first ever Downshift track day, big thumbs up to these guys for organising an event that was not only good for the competitors, but the spectators. The Holden Driver Training facility is a really well setup facility and the Norwell Park Circuit itself is a great designed track with a good mix of high speed corners, switch overs and hair pins.
Well all the preparation work for the TrackDub went well for this event, bar a small wiring problem that reared itās ugly head 10mins out of town, but it was fixed quick enough.
All ready to go!
Times.
The TrackDub is car D18 on the time sheets.
My best lap of the day was a 1:07.7 during the 3rd session, went to my head in the last few sessions as I tried furiously to beat it, only to end up with over shooting braking points, missing apexes, over steering corner exits and a high speed off track experience on the final corner.
Have a few things to sort out on the TrackDub that are holding it/my potential back.
ā Brakes, think I need to do a full system flush again as I think I have air in the lines somewhere, it was causing some insane squirrel braking that proved interesting. Other then that, the Hilux 1ā³ master cylinder made the brakes pedal feel awesomely better.
ā Oil temp / pressure, need to get myself a digital temp and pressure gauges rigged up on the car, Iām getting some pretty crap oil pressure readings and I need to find out if itās oil related (too thin), heat related (thinning the oil out) or mechanical related (oil pump is rooted).
ā Race seat, Recaro seat out of the SlushDub just doesnāt cut it, time to blow some cash on a Sparco Sprint V fixed back seat and throw my harnesses back in. Iām pretty sore today from bracing all day yesterday.
ā Tires, Iāve got the R888ās but I really donāt think Iām getting the full potential out of them and I need to learn more about setting them up correctly in regards to pressures. I never get the tires over 60āc (75āc is suppose to be a nice spot for R888ās IIRC), but they definitely felt like they were baking a few times when I was pushing hard. Iām tempted to just buy some Federal 595RS-Rās and do some back to back laps to see how well on the street tires. If my times are similar, I can save some cash by using the street tires and focus on learning to drive better instead of leveraging on a better quality tire.
ā Suspension, Iāve got a rear tie rod that has some slop in it, so I need to replace it and I need to finish off my camber plates to allow some better adjustment of camber to allow quick adjustments during a track day. I need to look at my sway bars as well, I think the rear one might have to come off
Till next time!
A couple of weeks later, I received my photo pack from sirck.com.au of the DownShift Track Battle.
Good photos, just none of the good action, except my off at turn 7!
SlideWize – 23/02/2013
Another great slidewize event, plenty of fun in the skid sessions and some good competition in the timed events. Had a lot of fun with hand brake initiated drifts and rev limiter smashing peg leg exits.
I struggled a lot with front end understeer, which is attributed to sub-par front tires and probably and excessive amount of front camber on my current track alignment. Going to run my R888’s next time, adjust my camber back to some more street sensible and probably drop a 50kg bag of sand into the frunk to give the front end of the car some weight for traction!
Bunch of photos I snap during the day.
Sunday was followed up with the QLD MR2 Cruise through the Samford Valley and then up Mt Mee for some thrilling scenic driving. Dom and myself detoured from the pack and hit up the Campbells Pocket Rally Stage before joining the rest of the group at Kilcoy for lunch. I separated from the cruise to head home while everyone else did the western loop back to Brisbane, however 40km from home, the TrackDub developed a really bad electrical problem. At first it was like the ignition was breaking down, and throttling caused the motor to die, while a couple of the dash gauges fluttered around all over the shop in a retarded fashion. I could start the motor, get it to run for 5-10 seconds before it would struggle to idle or conk out. $200 later, it was tow tracked home, where I couldn’t get the motor to fire up. So I drove it up the drive way using the starter motor, and then a little after that, I couldn’t even get the motor to crank over, I just get nothing when the key is turned. However, with the epic amounts of rain that is currently falling and no space in the garage, it looks like it will be a week or two before I can start tracking down what the hell is going on.
My initial thoughts are, the regulator in the alternator has **** itself and was unleashing 20+ volt spikes into the ECU, which would make it shut down, I could also explain my gauges going nuts and my inverter throwing under/over voltage warning beeps everywhere. Other ideas are that there are is some damaged wiring loom that is shorting and has melted, causing some unknown damage to other things. This break down comes at a semi-convient time, simply because in the next few weeks the motor will be dropped so I can install the new 6 speed gearbox and LSD, so I can take this opportunity to do both jobs at once.
The MR2 Challenge ā Day 6 ā Hot, Cold, Whateverā¦. We drive!
Once again, our trip involved 40+āc heat and thunderstorms that brought traffic to a crawlā¦.
But after 10+ hrs, we made it home!
SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPā¦ā¦
The MR2 Challenge ā Day 5 ā Set Sail, For Queensland!
So it was time to head homeā¦ Sadlyā¦ Weād met some great people, made a bunch of new friends and had an awesome time on the track, but now we must head home.
We loaded up the cars.
Blessed the AW11 at the Wakefield Shine (front gates), and began the trip home.
Into Goulburnā¦. For Breakfast, a massage (2 days of laps annihilated my shoulderĀ šĀ ) and some shopping
And found me a new race helmet
Went and had the R888ās removed from the AW11 and the KU31ās refitted
Then we left Goulburn behind *sniff* and headed to Windsor and Parramatta to catch up with some Toymods members for a Beer OāClock. I also happened to pick this up from one of the AW11 Anonsā¦
Yepā¦ An AW11 tow barā¦