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!!!! 
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.

 

 

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 – Day 5 – Set Sail, For Queensland!

So it was time to head home… Sadly… We’d 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 Shrine (front gates), and began the trip home.

Into Goulburn…. For Breakfast, a massage (2 days of laps annihilated my shoulder 🙁 ) and some shopping

And found me a new race helmet

Went and had the R888’s removed from the AW11 and the KU31’s refitted

Then we left Goulburn behind *sniff* and headed to Windsor and Parramatta to catch up with some Toymods members for a Beer O’Clock. I also happened to pick this up from one of the AW11 Anons…

Yep… An AW11 tow bar…

The MR2 Challenge – Day 4 – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger….

It’s the full circuit today, so…

Fk ups and sketchy moments…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFZYGaq-Y90

56mins of full circuit laps..
http://youtu.be/SXWF0J9NiHc
You like hellaflush, you like stance? Well fk that ****, this is how it’s done

Started ripping into the R888’s now!

The awesome trophies that Steve organised, and the two Ken took home!

The winners

After the track day, what else is there better to do then pack up your gear, head back to the cabins and get some sleep? Going to the pub, having dinner while talking cars and consuming some beverages, that’s what’s better!

The Hibo Pub has what they call, The Hibo Hero Hot Burger… This meal requires you to sign a waiver of your life and comes with gloves and a glass of milk. Tree, decided he was man enough to consume this meal… 550+ people have tried, these boards show those who have made it… (Doesn’t say if they have survived though…)

And from here, it was all down hill…

And he quits… Good effort…

The evening continued with more drinking and partying back at the Wakefield Cabins.

The MR2 Challenge – Day 2 – The Voyage, Part 2

We made it! Now chilling out in the Cabins at Wakefield Park.

Day 2 – Afternoon Update!

Around 3PM, MR2’s started arriving. Trav, Brendon and Ken arrived with Ken’s AW11.

And his insanely wide tires!

Tri and friend arrived at the same time.
Then The Pearl arrived shortly after.

Which after some investigations needed a clutch bleed

Tri was eaten by his car.

And eventually, Steve arrived.

Nearly ready to turn in for the evening to get a good nights sleep before the event (What, sleep before a track day!?!?!?!).

The MR2 Challenge – Day 1 – The Voyage, Part 1

Been an interesting day.
First up, some twat forgot to secure the oil cap correctly…

Amazing how far a 4AGE will go with half a sump full of oil… <facepalm>
Drove 150km with the oil cap sitting on the rocker cover, was only when I gave it a blast at Highfields (Near Toowoomba) that oil ended up on the rear window and gave me a brown moment. Spent 15mins at the car wash “degreasing” the car and engine bay, at least it wont rust in there any time soon…

Pit stop at Glen Innes for fuel and drinks

Another pitstop at Tamworth, no photo due to iPhone, inverter and GPS all over heating. We suffered 44’c temps from Tenterfield to Muswellbrook before running into torrential rain that slowed us down to 40km/h on the highway 😛 TrackDub ran a little hot a few times along the ranges, but that might have been because I was flogging it along to overtake caravans, trucks and grannies in Mazda 6’s.

Now chilling out at Singleton in air conditioning!