March Newsletter - 2002
March 2002
March saw the team competing at the first round of this years state chamionship. We went to Eastern Creek hoping for a good result, considering we finished eigth at the last round in 2001 and we had more horsepower than last year. Once we had arrived, we soon realised that a number of competitors from last year had done much more than simply "refresh" their engines. In fact a numbe rof them had built engines with huge horsepower gains, plus, a number of quick competitors whom had not raced last year were coming back this year. Our hope for a top ten finish were soon dashed.
Essentially we have realised that we simply don't have enough horsepower. Our efforts last year in the suspension area have certainly paid off, and the car is handling superbly, but to qualify 16th on a grid of 25 cars was very disappointing. Click here for a full race report.
The outcome of this disappointing weekend was that more horsepower is essential if we are to achieve our goals and break into the top ten and progress further into the top five. Therefore, a new engine is in the planning stages at this time, and we hope to have it finished before the end of this year. Due to the cost of this engine, our racing will be scaled down slightly for the remainder of this year. We still hope to contest four rounds, the next being in May.
With our next race meeting being seven weeks away, April will be a time of rebuilding. The gearbox has been repaired and will soon be back in the car. The new strut tops are also nearly finished and will be ready for re-assembly in the middle of April. Once all this is done we will re-build the brake callipers and the car will be ready to race in May.
The next round we will contest (in May) is at Oran Park, a track that I know very well. Oran Park is not a big horsepower circuit and car set-up is crucial. The car will be at it's best for this meeting, with so much of the car now having been re-built over the last 18 months, so a good result is expected. We will also be testing slightly larger diameter wheels, to see if this has any effect.
Until next month.
Cheers,
Mark Alford.
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