The MTAQ Racing Team has returned from it’s Northern adventure to the Townsville Supercars event, and the EFS Excel Challenge. It has been a mammoth few weeks for the team, which has covered over 4000 kilometres and put in some big days and late nights to get to events on back to back weekends – a task we haven’t taken on before. The heat was most certainly on the streets up in Townsville, and all in all it was a cracking event and well worth the effort to attend.

Following on from our up and down weekend in Morgan Park, we had a very tight turnaround to get the car ready and get on the road to Townsville. The event itself was another weekend mixed with highs and lows  for us– and as usual we came away with a story!  It was one of those weekends that tested our resilience and again showed we are a force in the category with a series of barnstorming efforts.

Having been our first experience at the track, and only getting 30 minutes practice total.. getting a handle on the Reid park street circuit was critical. Unfortunately, the Gearbox issues that robbed us of the Morgan park victory the previous Sunday still plagued us in practice, with the car not selecting gears properly and killing all opportunity we had to really delve into set-up – sending us into qualifying basically blind. Still, we sorted the selection issues and we able to qualify a very respectable 9^th out of 35, squeezing a lap in very late in the session.

Going into Townsville, we chose to go for a very aggressive set-up option to make the car work in the concrete lined bullring and during qualifying it became very clear that the set-up wasn’t ideal, and I felt that with some changes we could have been a lot higher up.

Race 1 Saturday afternoon saw us get clobbered from behind in the first corner, dropping back to 15^th – but by lap 3 we were back to 8^th and moving forward nicely. Just as we made the pass into 7^th,  the gearbox destroyed itself putting us out. It was a shame as we had the same pace as the leaders and would have been in the lead group by half distance.

This also meant another late night for the team, as we got stuck into the hot and very uncomfortable task of a gearbox change Saturday evening. The other unfortunate effect was it meant we had to start 32^nd for Race 2 Sunday. But we didn’t stay there for long, moving into 18^th by the finish.

Townsville brought together the best Excel racers in the northern part of the country, and also a few highly credentialled ring-ins, so making forward progress wasn’t as easy as it usually is. Being a big meeting, the level of desperation from everyone to fight towards the front was acute – and it was more akin to a street brawl than a motor race!  But still we were able to cleanly make our way through to a more respectable spot, giving us 18^th starting spot for Sunday’s main race.

Race 3 was the weekend’s big dance – right before the main Supercars race, prime TV time, and a big crowd. I am happy to say we grabbed the opportunity, racing hard and fair to carve through to finish a fighting 5^th and on the back of the lead group by the end. This race was punctuated with 2 lengthy safety car periods, which reduced the number of racing laps available to us. Had the race been “green” the whole way, I have no doubt we would have been 3^rd and on the podium.

To be able to come from the tail of the field, and race back to the front in the level of company in attendance, was a very fitting reward for all the hard work and effort we put in to get there and compete. We are starting to be known as the “comeback kings” – a tag I would rather shake – if we can just put together a consistent weekend we would have been a massive threat for the overall podium. Still, the TV didn’t miss us – with the commentary team giving us a huge wrap for our “tail end Charlie” to lead group charge.

In footy they call it “playing 4 quarters” or “playing the full 80 minutes” depending on your code of choice.. in our world, if we can put together 3 good races over a weekend we will always be in contention, and something for us to work towards going forward. Our car set-up never quite gelled with the difficult track, with an aggressive set-up leaving us a little compromised, but despite this had front running car pace and enough pace to pass nearly the whole field bar 4.

Overall (in terms of the racing) it has well and truly put Excel racing on the map, with motorsport social media absolutely lighting up with praise for the level of entertainment provided and the quality of the racing. Hopefully this is the first of many opportunities we have to race on bigger stages!   The racing was brutal… nearly every car in the field left Townsville with damage, and at least 2 written off cars and a host of others needing extensive repair. The tight confines of the concrete lined course and the high stakes was always going to lead to some carnage, and so it proved!

However, one of the proudest things I can say is our car came home with just a scratch on the rear bumper from Race 1. Considering we had to pick through most of the carnage and pass cars in bulk – to do it clean and fair without touching another car didn’t go unnoticed and leaves us to worry about making it faster and more reliable rather than having it sit in the panel shop.

It has been a huge few weeks, but now we have a nice break before we return to the circuit – most likely this will be for our second and final QLD championship round at Morgan Park in November.

I have attached some low res pics from the Townsville weekend for you all, if anyone would like any hi-res pics please let me know, likewise we will have some video to share once we get the all clear from the promoter to make the footage public.

Thank you again everyone for your support, It was great to be able to get to Northern Queensland and fly the flag!

David

9 September 2020