It was a weekend of highs and lows for the MTAQ Racing Team at the second round of the Queensland Hyundai Excel X3 Series at Morgan Park Raceway in Warwick.

Following a brilliant qualifying session that saw driver David Wood start in 3rd spot on the grid for the opening race of the round, a combination of technical issues and on-the-edge, incident-filled racing would see the team grab 12th, 11th and 4th places across the three races for an overall position of 8th for the meeting – a result that moves the team up to 8th position in the championship.

The team – driver David Wood and support crew of William Salmon, Gerard Field, Elliott Lemmon and Crew Chief John Zyzniewski – once again performed minor miracles, working late into the evenings to isolate and fix some niggling issues and see the car perform close to its best for the final race of the weekend.

“Friday afternoon’s practice sessions were a bit of a write off as we chased some wheel alignment issues. That killed our track time,” said David. “We developed a work-around for it Friday night so we were all good to go for qualifying on Saturday morning despite not getting time to really tune for the conditions. And qualifying went really smoothly for us, and yielded the third fastest time in a tightly packed session. That was really a big achievement.

“In the first race, I started strongly, running along third during the opening laps. We didn’t quite have the pace of the leading pair and I had to push very, very hard to keep in touch.

“Ultimately, I pushed a bit too hard and came unstuck – running wide at turn one and spinning. With the benefit of hindsight, I should have been a bit more savvy and just taken the 3rd place – but I felt that there was a chance that the leaders would drift back to me later in the race if I kept pushing. That is racing though,”

A broken wheel after colliding with another car during an overtaking manoeuvre saw David nurse the MTAQ car across the line in 12th spot.

The team was in a difficult position after that. Not only did they have to work flat-out to get the car ready for Sunday’s races, but with race rules stating that starting positions were determined by finishing positions in preceding races, it meant a mid-race grid position for race two – a position from which it was always going to be difficult to challenge the front-runners.

“Race two was absolutely chaotic and one of the craziest races in which I have been involved!” said David. “I wasn’t able to make much headway, advancing one spot to 11th. Every time I started to advance, an incident in front would hold me up and I would be passed as I avoided other people’s drama. It made for some cool in-car video but just underscores why it is so critical to qualify at the front – once you are buried in the pack, it is like being in a warzone!”

One thing that has been a constant throughout the build-up to the 2017 X3 Championship is the confidence and morale of the team. Everyone involved had the belief that, given a sprinkling of good fortune and a car running trouble-free, David could really show what he and the car could do. And so it turned out in race three.

Even though he started in 11th position, the hard work that had gone into prepping and fixing the car paid off as David scorched his way through the pack to take a sensational third place and the first podium spot of the season for the team.

“We made a few changes to the car and it was an absolute rocket,” he said. “The race opened up for me nicely after some initial mayhem and we got into some clear track by lap three, by which time we were in 8th position. With the leading group quite spread out we were able to make up tremendous distance and, after picking off car after car, we crossed the finish line in fourth, clamped to the bumper of the car in 3rd. Given a few more laps we had pace to get to 2nd, I think. So, basically, we ended the weekend back where we started, and it was another case of ‘what might have been’.”

While there might be a dose of the ‘what ifs’ about the weekend, there are, said David, plenty of positives to take away from the meeting. A 4th-place race finish is the team’s best while a 3rd place in qualifying, and a two-second improvement in lap time, shows how much the car has improved since the team’s last outing at Warwick in May. It all bodes well for the team’s next hit out in November. And it is a big one – the Australian Hyundai Championship at Wakefield Park in Goulburn, NSW.

“That presents a massive challenge,” said David. “It’s an event where we will take on the best in the game from across the country on a foreign track.

“We have a lot of work to do between now and then, but with some more improvements and a bit more speed I am confident that we can make a pest of ourselves there. If we can jag a top 10, I think that would be a tremendous achievement. Let’s see how we go!”

THE SHANNONS NATIONALS
QUEENSLAND RACEWAY
4-6 AUGUST

Prior to the X3 Series second round at Warwick, the MTAQ Racing Team was able to have a confidence-building hit-out against some of the nation’s best at the Federal Tyres Series X3 Invitation Cup, part of the Shannons Nationals event at Queensland Raceway’s famous ‘paperclip’ track.

And it was a confidence booster, even if the results looked a little ordinary. A 13th place in race one, DNF in race two, and 13th in race three belied the underlying performance of the car.

The team had put in plenty of work on the car in the preceding weeks – tuning, tweaking and testing, and ironing out problems that had seen it lack power at the Queensland X3 Series first round at Morgan Park in May. And, in truth, if it weren’t for a niggling clutch issue that plagued the car for much of the Shannons’ race meeting, things might have been very different.

Friday’s practice had gone well, with driver David Wood comfortably keeping in touch and matching the speed of the front runners, which included leaders of Excel championships in NSW and Victoria.
However, air in the clutch system made gear selection impossible during qualifying and a starting position of 22nd for the first race put David towards the back of the grid of 32 cars.

“We had a lot of ground to make up!” he said. “But Race One went very well. We were able to charge forward to finish a fighting 13th in a very intense race with a lot of biff and barge. And with that strong result, we started Sunday morning’s Race Two in 13th place and within striking distance of the lead group.

“We got off to a flyer in Race Two, shooting through to 9th on the first lap but then the clutch failed again at the end of the first lap and we were side-lined. That meant we had to start the final race in dead last.

“We had nothing to lose in that last race, so I had a pretty fierce crack and the car was tremendous,” he said. “We had real pace and I was able to slice through to 13th. It was very satisfying to pass so many cars – many of which were in front of us last time out at Morgan Park – and we definitely had one of the fastest cars on the track.

“If it wasn’t for the clutch issues that kept pushing us down the field, I think we would have finished the weekend in the top 5 and well in contention for a podium – which in a national standard field would have been a massive feat.”

The Racing Team Support Crew worked tirelessly to tease the best from the car and the result of the final race, or at least the performance of the car in that final race, was cause for celebration.
“The team was sensational in the heat of race weekend,” said David. “The boys were able to perform wonders tuning the car on Saturday and Sunday and they hit the sweet spot with it, and did it without the benefit of any diagnostic equipment! It was all done by talent and gut feel.

“To say I am proud of them is an understatement – they obviously have learned a great deal from their time at the MTA Institute and this was the highlight of the weekend for me. What they did some trained professionals couldn’t do with $50,000 of diagnostic computers! And to give them an encouraging result after the setbacks with the clutch was fantastic.”