There was a monster gathering of motor racing enthusiasts at Queensland Raceway last month – and we’re not just talking about the Supercars Ipswich SuperSprint that took place on July 20-22.

The following weekend, the Shannons Nationals race meeting rolled into town and dozens of teams across five categories – the Porsche Michelin GT3 Cup Challenge Australia, Australian Production Car Series, National Sports Sedan Series, Australian Prototype Series and Series X3 Queensland – battled it out for podium honours.

The MTAQ Racing team lined up with more than 30 others in the Hyundai Excel Series X3 races, and sported a slightly altered look too, thanks to two new sponsors – Aqualuma and Local Search – whose logos were emblazoned on the car’s bodywork.

Aqualuma is a world leader in LED lighting technology. Starting out in marine lighting, they have also taken their cutting-edge technology to commercial and retail applications, including workshop lighting.

Local Search – a company many MTA Queensland members would know – is a market leader in getting businesses found and bringing new business in the door, using an arsenal that includes directory services, website creation, content management, SEO, social media and reputation management.

It was certainly an exciting start for these new members of the MTAQ Racing Team family, as the massive field of competitors ensured the on-track battle was always going to be fast and furious. That’s exactly how it turned out.

Led by driver  David Wood, the team worked wonders with the Excel that was unfortunately stricken with troubles all weekend and with a hamstrung car, recapturing the form that had seen them become regular challengers for podium spots at the end of the 2017 season was impossible.

And the car’s problems began early, with a front brake pad disintegrating in the very first practice session on the Friday, and a piston ring failing in the second session that would lead to a frantic trip back to MTA Queensland’s home base at Eight Mile Plains where the team put in an all-nighter at the workshop to get repairs done and the car back on track.

It was, said David, an interesting  start to the weekend!

“The front brake pad disintegrated in that first practice session and that did cause me an anxious moment on the track!” he said. “When we inspected the car, we found the front pads had crumbled and split, so we spoke to the manufacturer, who hadn’t seen anything like it before. They’re local, great to deal with, and we were able to get a replacement set and be on our way again.

“Then, early into the second session, we had a piston ring fail in our engine,” he added. “That engine had been performing very well this year and while it wasn’t a catastrophic failure, it was enough to kill any performance, so we faced a long night ahead. We had enough spare components to do a rebuild – so it was back to HQ to start the task of changing and rebuilding the engine.

“The boys in the team hooked into the task, and we had the car back up and running in the early hours of Saturday morning. We had to use a lot of road-car standard parts as time didn’t permit
fitting all of our race-spec goodies and  the majority of those parts came from our donor car.

“In the end we got home at around 5am and were headed back to the track at 6am in time for qualifying. By that point, in my mind, we were already winners as just to be back out there was an achievement!”

Without the opportunity to run the car properly prior to qualifying – aside, said David, from a lap of the carpark – the team weren’t certain what sort of performance the car would deliver and ended up starting the first race from 26th on the grid, from a starting line-up of 35.

“26th is our worst qualifying ever,” said David. “But to put this in some context, that lap was almost 1.5 seconds faster than our qualification time at the corresponding event last year, in which we qualified 13th! “That underlines the enormous rate of development in this class.

“We tweaked the tune and Race One started very well for us. I was able to nail the start to move into 18th at the end of the first lap, but then our horrendous luck continued, with the car having a fuel pump problem which saw us fade out of the race. I was able to nurse the car home for 22nd, which was disappointing given the start we had.”

Another on-the-spot fix, another tune, and, thankfully, some luck that held, would see a better performance on the Sunday, which included a televised Race Three, but the troubles of Friday and Saturday were enough to relegate the team down the grid where it was just about impossible to climb up to challenge the leaders.

“Sunday’s races two and three did go much better,” said David. “The car’s engine performed splendidly after we tuned it a bit more and got it in the ‘window’. I was able to move from 22nd to 12th in Race 2, but that was about as far forward as I could get – sadly, we just weren’t fast enough.

“Race 3 was more akin to a boxing match – being the televised race, everyone wanted to put on a show. We were able to make a handsome start, climbing to 8th a few laps in, but we did make a mistake with the suspension settings, which made the car a bit of a handful and we didn’t have the pace to escape the pack and get into the lead group.

“The pack from 8th through to 14th was very intense, and we were on the receiving end of some desperado moves – getting pushed off and dropping back to 15th before recovering for 12th spot.”

While the results of the races were not what everyone was hoping for, there were, once again, rays of hope that things could be turned around and the team’s performance was one of which they could be proud. Part of the reason for establishing the MTAQ Racing Team was that apprentices and students would be exposed to the rough and tumble workings of motorsport at the grassroots level and, on that score, the weekend was a resounding success.

“A pair of 12th-place finishes doesn’t even go close to representing the weekend’s incredible effort,” said David. “Overcoming the challenges to get the car back on the track on the Saturday was terrific and that is what being a team is all about. On Sunday, that engine repair was well validated with the car running very strongly, and that was very, very pleasing and a heartening reward for our all-nighter. With the handling properly sharpened up, the car would have been very fast.

“Our next round is a few weeks away back at our ‘home’ track – Morgan Park. With a few weeks to fit the rest of our race-spec components to the engine, and a few new things we want to try, I am very confident we will be back challenging for wins at a track at which we always perform well. The rebuilt engine feels like it has a lot of potential, and I can’t wait to get back to Warwick and make up for a poor showing t Ipswich. We are well overdue for a change in fortunes, and I think Warwick in September will be a great place to start!”

The next round of the Series X3 Queensland will be at Morgan Park Raceway on the 8-9 September.

9 Aug 2018