Round 4, 2018
The MTAQ Racing Team hit the track again on the weekend for Round 4 of the Queensland Championships – and I am happy to say we had a fairly solid weekend all round, coming away from the weekend’s 4 races with 4th in a very, very tough field. We didn’t make it easy for ourselves, as you will read..
It was a fairly intense weekend that had a bit of everything, weather and some carnage all played a part, but I am happy to say out of the damaged cars that got towed home Sunday night, our MTAQ car wasn’t one of them and only has a small love mark to show from the weekend’s intense combat – that is very pleasing indeed.
Our Friday practice went basically according to plan, with the first few sessions to finish running in our new engine. The team at CNJ Motorsport were terrific in the initial running in on their dyno, and did a terrific job which meant all we had to do was give it a shakedown on Friday morning and gently bring it up to pace. The only dramas we really had on Friday was a wiper motor fail after a very light sprinkle of rain, and a small issue with a brake pad, which meant a return trip to the Gold Coast Friday night for yours truly to retrieve a replacement from the manufacturer, and to pick up a wiper motor off the spare car that Rusty kindly pulled off for us.
The car is very different after all the upgrades we have done, especially to the suspension – it was so different, none of our old settings worked so we had to think on the run and kept adjusting over the course of the weekend. It was like we had a different car, and had to learn over again which knocked around our pace initially. Likewise, the engine is also very different and also required some fiddling away from our normal settings to achieve more of an optimum. We also had a new set of tyres on board, which is usually an is initial disadvantage until they wear, so we weren’t as quick as we hoped, but the car felt good.
Saturday morning we awoke to absolute torrential rain, and an hour before our all-important qualifying session – a thunderstorm promptly lashed the circuit! Now, since we have been involved in Excel racing, we have never had the chance to run our car in wet conditions and the lack of experience in wet running compared to our opposition showed. We learnt a lot in the qualifying session, which was very wet, but missing the wet set-up meant I could only slip and slide around quick enough for 18th out of 29. It wasn’t through lack of effort, it was pretty wild – we just didn’t have the front grip to post a quicker time. So, we were sentenced to start 18th which was far from ideal. To make matters worse, a lot of other front runners were back there with us, which would make forward progress difficult.
Moving closer to Race 1, the rain abated and the track started to dry. It was damp when it was time for our first race, and a lot of people stayed with wet set-ups as there was still some rain in the area. We made the call to go with our full dry set-up for the race, and just as we rolled out to the grid the sun poked through and the wind came up. It worked! The track was damp initially and then dried and we moved through to finish 13th. We still didn’t quite have the car pace, which made it hard work passing.
Race 2 saw a steady progress through to 9th. This gave us a 9th place start for Race 3 Sunday. We were able to make the car a bit quicker again, and it was faultless throughout the run.
Sunday dawned sunny and cool, and Race 3 was again about picking off more positions. This race was marred by one of the biggest accidents in Excel racing in Queensland, with 5 cars taken out in a wild clash, including a spectacular barrel roll for one competitor. We were very fortunate as we were in the middle of that battle pack, but very fortunately slipped through without a scratch – but we did lose a few positions avoiding the mayhem. With a long safety car period that followed, we got little in the way of racing laps but still came home 5th, and a further improvement in our lap time.
The weekend’s final race was a terrific tussle at the front, again very evenly matched cars and I found it hard work as we struggled with front grip. But we were still able to improve again to finish the weekend a fighting 4th.
So the weekend was not really the Hollywood result we had hoped for, but it was very pleasing as we were rock solid the entire weekend – cooly and calmly grinding away. We improved every race, was faster each time, and made up 14 places over the weekend in the toughest field in state level history.
We did learn a lot about all the new goodies and how the car has reacted to them, and we set our fastest lap for the weekend on the last lap of the last race, which was back closer to the front running pace. That front pace has stepped forward again since our last Warwick visit, as the “arms race” in the category rages. To give you an idea how close it is… the 21st fastest car was only just over a second off the fastest!
We have set up sheets full of notes on the weekend, and the car now has some tremendous potential and it is a lot more comfortable and consistent to drive, and importantly is reliable. We really had reached the peak with our old engine/suspension combination – but now we have the car just as fast, but with a lot more pace to unlock and that is the exciting thing. It was a half a step back, to get a few steps forward and it will most certainly pay dividends in coming events.
We also now have a very clear idea for what to do with the car when we race in inclement weather!
We have also closed down some points gap in the championship so we hope to make up a few more championship spots (currently 9th) at the last round in November. Dropping the entire first round, and a fair chunk of the 3rd, has hurt us very badly and our championship position is certainly not reflective of the speed we have had.
The next outing for the Excel is a visit to the Big Boys Toys Car show on the Gold Coast on September 23. (Flyer attached) in which Ben from CarCraft has invited us along. Should be a great day.
Thank you again everyone for the fantastic support!
David
11 Sep 2018
