Close Racing

2007 MT. BULLER SPRINT

2007-11-19T20:44:00.000+11:00

Click MT. BULLER SPRINT WEBSITE and go to results.

Mt Buller Sprint

2007-11-19T18:24:00.000+11:00

Unfortunately, the weather gods were not shining on us for the first 2 days of the Mt Buller Sprint. With the temperature barely above zero and fog over a large part of the road, day one and two were restricted to one run each day. With many cars leaving the road we opted for survival!
As Mt Buller Sprint is an "unlimitted tyre" competition, we are at a disadvantage to the smaller shod pocket rockets as we cannot get the compound choice in our huge rear tyres (295 x 18).

We woke up on Monday morning to brilliant sunshine and the competition fired up with all four stages being run, and this allowed us to put our "hard" compound tyres to good use.

We managed to post a 2nd, 1st, 2nd & 2nd over the course of the day. The only "car" to post a quicker time than us was the purpose build Skelta.

Due to our caution in the first two days in the atrocious conditions we finished 1st in class and 8th outright on aggregate.

Check out the condition in this in-car from the prologue:

Thanks (again!) to RDA

2007-09-24T15:58:00.000+10:00

Many thanks go out to our naming sponsor Rotors and Drums Australia (RDA) in conjuntion with EBC brakes.

We were a late nomination for the SunCoast Classic, and if it were not for RDA'S generous support we would not have made it to the start line. RDA'S support has allowed us to put development into the car and this is paying dividends now.

We are now gearing up for the Mt Buller sprint (3rd-5th November) and face a quality field of 100 cars.

Third Outright in SunCoast Classic!

2007-09-24T15:31:00.000+10:00

After running 2nd for the greater part of the SunCoast Rally, we were narrowly edged out to 3rd with a "do-or-die" effort from the Grant Denyer/Dale Moscat Subaru on the last Stage, beating us by 4 seconds (after 160km of racing!).

We finished 3rd outright, 1st in our Class, 1st in our Category, 1st Husband & Wife team, and also set the record time Outright on the famous Noosa Hillclimb (59.71secs)

http://www.suncoastclassic.com.au/sc07/results/leg4_Modern.pdf

We were pretty pleased with our result as we thought we were out of the Rally on day one when the gear selector cables jammed in gear. We were stuck in 2nd gear for 2 stages and only managed to recover 2nd, 4th and 6th gears for the remaining 2 stages on day one.

Luckily, we were able to fit new selector cables overnight and got back into the fray on Saturday (day 2). (Many thanks to Racesport PCM and Wayne Hennig at Noosa Cat!)

This was the first of hopefully many more SunCoast Classic Rallys and it proved to be a cracker! The organisation was brilliant and the roads were awesome - very fast and lots of scary air time!!

Suncoast Rally July 4-8th Noosa

2007-06-01T12:49:00.000+10:00

We are currently preparing the car for the newest Tarmac Rally in Australia - the Suncoast Rally, and are pretty excited to be part of it!

Silverstone Events Australia are organising the event and if it is anything like what they put on in Adelaide Classic Rally, it should be a cracker. The roads in this area are something else!

We were a late entry to this Rally, but great support from our sponsor ROTORS & DRUMS AUSTRALIA has allowed us the ability to make the trip north to sunny Queensland.

Roll on Suncoast Rally!

Targa Tasmania Wrap-up

2007-05-03T16:18:00.000+10:00

After a pretty dismal Day 1, on some of the bumpier roads in Targa, we struggled to keep a competative pace. We finished the day in 11th outright, but happy to survive.

After some overnight changes to the suspension by RaceSport and a change in tyre pressure, we were able to start clawing our way up the standings.

By the end of Day 5, we were happy to be in 6th place outright (just 6 seconds behind Tony Quinn in the new 997 Turbo).

We finished 1st in Class, 1st in Catagory, 1st Husband and Wife/Family Team and 6th Outright!

Just finishing this event is sometimes a relief, such is the intensity - particularly without a scratch on our baby!

Thanks must go to our major sponsor RDA & EBC Brakes.
Your support and enthusiasm has been awsome.

We managed to get through the entire Targa (over 2000kms) on 1 set of EBC "Yellow Stuff" and without a change of discs! Awsome stopping power on a 1500kg + car!
www.rdabrakes.com.au/

Thank for the technical help from Daniel at JustBrakes!
www.justbrakes.com.au

Also a big thanks to Porsche Centre Melbourne/ RaceSport.
To Karl and the Team - thanks for delivering a reliable weapon. The car did not miss a beat and the daily service and managing of the car was a credit to your Team.
www.porschemelbourne.com.au/

Support from Rob Raymer at RSR Services is also greatly appreciated.
www.rsrservices.com.au

Last but not least, many thanks to Chris Stannard with his unflappable support from Port Huon Marina. Practical jokes aside, it was a pleasure to be involved with you again.

A huge thanks to you all. - Onwards and Upwards!

For individual stage results go to:
http://www.justimagine.com.au/targa2007

First In Prologue.

2007-05-03T15:58:00.000+10:00

Our Targa Tasmania got off to the best start we could have hoped for. FIRST OUTRIGHT!

We knew we had a great run but you never know until all the times start rolling in.

The work the guys at Race Sport put in had really paid off. The power delivery was so much smoother and the electrical gremlins had disappeared.

We were pleased but not getting too far ahead of ourselves - Targa is a marathon where car reliability and huge concentration demands are critical factors.

Although we nailed a great time in the prologue, I knew we would struggle on some of the bumpy stages (particularly on Day 1). We are running a very stiff setup which delivers brilliant speed on smooth roads, but tends to get us airborne on the bumps.

(In time we will make some changes however for this rally we had other priorities in the very short preparation time.)

Porsche Centre Melbourne - RaceSport

2007-05-03T15:41:00.000+10:00

We have enlisted the very professional services of the Porsche Centre Melbourne and their "Race Sport" division.
The Race Sport team is headed up by Karl Batson and offers a brilliant race car preparation and service centre which is, I believe unique to any Porsche Dealer in Australia.

It was a pretty easy choice in the end as the experience these guys have with Porsche race cars and in particular the highly complex Porsche Turbo is enormous.

Major Sponsor comes aboard. RDA

2007-05-03T13:39:00.000+10:00

We are proud to announce Rotors & Drums Australia (RDA) and EBC Brakes have come aboard as our major sponsor. The cars new livery was unveiled in the recent Rally Tasmania and drew a lot of positive responses from both competitors and spectators.

We used Rally Tasmania to fine tune the car for a serious assalt on Targa Tasmania. It was a little disappointing to end the Rally 2 stages short of the finish with electrical problems related to the highly complex Stability Management and ABS controllers. Up until this point we were in a comfortable 6th position outright and learning more about the car ever stage.

We thank RDA for their support and look forward to a successful partnership in Tarmac Rallies.

www.rdabrakes.com.au

Mt Buller Sprint

2007-01-13T13:58:00.000+11:00

In-car footage from Mt Buller Sprint

Targa Tas 2007!

2007-01-11T15:04:00.000+11:00

We are now preparing for Targa 07. As a lead up we will be entering Rally Tasmania, which is a 3 day event in February held in the North West Coast of Tasmania.
It will give us valuable practice and an idea on things like tyre wear, brake wear and fuel consumption.

We are also actively seeking more sponsorship (like everyone!) as the colour of the car ("safety black") is a little bland!

(photo thanks to Andy Bissett)

5th Outright in First Hit-out!

2007-01-11T13:44:00.000+11:00

November 2006, Mount Buller Sprint was our first run in anger with the new car.

It was a steep learning curve for us as the sheer acceleration of this car is phenomenal. The brakes are also incredible, with Ceramic EBC Yellow pads doing the job on the 360mm front discs.

5th Outright, (and first Porsche) was a pleasing result, with no "moments".

Many thanks to our sponsors: RSR Services, Just Brakes & EBC

www.justbrakes.com.au

www.rsrservices.com.au

(photo thanks to Andy Bissett)