![\"Grubby](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Snapchat-4103228729007954939.jpg?resize=225%2C400&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\nMotorsport is a fickle mistress.<\/p>\n
As noted in the previous post, the plan was two days of racing this weekend, firstly up north of Napier then a second day over in the Waiararapa.\u00a0 Day one happened, but we had to withdraw from day two unfortunately with a suspected blown or stuffed turbo.\u00a0 To be fair, it’s likely that this particular turbo has done 250,000kms since the car was new.\u00a0 Some of those kms, particularly in the last 30,000 since I’ve had the car have been a little bit enthusiastic.\u00a0 As one of the few remaining original bits, not really much of a surprise that it has had enough.<\/p>\n
Some discussions are being had and budget numbers are being crunched to figure out the plan of attack for making it good again.\u00a0 One of the options is to fit the slightly better VF30 turbo that I had in the last car as an upgrade.\u00a0 At the same time the Link G4 engine management system will need to be installed and tuned.\u00a0 And if I’m doing that, then I might as well get the intake restrictor fitted in order to meet Rally regulations so I can actually enter rally events, particularly Rally NZ next year which is my current goal.\u00a0 And probably a few other tweaks and things while that work is being done.\u00a0 So it’s all stuff that on the list, just needs doing sooner than anticipated.\u00a0 May just go the simpler short term solution of replacing the current turbo with the same model.
\nWe shall see what conclusions we come to later this week.<\/p>\n
Anyway, the weekend wasn’t all bad.\u00a0 We cruised up to Napier through some fairly wet weather on Friday evening, arriving at the motel to realise that I’d forgotten to pack breakfast (I had one job….).\u00a0 Whoops.\u00a0 Google “supermarket nearest to me” came back with “8 min walk”.\u00a0 Sweet, that’ll do.\u00a0 Turned out it was under 5 mins as, like most walking times, they are somewhat pessimistic.\u00a0 Sorted.\u00a0 All that was left to do was set the alarm and get some sleep.<\/p>\n
Saturday dawned still wet with the forecast for showers continuing through the day.\u00a0 Breakfast, pack up, depart for the venue, via BP as always.<\/p>\n
About a 45 min drive from Napier to Mokamoka Rd which was to be the venue for the days action.\u00a0 Sorted the usual documentation, unpacked and got the car set up including changing from road wheels to gravel wheels.\u00a0 All done in the rain which set the tone for the day.\u00a0 Basically everything being wet.\u00a0 Fun times.<\/p>\n
At drivers briefing we found out they were going to run a tiki tour convoy up the road followed by practice, then 3 official runs, then an elimination shootout of the top 8 in each class (4WD or 2WD), top 4 of each and finally the top 2 in each class.\u00a0 This was useful as a few of us hadn’t been to this road before and in our case, meant a chance to double check the pace notes we’d made from a couple of videos found on YouTube.\u00a0 Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were quite a few changes to some of the more optimistic notes.\u00a0 I suspect the video I’d been watching was done on wide angle which tends to make the corners look more open than they actually are.\u00a0 But that is part of the fun.\u00a0 The original notes weren’t meant to be 100% accurate, but more of a base to work from on the event itself.\u00a0 Even the same events from year to year will potentially change in places for any number of reasons.<\/p>\n
Back in the pits after the tiki tour, a few minutes to get the rest of our gear sorted and head to the start line for practice where we’re running 4th car in our group which is also the first group to go.\u00a0 So off we went.\u00a0 Very wet conditions still, but at least that meant no dust to contend with.\u00a0 And being an early car on the road, quite slippery still.\u00a0 Completed the run successfully and made a few more adjustments to the notes.\u00a0 Checked the times after that and we were pretty much at the back of the field.\u00a0 Not surprised, also not bothered.\u00a0 Having fun is the aim currently.\u00a0 Getting more experience on gravel and learning the car is the game.\u00a0 I’m unlikely to be anywhere near the front runners in the 4WD class.\u00a0 That’s where the really fast people play.<\/p>\n
It didn’t take long before it was time to line up again.\u00a0 Only 20 or so entries meant for a quick turnaround between runs.\u00a0 Fiddled with the tyre pressure, double checked the changes to the notes and it was time for the first official run.\u00a0 Actually pretended that I knew what I was doing, took notice of the notes in a few places where I might have lifted off and generally drove a lot better.\u00a0 The results agreed, taking 20 seconds off the practice run time.\u00a0 Sweet.\u00a0 No complaints about that, and still plenty of places to improve.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Another half hour in the pits while group 2 had their run, then, once again, time to line up.\u00a0 Camera on, diff set, 3..2..1..go.\u00a0 Like in the previous run, pushed a bit harder, listened to a few more notes and got more into the rhythm (of driving, not musical notes and rhythm).\u00a0 Got to the finish line.\u00a0 Hmm, 4 seconds faster again.\u00a0 Not as much as I’d hoped for considering I was still languishing down the trailing end of the field, but ok, it’s still an improvement.\u00a0 I’ll take it.<\/p>\n
I wandered back down to the HQ caravan to discover a note posted saying they were going to drop the 3rd official run and just go straight to the shootout rounds to limit the road cutting up too much i the wet.\u00a0 Hmm, that would mean that my last run was the one I’d just finished.\u00a0 Rude.\u00a0 Initiated some discussion with other competitors and the Clerk of the Course around the options and offered the suggestion of keeping the 3rd official so at least everyone got that much, and then go to the Top 8 round rather than starting at Top 16.\u00a0 Reduces the number of runs still but means everyone still got their 3 official runs, particularly as some, like us, had travelled reasonable distances to enter.\u00a0 That seemed to be acceptable to the officials, so we headed back to get ready for the final run.<\/p>\n
Knowing that this was definitely going to be my last run of the day as there wasn’t any chance I could get into the Top 4 4WD’s, I decided to keep pushing and see what sort of improvement I could make as I was, at that stage, sitting one second behind the next person in my class.\u00a0 The usual startline routine, gear on, cameras on, datalogger on, diff set, crawl up to the line, time card handed over and then returned with out start time.\u00a0 30 seconds.
\nNervous energy builds as always.
\n3…2…1…go<\/p>\n
And we’re off into the first tight left hander, struggling for grip again, pushing a bit wide but staying well within the road.\u00a0 Think some new front tyres might be needed soon.\u00a0 Listening to the notes more intently this time and making sure I drive to them as well as what I can see.\u00a0 Feels like I’m carrying more speed through the corners and pushing harder.\u00a0 Certainly the most comfortable I’ve been all day and enjoying the run.\u00a0 Soon enough 6 left over finish and we’re done.\u00a0 Hmm, only 0.7 seconds faster according to the datalogger.\u00a0 That doesn’t seem right compared to how it felt, but the time card confirms it.\u00a0 Weird.\u00a0 We both felt that was a lot quicker.\u00a0 We put it down to sometimes how it feels doesn’t match the actual speed.\u00a0 Still, overall, happy with the day, car is still straight and a lot of fun was had.\u00a0 All that’s left is to tour back to the pits and pack up to come home.
\nHanded back all the numbers and signs that belonged to the event, loaded the car up back on road wheels and headed back out to the main road to tour back to Napier for a fuel top up and the drive home.<\/p>\n
![\"Grubby](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Snapchat-3236830133771927075.jpg?resize=225%2C400&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n
Hmm, wait a minute, what’s that noise.\u00a0 Don’t remember that from earlier.\u00a0 Seems to be whining when it’s on boost.\u00a0 Odd.\u00a0 Boost looks ok but doesn’t feel as powerful as I remember.\u00a0 Oh bugger.\u00a0 Think we might have a blown turbo.\u00a0 Message to my friendly Subaru specialist agrees that that might be the case, but not 100% confirmed as it could be a boost leak.<\/p>\n
So, a gentle cruise home using minimal boost and parked up in the garage while I figure out what to do about it.\u00a0 It’s a shame to have missed another gravel event, but that’s unfortunately the way motorsport goes some days.\u00a0 Checking the videos, it looks like it started in the 2nd official run as you can start to hear it in the footage.\u00a0 Certainly even more clearly in the third and final run which I have posted up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Overall, we still enjoyed the trip and the day.\u00a0 Big thanks to Hawkes Bay Car Club for putting on the event. Well worth the trip away.\u00a0 We will definitely be keen to try to make it again next time they run it.\u00a0 As well as looking at popping up again in October for the second round of their rallysprint series.<\/p>\n For now though, some investigation into options and logistics.\u00a0 And probably some Lego building if I’m not off around the country to get stuff done on the car.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Motorsport is a fickle mistress. As noted in the previous post, the plan was two days of racing this weekend, firstly up north of Napier then a second day over in the Waiararapa.\u00a0 Day one happened, but we had to withdraw from day two unfortunately with a suspected blown or stuffed turbo.\u00a0 To be fair, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-74","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-car-projects","7":"category-race-car","8":"category-racing","9":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7RrqC-1c","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83,"href":"https:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}