Hey guys....thanks for all the support.

After a promising start to the weekend, we struggled with car set-up all day Saturday. Qualifying was at 9am Saturday, and the track was wet - but drying in places. We increased tyre pressures for the wet conditions, and the car did really well, in fact we went quicker with a 1:10.84 ......Considering the conditions I was over the moon, and we had qualified 13th (out of 23). The only casualty was a badly flat spotted front left tyre, which was rotated to the back of the car.

For Race 1, we changed the ride height of the car - up 5mm front and rear due to tyres scrubbing. THe car was awesome off the start, As soon as we grabbed second gear, we were accelerating quicker than the rotories and even a couple of V8 Commodores. After three laps, the rear tyres went off badly and it was then just a case of trying to keep the car on the track.... End result was a 12th place finish. The dissapointing thing was our lap times were 1:11.4 and another flat spotted front left.

Race 2 - Another awesome start, we had moved up to 10th by the time we got to the top of the hill. Coming down in to the fish hook, I was following an RX7 through the inside of another competitor, when the other guy turned in on me I grabbed a handful of steering to try and avoid contact, but with cold tyres we understeered straight into the door fo the RX3. The RX3 spun and we were both sitting there Hoping the rest of the field would get by without carnage.... We were pretty lucky not to get cleaned up. From there, I worked my way back up to 13th place from the back of the field....again slow lap times 1:11.4

Race 3...... I was desperate to get some more pace out of the car, so I lowered the rear ride height of the car back to where it was in qualifying....the flatspotted tyres were on the back...so who cares if they scrub! End result was a much better car. Even though our times were only 1:11.1, the rest of the field was slower than the earlier races, while we went quicker..... this resulted in a great race...lots of close racing and overtaking.....end result was a 10th place finish.....GOAL ACHIEVED! Over the moon.

We now have another long list of things to do on the car before we race again. The list is so long we will skip Round 2, and invest that money in to the car ready for round 3 at Oran Park in June.

Thanks again guys for all the support.

Mark.

Here is a pic of the damage we picked up in race 2. Bar needs to be replaced, as does the front drivers side guard.

top 10 - good work!

I'm sure the car will get faster as the season goes on.

verry nice, top 10!!. 1st or 10th top ten is top ten. i bet you can getinto top 3 by the next 2 races. look foward to hearing the race report from the next races

Lucky you picked up that spare shell from me!!!

That's for sure!

Ihave another bumper which is at someone elses place....apparently perfect condition - maybe I shouldn't tempt fate by using a perfect one.

The damage is only superficial, however, I am leaning heavily towards goping with fibreglass flares in the future. The cost of having new guards flared or repaired each time we have a rub is a PITA. Not only that, but it means I have to take the car to them to have it fixed. Fibreglass ones I can do myself, and then just take the panel to the paint shop.

We may even look at replacing the beautiful steel flares on the back.... I have found a way (within the rules) to get the car about 20mm lower, but it means quite a bit of cutting in the rear wheel arches, so the rear may get fibreglass units also - just need to find some flare which will fit AND look good.

Mark.