well, the first round of the 2006 Hillclimb Series was yesterday, and after waiting 6 months I finally got a proper run at Mt Cotton in the GTR. Weather was fine (and hot!), and the track conditions were good.

My best time in the 1200 was a 48.37 with the good Stewart Wilkins engine. A pretty good time for an U2L car. I only know of 3 U2L cars that have ever gone under 48 seconds.

We got 5 runs yesterday, and my times went like this
48.28
47.64
47.38
47.16
46.80

so 1.57 sec faster so far, which is OK, but not up to its potential yet. The 1200 was definitely alot faster through the corners, especially the sweeping loops at the top of the hills, and it was more fun because of that. But there's alot of scope for improvement int he GTR's suspension setup yet!

it was good enough for second in class, beaten only by the class record holder, but its daylight between him and the rest of the field.

bear in mind though that the GTR is stock apart from exhaust, Mines chipped ECU, and coilovers. even the boost is at standard factory level atm, not that you can go too much higher on the standard ceramic turbos.

This event was just to get a baseline time before I start tweaking the suspension, so I can see what improvements it makes to the times. It was suffering from alot of understeer on the tight Mt Cotton layout - something that really hasn't been a problem anywhere else. And it lifted an inside rear a few times on some of the tight, banked, 1st gear corners which made the transitions to acellerating out of those turns interesting... Sort those things out and a low 46 should be on the cards, I reckon.

The gap between first and second gears is also just big enough to be a problem when changing up on those steep hills. I have it on good authority that going up to the standard turbos' max safe boost of 1bar makes alot more midrange punch though, so that might be the easiest fix for that issue. That would also help on the return run through the hairpin which I take at fairly low revs in 2nd gear. But I'll save that for the 3rd round of the series.

oh, and the 1200 never did flame-outs like the GTR sometimes does! That got the commentators talking! They won't believe me that its basically stock!