Racing & Sprinting

On the weekend of 8/9 August, the MUCC RAKERS BBs (Baby Boomers) went to Phillip Island to work on our cars and do occasional laps of the circuit. That's how it felt anyway. The real story is, naturally, a little more involved…

Follow up:

Prologue

When assembling the MUCC teams for the 2009 6 hour relay we had, by late March, enough entrants for the desired 3 teams of four.

An early assignment of teams, based on more or less rational grounds was replaced by a revised grouping based, roughly, on generational demographics consisting of the OFs (Old Farts) BBs (Baby Boomers) and XYs (Gen X and Gen Ys).

Though strictly an early Gen X myself, I was made an honourary BB to even up the numbers. Thus I found myself reunited with David McKenzie from the successful 2007 MUCC RAKERS “B” team (officially 4th outright after protests, morally 2nd outright) and teamed with Phillip Island virgins Dinta Officer and Simon Crane.

Pre-event preparation varied widely between team members.

David refitted the rollcage and harness to his otherwise standard Evo8 Lancer, checked the tyres and fluids and left well enough alone.

With the Civic RS already in “tarmac” trim after the Shepparton Shenanigans in June, my main change was the addition of three blue stripes (thanks Golly) to each of the front guards in an attempt to add highlights into the otherwise plain black and white colour scheme. The full make-over was supposed to include matching stripes on the rear quarters as well but time did not permit.

Dinta’s path to the Island was rather bumpier. With Shepparton intended as a bedding-in run for the bronze “grunter” 2.6 litre Galant (a tribute to his 1984 ARC winning car?) he found himself with rather more than fine tuning to do after daughter Zoe’s ‘right turn on a left hand bend’ left the car with a very bent nose. Undeterred, and with a history of working quickly in the face of motorsport adversity, between 28 June and 8 August he found a new shell in north west Victoria and rebuilt it using the drive train and running gear from the bronze car. Having a well equipped workshop and some passing knowledge of Galants no doubt helped.

Simon Crane had entered the event with his race-prepared BMW 2002, a car that was tried and tested and built on a legacy of sound German engineering. Which explains of course why, with 3 weeks to go before the event, he changed his mount to his recently arrived French fancy – an Alpine A310 that, prior to spending some months at sea had been sitting unused in someone’s backyard in the UK. Obviously a more reliable choice.

Saturday 8/08/09

Saturday morning dawned bright clear and windy but, perhaps, not quite so cold as we might have expected given the time of year. More importantly there was no precipitation.

The focus of first practice sessions was to get Dinta and Simon out early so that they could learn the 4.45km circuit and start to get some idea of what times they could do. David and the Lancer quickly settled into the consistent pace that served so well in 2007 while I found the Civic’s new motor was worth around 5 seconds per lap under my times from 2 years ago.

Cracks began to show in our Franco-Japanese alliance when Simon brought the Alpine in early from the second morning practice session with a rattling bottom end. Prudently not wanting to risk further damage he elected to retire the car, with the plan being to cross enter in Dinta’s Galant. With paperwork duly done he was sent out to qualify in the Mitsubishi Marvel in the last afternoon practice session.

My problems began with a “moment” at Lukey Heights in the mid afternoon when a sudden loss of rear end grip saw me heading for the tyre barrier at the flag point. Fortunately I was able to catch it and avoid bending the nose (repaired after Rally Bonnie Doon back in April) and spent a few moments on the infield collecting my thoughts before rejoining the circuit. A momentary loss of grip was, it turned out, just a symptom of a deeper ill as I quickly noticed a strong smell of coolant and the temperature gauge venturing up into the red zone.

An inspection back in the pits showed that the coolant overflow bottle had been pressurised and popped its top – distributing its contents over the right-hand tyres. Coolant being known for it’s low co-efficient of friction, this explained the sudden loss of grip. More worryingly was the fact that the bottle was pressurising in the first place. It quickly became obvious that the cooling jacket was being pressurised – a common symptom of a leaking head gasket.

With the motor cooled down and the coolant topped up, a few speculative laps showed that whilst a leak was clearly present it was not too bad and that while increased revs and load caused the temperature to rise, backing off was met with a corresponding reduction in temperature. 6 or 8 laps conducted in this manner “only” ejected around 1 – 1½ litres of coolant.

Meanwhile the Officer/Crane Galant was showing the strain with a seized starter motor (removed to allow the car to be roll-started so that practice could be completed) and a slight misfire which was traced to a worn out rotor arm and distributor cap.

So at the close of practice at 4:00pm the BBs were not in the best of shape. With only 3 of the original 4 cars running and two of those with problems, things were looking decidedly grim.

Determined to run on Sunday, Dinta headed off following the afternoon driver’s briefing in search of a replacement starter motor and the requisite ignition components. These were eventually obtained in Dandenong so he made it back in time for the team dinner at Cowes, joined by Kate – fresh from the Repco Re-run lunch at Tooborac – and Steve Ashton our Team Operations Manager for Sunday.

Over dinner I pondered what to do about the Civic. Clearly, whatever the origin of the head gasket leak, it could only do one of two things – stay the same or get worse. Based on my tests in the last practice session it seemed it might be OK for 6 or 8 laps at a time – enough to allow for a comfortable driver change-over (including number and Dorian timing transmitter) in the Galant. On the basis that I was up for a new head-gasket anyway I figured I couldn’t do too much more damage – provided I kept a close eye on the temperature. I also consoled myself that the separate oil cooler and remote filter system (with increased oil capacity over standard) was also there to help stabilise temperatures.

Discussing it with Dinta, he suggested that re-torquing the head should help too.

So now I had a plan.

Sunday 9/08/09

6:45am

Sunday morning saw us (royal plural for myself and OF Graham Pate to whom I had given a lift) queued at the circuit gate ready for the 7:00am entry. Once inside, the plan was put into action and after rolling the starterless Galant out of the garage I had space to work on the Civic in relative comfort and cleanliness.

A survey of the MUCC team garages at 7:30am showed a flurry of activity. In addition to the Officer/Crane Galant receiving it’s new starter motor and ignition bits, and the Civic’s head being retorqued, XYer Cale Pearce was struggling with a lack of spark (later traced to a short circuit in the tachometer) in his bright orange Datsun 1600 while other MUCC team members dealt with more routine matters such as checking fluids and tyre pressures.

9:00am

A BB strategy meeting determined that we met the minimum configuration required to start (4 drivers in 3 cars) and a running order was determined.

Dinta would start in the Galant, then I would go out and do six, or perhaps eight, laps in the Civic providing ample breathing space for Simon to change over into the Galant for the third stint while David would go fourth in the Evo while the Galant was returned to “Dinta” configuration – and so the cycle would repeat.

It looked like a good plan.

10:00am

With the pre-start ceremonies completed and XYer Matt Swan on the front row of the grid in the erstwhile rally spec Berlina VL Commodore, the field was flagged off for the first lap. Confident that the plan was now activated I settled into Civic and readied myself to go out when Dinta came in from his 14 lap stint. I, along with my team mates, was therefore surprised when Dinta came in after just 7 laps – clearly all was not well with the Galant.

I headed off on a gentle out lap keeping a close eye on the temperature gauge. With all looking within limits as I crossed the start/finish line I pressed on a little more and ultimately found things still going well after six laps. Not wanting to push my luck I signalled I was coming in after 8 laps. Given the early end to Dinta’s stint I was not surprised to see David waiting in the garage in the Evo when I came in. What was more concerning was when I made my way round to the back of the pits I saw the Galant with the front up on jack stands and Simon working busily underneath.

It seemed the clutch had gone (slipping) and Dinta had set off once more – this time in search of a replacement clutch. Perhaps no one had made clear to him that the object of the exercise was to do laps of the Phillip Island circuit – not the South Gippsland Highway.

With our two-driver car out of action, it was now up to David and I to hold the fort until the Galant could be re-mobilised. In theory, with the two hours per driver maximum, we could keep things going until a little after 2:00pm, however as the Civic was only good for perhaps 6 or 8 laps at a time against the Evo’s 14 lap stints, David would use up his 2 hours long before I did.

While I headed out for my next “mini” stint following David’s return, a quick consultation between our Team manager and the organisers determined that while you had to have 4 drivers in 3 cars at the start of the event, there was no prohibition on additional cross entry of drivers into team cars if others fell by the wayside. With this knowledge in hand, Simon was promptly re-entered into the Evo, where he would alternate stints with David.

Feeling emboldened by my relatively trouble free first 8 laps, I decided to try for 10 laps this time. Not one of my better decisions. Halfway through my 9th lap I saw the tell-tale spray of coolant from the right hand side of the bonnet as the overflow bottle “popped” (fortunately I was not hard into Lukey Heights at the time) and I had to pull into the pits without giving any notice to Tristan and Mark on the pit wall.

David went out for his second stint in the Evo and I retired behind the pits to survey the situation.

12:00 pm

With the motor allowed to cool a little I topped up the coolant and started the car again to see what would happen. It came up to temperature and then stayed in the lower reaches of the gauge. For good measure I cracked the cooling system bleed nipple to check that there was no air in the system and prepared to go out for a few laps after David came in to give time for Simon to take over the Evo.

Sadly my out-lap was my only lap as the temperature rapidly went to the “too hot” end of the scale so I came straight in, catching the still-getting-ready Simon by surprise. Nonetheless he managed to “scramble” the Evo and head out for his first session.

With the Evo out on the track I once again retired behind the pits.

Somewhere along the line someone suggested that some radiator stop-leak might help. Originally reticent to go sticking this gunk into my motor I was persuaded partly by the appearance of a well travelled but unused bottle of Loctite product from Matt Swan’s seemingly endless parts kit and partly by Kate’s enthusiasm to keep things going until Dinta got back (it was apparent by this time that he had headed to his workshop in North Melbourne as he was unable to locate a suitable clutch kit closer to the Island).

With the green goo mixed up with water in a bucket and the radiator drained, I poured it in then cranked the motor over. Kate kept it idling for the 10 minutes directed on the bottle while I cleaned up ready for my next stint. After all, the directions on the bottle noted that after idling for 10 minutes you need to drive for 50km. I had the perfect place to do it.

After the Evo came in from it’s 14 laps with Simon behind the wheel I headed out to see how things would go and had a tremendous bout of luck. As I was coming around to complete my out lap, an oil spill at the top end of the circuit brought out the yellow flags closely followed by the safety car. There followed four very sedate (40 – 60km/h) laps behind the safety car; hardly a strain on man or machine. Even though the laps were taking in the region of 5 – 6 minutes (well outside the 3 minute “slow lap” limit), they all counted without penalty because they were done under safety car conditions. After nearly 20 minutes of this I got the “IN” sign from Tristan and Matt and duly came into the pits after a useful (for the team), but hardly exciting 4 lap stint.

Not long after Simon went out in the Evo for his next stint Dinta returned with a clutch and there was frantic activity under the Galant as it was re-installed with the collective efforts of he and Graham Pate, urged on and assisted by Kate. I wondered perhaps whether Dinta’s nostalgia trip had gone too far this time. It is one thing building a 2.6litre grunter Galant, but did he really need to do a mid-event clutch change to feel in the spirit?

With Simon due in from his second session while the Galant repair crew was still busy, David and I needed to buy them more time whilst keeping within the 2 hours maximum per driver.

2:00pm

Not wanting strain the Civic’s ailing motor more than necessary, Steve and I calculated that to do steady 2:45 laps (comfortably within the 3 minute limit and much easier on the car than the 2:25 of which it was formerly capable), I needed to average around 98km/h. I set off on my out-lap, knocking 10km/h off my speed on various corners and 20km/h off my target speed down the main straight. By this time the connection between the temperature gauge and the accelerator (via the head gasket) was becoming increasingly direct. After four laps, which all turned out to be around the 2:38 mark, I got the “IN” board and handed over to David for what was to be his penultimate stint

By this time I was more than 90 minutes into the 2 hour allowance as was David, so rather than leaving the Evo out for a full stint, the IN board went out at 10 laps and I headed off again to see just how direct the link between right foot and boiling coolant had become.

After just 3 “leisurely (2:40ish) laps I was shown the IN board and was hugely relieved to see Dinta sitting in the Galant ready to go when I came in.

The BBs finished the event with Dinta doing a full 14 laps stint in the Galant, followed by David using up nearly all of his 2 hour maximum with another 6 laps in the Evo, leaving Dinta to run a further 6 laps and take the chequered flag for the team at the end of an arguably chequered run.

4:00pm

So how did we fare? To our amazement, interim results issued at midday (2 hours in) had us 1st outright, however it turned out that Simon’s lap times in the Evo 8 were much faster than the target he’d established in the Galant, and Dinta’s times in the re-fettled Galant were also too often faster than his nominated time. Though this resulted in some bonus laps being awarded, the penalty laps accumulated at an alarming rate. My increasingly slower lap rate (safety car notwithstanding) didn’t help either

The outcome was that in the 4 hours between midday and the end of the event we fell from 1st to 42nd.

Having said that, just to still be running at the end felt like a major achievement. 24 hours earlier I had been ready to call it quits, have David and Dinta join the other two MUCC teams and leave it at that. Even allowing that I now have to clean green gunk out of my motor (and radiator and heater core) as well as replacing the head gasket, I’m glad to have done it, to have been part of such a determined effort. By my calculations, Dinta covered around 475km on the roads between Phillip Island, Dandenong and Melbourne and only 182km on the track (including practice), but his grin at the end said it all.

My thanks to our Ops Manager Steve Ashton, pit wall timing/signalling crew of Tristan King and Matt Frankenberg and overall Team Manager Paul Franklin. Thanks also to Kate and the other MUCC members who helped out on the day in small ways and large. I noted, around 5:30pm on Sunday that in keeping with MUCC’s rallying tradition we even had someone running “sweep” with Dave Gallacher pushing a broom around the nearly vacated team garages.

Roll on 2010.

Michael Seidler