SHGWAG Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Where & when is your next race? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archetype Posted February 26, 2013 Author Share Posted February 26, 2013 Taupo, Easter weekend. Last round of the series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truenotch Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Bring bore blankets next time! Another good weekend as usual... What's next for this car? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archetype Posted February 26, 2013 Author Share Posted February 26, 2013 Haha, the crisp night time temperature caught me out a little. I can tell you that trying to roll a thin foam mattress around you doesn't help at all. We've got a bach sorted for Taupo though, so all good. I'm not too sure what's next for the car at this stage. My main goal is to finish the season without any major dramas, and I kinda need the club to finally decide what is happening with the idea of a sub-class in the Mazda Pro7 Racing series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archetype Posted May 1, 2013 Author Share Posted May 1, 2013 So my last round for the season came and went without any major dramas at Taupo back in Easter. I managed to qualify in front of one of the Pro7 Plus cars again, and finished 7th in race 1, 7th in race 2, and 8th in race 3. Placings didn't really mean much to me throughout the season though, as my main aim was to get some experience, drop my lap times down, and have some fun. Like Manfeild, track 1 at Taupo is a bit difficult if you're down on power like my car is. It's a lot of fun through the infield though, and I can generally keep up with the Pro7 Plus cars until we get to the straights. There is one particular corner that I continued to struggle with, and I always seemed to pull up too short and get on the power too early. On my last qualifying lap, I decided to really push my braking point and had a huge lock up, which resulted in a massive flat spot on my front left tyre: Lucky it was the end of the season, and my tyres were all buggered anyway. I was the only car competing in the budget-spec Pro7 class this season, so my points were included in the Pro7 Plus results, which inevitably meant that I would be at the bottom of the points table. I finished 8th out of 9, beating one competitor due to him missing a few of the rounds. I wasn't too far off beating one of the Pro7 Plus cars overall though (who had competed in all rounds), so that was pretty good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikuni Posted May 1, 2013 Share Posted May 1, 2013 Which corner is it that you struggle with? And what is the plan for the future; are more people building Pro7 Minus cars, are you going to turn yours into a Plus, continue racing in your own class by yourself, or sell and race in the MX5 class? (not meant in a bad way, just interested to see if the class is growing or what the plans are) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anglia4 Posted May 2, 2013 Share Posted May 2, 2013 I'm interested to know which corner too. I was racing in the NZGT's at that meeting as well, my first time racing ever. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHGWAG Posted May 2, 2013 Share Posted May 2, 2013 Giz a hoon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archetype Posted May 2, 2013 Author Share Posted May 2, 2013 T11 is the corner I was struggling with: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archetype Posted May 2, 2013 Author Share Posted May 2, 2013 Giz a hoon Bring your car to a track day at Hampton Downs and we can have swapsies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHGWAG Posted May 2, 2013 Share Posted May 2, 2013 Could be keen. You will be surprised at how much of a pig it is ATM, desperately needs a decent tune put in it. You will also provide valuable insight in to suspension set up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archetype Posted May 2, 2013 Author Share Posted May 2, 2013 Which corner is it that you struggle with? And what is the plan for the future; are more people building Pro7 Minus cars, are you going to turn yours into a Plus, continue racing in your own class by yourself, or sell and race in the MX5 class? (not meant in a bad way, just interested to see if the class is growing or what the plans are) There is 1 other Pro7 Minus car being built at the moment that I know of, which will be ready for this coming season. John Forster raced his RX-8 with us this past season too, which is in the same budget spec class as me in theory, but it was quite a lot slower. There are 2 or 3 more RX-8s being built at the moment which should be racing this coming season too. So my options are: - Keep my car at the same specs as it is currently, and hope that there will be some more cars to compete with. I'll still need to spend a reasonable amount of time and money on the car if I do this, as my engine is in need of a rebuild. The engine has never been rebuilt and the oil seals are stuffed. I was hoping to get through 2 seasons before I had to do this, but oh well. I went through 5 litres of oil at the last round, and the car is fairly smokey. It starts well, runs well, and isn't too bad power-wise (bearing in mind that it's an old engine, and doesn't have the intake modifications that the Pro7 Plus cars have), but it really needs to be done. - Upgrade to Pro7 Plus I only built this car because of the proposed introduction of the budget-spec class, as building a Pro7 Plus car was out of my price range. I liked the option of being able to upgrade to Pro7 Plus spec in a few years time if I wanted too, but I don't really want to be forced into the Plus class due to a lack of numbers and a change of direction from the club. You're looking at at least $30,000 to build a competitive Pro7 Plus car, and I know 1 of the cars currently racing cost $50,000+ to build, and another one in the south island was $64,000 (!). I'd probably need to spend between $10,000-$15,000 to get my car up to Pro7 Plus spec (including an engine rebuilt), and I'm not that keen on spending that kind of money to go 2-3 seconds a lap quicker. - Give the upcoming season a miss and do the season after that instead. I feel like I would be giving up too easily if I did this, but it would give me a chance to recover financially so I could compete in the next season without being on the bones of my arse. Between building the RX-7, setting up the KiwiMotoring website, doing a full season of racing, and having a Honda Civic race car built at the same time - it's been a fairly expensive 12-18 months. During this time I wasn't able to work in/on my design/marketing business either due to lack of time, so I had less income too. We're also saving up to hopefully buy a piece of land next year to build a house/giant shed. So every $1000 I spend is about $4000 less that we can put towards our property. The MX5 class would be cool to do as well/instead, but I think I should focus on the race cars that I already own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anglia4 Posted May 2, 2013 Share Posted May 2, 2013 I found that corner quite challenging too. You have to go really deep into the corner before you turn and get a really late apex to get good drive onto the straight. Quite easy in the mustang to turn in a little too early and end up understeering out of the corner over the ripple strip and into the dirt haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikuni Posted May 2, 2013 Share Posted May 2, 2013 Oh yes, I should have guessed it would be that corner. Kind of like the last corner at Manfield (was Dunlop, now Pepsi?). They both also have a high entry speed making it a little harder to set the car up right. I always go around them feeling like I could have gone heaps faster. I think option "slow rebuild and fix any issues while waiting out the 13/14 season in prep for house/epic shed and hit 14/15 season hard" is probably a wise decision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archetype Posted May 2, 2013 Author Share Posted May 2, 2013 Yeah Pepsi at Manfeild is a tricky one - I had a spin on that corner. I went off into the gravel on T11 at Taupo when I did the big lock up which resulted in that flat spotted tyre (pic above). Both of these times that I went off, it was due to my foot slipping off the brake and I ended up going in waaay too deep. The problem is from a combination of a big gap between my brake and accelerator pedal and a bad heel/toe technique. I touched the back of Tim Forster's car through Splash at Manfeild because of this too. I should really make it a priority to fix that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archetype Posted May 2, 2013 Author Share Posted May 2, 2013 I suppose there's always the option of just doing a few rounds this season, but I'm more of an 'all or nothing' kind of person. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archetype Posted May 13, 2013 Author Share Posted May 13, 2013 The RX-7 is on display at Sky City Hamilton for a couple of days this week as part of a conference that I have being doing some design/print work for. I had to drive it on the street in the middle of town briefly, which was fun. I would very much enjoy having this car road registered. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHGWAG Posted May 13, 2013 Share Posted May 13, 2013 FD Cruise? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truenotch Posted May 14, 2013 Share Posted May 14, 2013 Driving racecars on the road is so much fun! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archetype Posted May 14, 2013 Author Share Posted May 14, 2013 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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