Sandown Hysterics

[BGTV8]

So I had my race car on the track for Sandown Historic (Melbourne, Australia) races last weekend.

It was the first time in 2 and a quarter years I have been in the car, having re-built the front suspension following a RHF ball-joint failure that tore the wheel out of the car (failure occured a very high speed - over 265kph).

Since prior seat time was a problem I was quite conservative in building up to speed (I entered Friday private practice to get additional laps) and was well off PB in quali on Saturday morning (by well over 3 seconds). That was good enough for P2 as the major competition broke a rocker on Friday.

Saturday afternoon race was interesting - I kept over braking the car and having to accelerate up the the apex - I was really struggling to get deep enough under brakes and believe that the car would stop. Sandown has 2 long straights with a big stop from 265kph into T1 (and down from 6th to 3rd) and a solid push into T6 from 255kph down to ~195-200 and 6th to 5th before tipping it into the corner and I could not get my head around how deep I could go.

So it was a case of take 2 or 3 metres each lap and let the times come to me.

The other thing was SWMBO was adamant that racing (and other priveleges) would we withdrawn for a very long time if the car (or me) suffered an efarkeration, so I had the domestic driver-coach whispering in my ear every lap that had to be ignored.

Bottom line was P2 quali and 3 x P1 race finishes so I was pretty chuffed. Pulled over 2.5 seconds out of my quali-time with maybe another 15 tenths still to come ... I forgot just how good this thing is under brakes and the re-engineered front end is brilliant.

Photo's of the accident in 2015 and a couple from last weekend are attached ....

A category video package being edited and will post a link here when available

[GaleForce]

Man, that thing looks like it would be a blast to throw around the track. Excellent job overcoming the haunting words given to you from the Domestic Driving-coach.

[B&W_Evader]

Thanks for sharing! Vids?

[Rusty]

That's a neat looking car. Too bad it was never brought into the states. When you have someone else thoughts in your head. It's hard to keep your mind on things that you are doing.