Polo 9n3 Performance Tracking Thread #2

[sambb]

Natsoft Race Results

I did round 4 of the Whiteline tarmac rallysprints on Thursday night. Car went great without the muffler - seemed to rev quicker through third and I even got into 4th in a couple of spots for the first time which was good.
I had changed from running 205/50/15 A050 mediums to 195/55/15 A050 softs. The plan was to change nothing on the car so I could really test out the difference the tyres made and feel all squared away for Bathurst, but dopey me managed to forget my spacers so there was no comparing apples and apples. The softs generate heat so fast its ridiculous. On the front I was starting on 27psi and finishing on 35psi over 3 km and they would grip straight off the line, so they are going to be spot on at the hillclimbs. The rears were coming up too which the mediums never did. It was a lot easier to control wheelspin on corner exit too. In hindsight I probably could have put the front bar onto hard but I never had the time to do it. Problem was without the spacers the car wasn't picking up its inside rear in the tight stuff and was rolling around a lot more. I'm certain I could have gone a lot quicker if I'd had them but it was fun all the same.
My co driver was sick so I teamed up with another guy in a Suzuki Ignus Sport who's codriver was a no show too. It made the night pretty action packed jumping in and out of each others cars. At one point we missed time control time in the Ignus and we had to go and get a re run card. That put our cars out of sync and at one stage whilst trying to catch up we finished a run in my car, left it running in the pits with the fans on, jumped into the ignus and did a run and then straight through the pits and directly into my car again. It was 36 degrees at sunset so that got pretty punishing but it was fun. He used to be a sponsored kart and formula ford guy in the uk and was basically driver coaching me too which was an added bonus.
I was seeded 32nd from my rd 3 wet result so the challenge was to hold my own against all the big hp cars in the dry. The official result which is an average of your best three runs, I managed to improve and finish 30th so I was pretty stoked with that.

here's a vid. It looks like the lights weren't doing anything but the new spottie was actually brilliant. starts at 1min really:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IvaoJYbSDw

[seangti]

Sam, that looks f'ing terrifying to do at night, haha. Those bollards come up damn quick.

There's a similar event out up here, the bollards are concrete barriers which makes me apprehensive.

The tyre pressure/temps you've mentioned makes me nervous. I've got 225's in A050 soft to go on for timeattack events, 5 hot laps, 4+ sessions. I don't like "cool down" laps.

[sambb]

The scariest bit was going down the long access road where I got into 4th. Its full of depressions and pot holes and you have to try to settle the car to nip through that bollard chicane and it feels so narrow and fast going past that ticket booth. You can't really see it but the round about had grit and dust all around it making it pretty skatey in the braking area. A solid rush that's for sure.
I'm not sure how your format works - if you go out for one warm up lap before you start hooking maybe take that warm up lap real easy rather than 80% because mine were completely different to the mediums, they just came in straight away. Yeah maybe out of the 5 laps you'll have to roll off it in the middle eg bung in 2 quick ones, coast and let the red mist clear for a lap and then go hard for the next two. You have gone wider though so they might not ever over heat. You'll be laughing if its wet though.

[sambb]

Here's a slightly more mental car. This car won rd 2. A mate was chatting to them on Thursday and they pretty nonchalantly said that the car was detuned massively and they estimated it had about 550hp atw. They blew a diff on run one I think it was and had it back up and running and put in their three runs.


Here's a vid of them at rd 2: can you imagine it when they wind the wick up!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3ev0g3n90s

[NGT18T]

holy **** look at that speedo fly haha. Good work sambb would love to get out there 1 day and give it a go.

[sambb]

thanks mate. yeah its just one of these cars that when its on the course everyone just stops and watches (and listens) in awe. I love seeing the older style cars from when I was growing up tearing it up and beating the tricky diff all wheel drivers. It looks like a tarmac special group B.
Next one is Thursday March 16. I'll be co driving a mates Clio 172 RS though. If anyone want to know how to get licensed to do it let me know. No test needed, just pay a car club fee and fill out a CAMS form - all online. $200 will get you co driving at the next event and you'll be able to do competitive timed sprints like hillclimbs, sprints/rally sprints, khanacross, motorkhana for the next year. If you get on it I can definitely get you into some cars at the next event. People are more than happy to take you out - especially if you're light!!!

[h100vw]

thanks mate. yeah its just one of these cars that when its on the course everyone just stops and watches (and listens) in awe. I love seeing the older style cars from when I was growing up tearing it up and beating the tricky diff all wheel drivers. It looks like a tarmac special group B.
Next one is Thursday March 16. I'll be co driving a mates Clio 172 RS though. If anyone want to know how to get licensed to do it let me know. No test needed, just pay a car club fee and fill out a CAMS form - all online. $200 will get you co driving at the next event and you'll be able to do competitive timed sprints like hillclimbs, sprints/rally sprints, khanacross, motorkhana for the next year. If you get on it I can definitely get you into some cars at the next event. People are more than happy to take you out - especially if you're light!!!

Good work Sam

I reckon I have met the Ignis dude down at Wakefield. He can pedal that Suzuki pretty quick.

[sambb]

he said he goes to wakefield a fair bit - his name is James. It only has 85kw crank but he had it up to 45th at one round. There were sections on that track where he would have been pulling a couple of lengths on me for sure. When he can just keep it in second through the sections leading up to the access road he just pure left foot brakes go kart style. At an earlier round one of the guys that had a Porsche 911 RSR who he beat (I'm not kidding) asked to co drive with him to see how the hell he did it and looked pretty deflated afterwards.

[sambb]

Just got back from Mt Panorama after rounds 1 & 2 of the NSW State Hillclimb Championship - basically a huge Bathurst light car club hillclimb event that state competitors join in on.

Saturday was "the esses" where you run the track backwards from the start of Conrod up to Mcphillamy Park. Either the track was somehow very quick after the 12hr and then 1/1/2 weeks of rain or my softs were spot on, but I managed a PB on run 1 which had me 4th in the class on a damp track! which blew me away. It then dried out though and the big horsepower boys got to me but I managed to hang on for 7th out of 23 cars with a 30.16 sec run in the over 2.5L road registered class. I was the smallest capacity car at 3027cc equivalent so I was pretty stoked with that spot. here's a vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J33pbZXaHlk

Round 2 on the sunday starts on top of the crest on mountain straight and runs up to mcphillamy prk in the normal race direction. This is (for me at least) the deadly serious day where I have to risk a fair bit to keep a decent standing amongst the big horsepower V8's. I managed a 55.29 that put me 12th in the class. All I can say is that after 8 runs over two years I finally found the lines across the top and for once managed to have enough testicular mass to not lift too much and actually get the car moving out towards 'the grate'. That alone had me absolutely stoked because that's the most heart in mouth stretch of any track I've ever been to. On each run I'd nail maybe a couple of different parts but stringing it all together into a perfect run proved impossible..... so maybe next year for a better time. I have a vid but even though it was massive for me, I basically look soft so that wont go public.
This is the first year I'll make a proper tilt at the whole championship. Out of the competitors that were registered for the whole state championship I think I came 3rd on each day (official time sheets to come) so I'm glad that at the big horsepower tracks I might have come away with some points to start the year ahead.

[sambb]

NSW state hillclimb championship RD 1 Bathurst 'the esses' results:
http://bathurstlightcarclub.com.au/w...2017-03-04.pdf

4/3/17 road registered class >2.5L PB 30.16 seconds

NSW state hillclimb championship RD 2 Bathurst 'mountain straight' results:
http://bathurstlightcarclub.com.au/w...2017-03-05.pdf

5/3/17 road registered class >2.5L PB 55.29 seconds