2 flat tyres in 2 races
The 4th March was the NSW 410 State Title. I timed well for me with a 12.7sec - good enough for 19th. I was placed in 2nd position for my heat. But due to a bad start I finished in 4th position. Luckily I had done a pretty good time trial, so I made the dash, my second ever! Starting out of 7th, I was a little bit slow and finished in 8th. That put me in 16th for the feature race. Some where along the way I got lapped by the 2 leaders and after a yellow, I was in third on the restart (a lap down) and with that I pushed harder than I ever have before. The leaders got the jump, but I matched them for speed and it turned out that I started to drive away from the cars behind (this is a huge confidence boost, to know that I have what it takes to run with the big guns) after 4 or 5 laps of that I had a spin. I was happy to be off the rear again where I can make some positions. Unfortunately I bounced over the berm and got a couple of foot of air. I came this close to rolling the thing. When I had stopped bouncing I discovered the left rear was off the rim!!!! Why??? I was hoping that it was on it’s way down and that’s why I spun (makes me look better when I can blame something else). There was no damage to the rim or tyre. A bent drag link in the steering and some busted front wing posts was all the damage we had.
The following race was an interesting one, round 19, 11th March. Team owner Robert Broadbent thought it was a good idea to change the diff ratio before the race to try and get some get up and go on the starts and restarts. My confidence was high coming into this race, but the change of gear gave me a whole new car to deal with. I didn’t time well, 13.4sec in position 32. The track was tricky with berms mid corner real rough and greasy, one car even rolled over in time trials. Out of 8th in my heat, but lost 1 position on the start (my excuse is a face full of mud into turn 1) held that position and got 10th in the B. I was racing well for the first 10 laps or so of the B main, then started I to slow up. On a red light with 2 laps to go I found there was only about 2lb of air in my right rear. When we all got rolling again I decided it was too dangerous to race and made my way to the pits and was given a meat ball (defect) flag on my way. When I got to my pit, there was only zero lb of air in the tyre.
Turns out I had a bleeder stick open (basically a pressure relief valve, when the tyre gets hot from friction the air pressure inside increases and we use bleeders to maintain the right air pressure).
PHOTOS BY WENDY