Boxing day
Doorslammer Invitational at WSID’s Boxing Day Event
The past three months we have been building our second engine and preparing to race at the Doorslammer Invitational at WSID’s Boxing Day Event ( 26th & 27th December 2006). Dad, Katie and I have spent many weekends and late nights in the shed getting the car ready for the race. We first fired the engine up about a week before the race and had a big oil leak. The rear main needed resealing. The next day we started it up again. There were some minor leaks around the cylinder heads but nothing alarming, we sealed it with silicon. The Saturday before the race we noticed that the silicon hadn’t stopped the leaks so we decided that we needed to get the gaskets re heat treated. This put us back a lot of hours we were hoping to have the trailer packed ready to go that day, the blower and cylinder heads were off the car after some quick thinking and some help from Sainty’s workshop we were ready to reassemble, fire it up one last time and put it on the trailer. We finished late Saturday night and dropped the trailer at the track Sunday morning (Xmas Eve) so we could relax before race day. Christmas day we had lunch with my wife’s family at Wayne Newby’s house and then Xmas night at my folks house. Gary Phillips and family were down from QLD (to race his Top Alcohol dragster) and they joined my family for Xmas. There were three rounds of qualifying on the first day with racing on day 2. To start the day we had to get the car both tech inspected and scrutineered. It passed! Track officials let me have a solo in qual 1, there was alot of new stuff for me, and I didn’t need the extra pressure of someone beside me!
My first pass was in the left lane. I couldn’t see the tree (it’s left hand drive and the blower is in the way)” lucky I had that solo, it gave me the time to move around and get a glance. The car launched hard and shook just after 60ft, (first time for me!) I got off it, the car settled down, got on it again the car turned left, again then coasted through. Unfortunately there was some oil on the track. The tyre shake caused a leak in the dry sump.
We cleaned up the mess and prepared the car for the qual 2. We took a heap of clutch out to try and settle the car. I cut a fairly good reaction time .084. The car launched a bit better but headed towards the centre line. I backed off about 1/2 track, straightened up and got back on it to the finish line. It wasn’t a fantastic time but it was better than the last run 7.39 sec at 200.65mph. it felt lazy but was surprised with the 200mph.
When we got back we realised that a fitting snapped off the sump and it had a crack in it. We wouldn’t make it back out for the final qualifier but we had made the show for tomorrow’s racing.
Mick’s Metal Craft fixed the sump the next morning. When we checked the bearings in the crank we discovered a spun bearing and a damaged a rod. Unfortunately for us it meant no more runs. A little disappointing as it was a good meeting for me to get experience with the small number of Doorslammer entries (it wasn’t a championship points meeting).
I would like to thank all my crew, family and friends for being there to help out and support me. A big thanks to my crew; Dad, Katie, Chad, Michael, Matthew, Haig, Craig, Sarah and my supporters Mum, Tracey, Daniel, Brodie and Natasha.
It’s back to the workshop for now and preparing for the next run hopefully on February 10, 2007 a test and tune.