The Adaptronic MX5 (Cathy) at World Time Attack 2011

This was our first race meeting ever so it was a great exprience. The 2011 World Time Attack Challenge was an excellent event, as anyone who could attend will tell you.

The competition is run in three classes; Pro (big budget race teams), Open (highly modified race cars) and Clubsprint (street registered, no engine conversions, and must be driven by the registered owner). All classes must run on street legal treaded tyres. The main rule is that the fastest lap wins!

The best lap time we managed was 1'44"178, which placed us 39 out of 60 in Open class. Our main limitations were lack of preparation time for setting up suspension, wheel alignment, braking optimisation and so on. Being our first race meeting we were perhaps a little naive in estimating the amount of preparation work required!

However the good thing is that now we have a very capable platform, which will see the times tumble as various aspects of the car become sorted. One aspect in particular that has been very useful is the excellent data we've been able to collect with help from the Race Technolgy DL1 logger. Using this, I've been able to see that we are not getting oil or fuel surges, and I was able to verify Ric Shaw's description that we were lifting the inside rear wheel on turn 2 (by monitoring suspension travel). I can also see what lateral and longitudinal Gs we are able to achieve, which means I can check for improvements when we go to adjust the suspension alignment. Furthermore I can see what speeds we are reaching on the corners and betwen the corners, and compare these to the speeds the top teams in Pro class are doing, so we know how high to aim. Of course it also records more mundane things like coolant temperatures, state of tune and so on.

I did try to shake the car down at Wakefield and did a few laps to get some heat into her, but really I didn’t push her as hard as Ric Shaw was going to at Eastern Creek, so we discovered several things that I hadn’t discovered for myself already, which meant that unfortunately at the Creek we were spending time fixing things, rather than making her go faster.

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Here are some photos taken during the event:

 Big thanks to:

Ric Shaw, for taking several days to help prep the car, corner weight, tell me the things I have to change, his excellent driving and fearlessness, and providing lots of very useful parts like alloy radiator, Blitz BOV, K&N air filter

Race Car Parts, for providing the seat and harness

MX5Mania,  for providing suspension, wheels and brakes, doing the suspension install/setup, assisting with the brake setup, and Dave going out of his way to drop off a bolt to replace one I snapped

Hoon Media and D&D Designs, for the media side of things, and doing a full bog and repspray in a single day

MRC, for the dyno time, general guidance and assistance, and dropping everything to change my clutch for me

Pivot Creative, for dropping everything to do my carbon fibre roof, rear panel and mirrors

Aztex and Tully Spry, for doing the engine conversion in the first place

BoostBitz, for helping get the car ready and providing the “positive pressure components”

Race Technology, for their assistance with setting up the datalogging

Pulse Racing, for being awesome “garage buddies”, providing general mentorship and Superlap experience

Shamrock Racing for the pictures!