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Only 3 mx5s racing with FOSC at SMP South yesterday, with another couple doing regularity. The rest too soft due to the cold....? Turned out to be an absolutely magic day, cool earlier but zero wind and full sun, perfect.

Good battle between David and Matilda up the front (the first pic below). We were in with a mixed bag including open wheelers, one of whom came into contact with one of our bunch.





Pics from Steve Green. Thanks!

My car is in bits... Should be together for Wakefield later this month. Sorry I missed it

Fun little circuit Chris. Short but plenty going on and very technical. Looking forward to getting back on it.

Couple of Excels blew up on it on Sunday, oil surge. A Porker went into the wall after T5 on Saturday.

Love south circuit!

mazmad wrote: ... A Porker went into the wall after T5 on Saturday.

This has become quite a thing since the South Circuit opened. Anecdotally, seems to happen when cars go wide, at least as I hear it.

greenMachine wrote:

mazmad wrote: ... A Porker went into the wall after T5 on Saturday.

This has become quite a thing since the South Circuit opened. Anecdotally, seems to happen when cars go wide, at least as I hear it.

I have never dríven it in anger, but it does look like it would be easy to roll a tyre off the bead of the rim under heavy cornering when going through the concrete culvert on the outside of that turn...

At speed, that would put you in the wall for sure.

It is off camber too. All the hits I have seen though have been on the inside wall.

At ten tenths the grip level is to different and can upset the car quite a bit. My friends have told me to either run over it (onto the ashphalt of the pit lane) or stay off it!

I was out at bathurst Craig - now THAT was cold!
lucky for me I was racing an excel in a khanacross and not the Mx5!

There's a small dip 90% through the turn in the bitumen. Combine that with the right hand wheels on the off camber concrete, at the limit of adhesion, and the rear steps out in a flash.
It happened to me late last year. Luckily I caught it after a tank slapper.

One of the problems for us Sprint guys is that the Clerk of Course says if you get four wheels onto the concrete then your times are wiped. People then drift a little wide, try to keep the car on the bitumen and hit the dip as the RH wheels unweight on the off camber concrete and bingo, into the inside wall.

I have tried to tell the CoC about this problem and to let the cars run to the outside of the track/entrance road but they don't listen. It may take a few more voices before this is fixed.

mazmad wrote:Only 3 mx5s racing with FOSC at SMP South yesterday, with another couple doing regularity. The rest too soft due to the cold....?

There was a bunch of us at Phillip Island. You know nothing about the cold!
Good to hear you all mostly had fun :-)

Charlie Brown wrote:One of the problems for us Sprint guys is that the Clerk of Course says if you get four wheels onto the concrete then your times are wiped. People then drift a little wide, try to keep the car on the bitumen and hit the dip as the RH wheels unweight on the off camber concrete and bingo, into the inside wall.

Yeah I don't understand that, wider is more controlled through there. The V8s certainly use it too.

evil_weevil wrote:lucky for me I was racing an excel in a khanacross and not the Mx5!

Nooooooooooooooo! Not an Excel!!!!!!!! Not sure I will talk to you now.

How was it?