MOTOR Magazine Lap Times

[Guran]

Definitely VERY impressive Matty!!! Congratulations!

BTW, how do you rate the Hankooks? I've never tried them. Currently using Adrenalins.

The Vic club records list 2:13.091 as the record for standard NA at PI. Why isn't James' NA8 time of 2:07/2:08 recognised as the class record? His standard NB8A time at Winton is definitely better than McConville's effort in an NB8B (Apr 2001).

[greenMachine]

Some of us had the benefit of a training day with Rick Bates at WP a couple of years ago.

Unfortunately, there was no timing that day, I think that it would have been great to get the times that he was doing, with a passenger - I know that he had my car absolutely flying! I would regard his times as a very serious benchmark, and take my hat off to anyone who could better them (in the same sort of car).

Not only was it very revealing to sit beside somebody who was so obviously very very quick, we all learnt a lot from him (which was the point of the exercise after all).

[Matty]

Definitely VERY impressive Matty!!! Congratulations!

BTW, how do you rate the Hankooks? I've never tried them. Currently using Adrenalins.

The Vic club records list 2:13.091 as the record for standard NA at PI. Why isn't James' NA8 time of 2:07/2:08 recognised as the class record? His standard NB8A time at Winton is definitely better than McConville's effort in an NB8B (Apr 2001).

hankooks are very good for a street tyre. Get warm and they get some lurid slip angles, but they maintain quite good grip and don't get excessively greasy.

Why is James' time not listed? Hmm, dunno, it was set before the current class system was introduced and records were being tracked. FWIW he also did a 2:00.6 in his modified NA8, which would have been the Modified record until just recently, but he did it at a non-championship round and i never saw the official results, so that didn't make it in...

[Matty]

I would imagine though that they drive within more respectable limits.

I beg to differ. In fact, It's the opposite.
I reckon if your a race driver, driving a 'press' car, you'd absolutely thrash the living daylights out of it.
Which IMHO, makes your time at the Island super impressive.

Yeah, but on the other side you only get 2-3 laps to get familiar with the car, I've had way more than that in MXs. And there would be a lot of pressure to bring it back in one piece...

[Guran]

No.

Some of the guys use Kumho KU36's, but that's it. No R spec allowed.

Thanks Darrin. I remembered seeing "some things" that were different to what is allowed in NSW. Checking the rules, there are a few differences:

1) VIC permits 195mm width tyres in Standard NA, NSW requires "whatever it came with" which means 185mm width for NA6.

2) VIC permits cat-back exhausts in Standard NA, NSW does not (must be an OEM exhaust)

3) VIC permits up to two modifications from a list of eight in Standard NC, NSW does not allow any modifications for Standard SE/NC (Class 2).

4) VIC does not include NA8 Clubman in Standard NA, NSW combines NA6, NA8, NA8 Clubman, NB8A and NB8B all into Class 1 (!!!). I hope this will change if there are enough standard NAs to justify it (most are modified and go into Class 3).

The devil's in the detail.

None of this impacts on the excellent effort from Matty though!

[manga_blue]

The devil's in the detail.

That's the big problem, Guran. After home track knowledge, it's the second big reason that no team has ever won an away round of an interstate club challenge. You find that some of your cars are bumped up into a class where they're hopelessly outgunned because of one trivial variation in spec between the states.

Vic's idea of splitting the standard classes into NAs and NBs works really well. In fact these are probably the best part of our annual championship and driver development. Only NA6s are allowed the cat-back, which brings them up to about NA8 pace. The consequences are that the SNA class is really hotly contested by the low-budget thrill seekers and the SNBs battle it out hard as well, but in a bit more comfort.