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2007-2008 House of Travel @ Rotorua |
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Wednesday, 01 July 2009 15:58 |
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A week after the action at the North Island Champs, we were back at home racing in Rotorua for a round of the House of Travel series. The car was hooking up well so much in the second heat that I caught the local hard man Nick Vallance and bunted him enough to pass up the inside on turn two. Here I am thinking yeah that was well done when bang...hang on!!! Here comes the wall...I just found the soon to be named “Nick Vallance Corner”.
Well that was the end of our night but that’s racing as they say. I was just happy that the full containment seat that I purchased during the off season did its job. Luckily we had two weeks to fix the car which needed the following:
Engine remounting
Engine block welded
Diff repairs
New driveshaft
Gearbox end plate welded up
But thanks to my crew and sponsor Rotorua Forklift Hire for the use of their workshop for two weeks we were back on track. |
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2007-2008 North Island Champs @ Kihikihi |
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Wednesday, 01 July 2009 15:36 |
The North Island champs were in mid December and we had to finish in the top five to qualify for the finals in our group. It was only our fifth meeting and a big step up from the racing I was starting to get used to at home.
Going into the third heat we were fifth equal and only had one car we had to finish in front of, to qualify, so the pressure was on...yup you guessed it. I spun it up while in fourth position. Got it back together for the last half of the race and just managed to pass that ONE car I needed, thinking yes I’ve done enough. But after a re hash of the second heats points I was now sixth but still qualified as next highest qualifier.
Returning to the pits we found we had a problem as the front oil seal had gone and was leaking badly so a few phone calls to Rotorua and we had the parts to fix it. Big thanks to the guys in the parts dept at Shorland Holden for the afterhours help on that one and to Baldrick for fixing it.
Well finals day was another step up again and for us we were stoked just to qualify so anything else was a bonus. First race, second lap, the left front wheel got taken out so that was that for us basically. Second race we started on grid two and got a good start only to be turned in front of the pack and sitting sideways in front of 26 cars wasn’t quite the plan of attack hey...next thing I’m up the wall with the pack going past me but the cars still going so I backed off and carried on till the panhard broke on the diff.
Placing two fifths after two heats was well no where in the points so figured I would help the Rotorua boys if I could, this proved harder than I thought and got hit from all over the place unfortunately so did the Rotorua boys. All in all we had a blast of a weekend and proved to us we were on the right track with car and driver.
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