After a huge 3 weeks in the South Island the Makita/Wynns team had a big task ahead of them, 3 days to clean and prepare the gear, rebuild the Kistler engine and swap out the lease motor that was still in the car. The engine parts arrived Thursday afternoon from America and the heads came back from the head shop Friday afternoon.
I’ve said it many times, without a good crew it is impossible to race at the level we do these days. Lee, with the help of Simon, Ken and John, all stayed up till 5am Saturday morning rebuilding our engine and then doing the engine swap, all so we could make the show that night. A huge effort by my guys and by 3pm on Saturday we were firing the engine and setting the timing. We quickly loaded the car and raced out to the track and got there late at 5pm. The valve lash needed to be reset after starting the car in the shop before we raced so, as the rest of the cars were going out for warm up, we were still working on the engine, flat stick. I got out for the tail end of warm up and the motor ran sweet. Big credit to the team.
For the first heat we were starting off the back in grid 8. After a false start we got going and the motor and set up felt good. We started picking off cars one by one and the longer the race went the better the car got. Ended up finishing 2nd and very happy with the car.
In the second heat we started from grid one and raced away to win. Jonathan Allard came home in second. Any time you beat this guy is a good time. He is super fast around Western Springs and I would rate him one of the best if not the best USA driver that has raced here.
A first and a second in our heats made us the highest qualifier for the night which gave us the dubious honour of pulling the inversion marble. True to form and a continuation of the bad luck of late I pulled grid 6. We were a little disappointed with this but got on with dialling the car in for the 30 lap feature. The car had good speed all night but I knew we would need a bit more as there were 6 good cars to pass before you hit the front.
The green flag dropped and by the end of the first lap we had hit the front. What a bullet this car had been all night. On the second lap I missed the cushion and Allard managed to drive underneath us with a good pass. Unfortunately, from the beginning of the race, the right rear tyre was losing air each lap. In the video even from early on you can see the tyre rolling under the rim almost hitting the beadlock. This was to be the demise of us in this race. I persevered with it under green and we were sitting in second OK but it was a handful until the race went under caution. This was a real problem as on top of the leak the tyre would also cool and lose pressure. I tried in vain to spin the tryes and keep heat in it but the leak was too big and the tyre went almost completely flat and the SNZ officials pulled me in. Have to say it was the right decision as it would have been impossible to run with it that flat. I was just so disappointed myself but more for my team as the effort they put in over the past month and to get to the track that night was fantastic so it was truly heartbreaking. We were unable to tell whether a bleeder stuck or the tyre had a hole as the tyre was blisted and wrecked from being run flat for so long. As many people tell you over your racing career -- “that’s racing” (Hate that saying)
What was awesome is the support from our fans at the Springs. Thank you for your words of support and encouragement. It certainly helps when you’re going through a bad run. The good news is this week we have no engines to rebuild, no cars to fix or diffs to replace. This week it is just cleaning and servicing. We can’t wait to get back to the track this week, get on the gas and shake this monkey that’s been with us for the last while. See you trackside.
Due to this tour being so full on I was unable to post updates after every show so I’m going to try and summarize the trip into one post. We were away for a total of three weeks including travel time and I think we had one day off over the whole trip. This was largely due to the worst luck I think I have had in 8 years of sprintcar racing! Despite this we still ended up with some good results which made the trip very worth while.
We hauled down to Christchurch for the first show which was to be the Salute to Goodie race which we won last year. Unfortunately it got changed at the last minute to a practice/shakedown for the following night, being the Gold cup race. We ran the Friday night and the car ran sweet without missing a beat. On Saturday we went back to the track after washing up from the night before, to run the Gold cup night. This is when all hell broke loose. In the first heat I was rolling round under yellow and the car just stopped on me. I grabbed the wiring loom on the dash to try and see if a plug had come loose. I got restarted and it coughed a little and was fine except for a few times during the race when the engine would cut out. We were leading the race when all of a sudden my left arm was on fire and the car started to die. I pulled off and the flames went out thankfully. What had happened was a rock had loosened a fuel nozzle which poured fuel onto the hot exhaust catching fire. Then we found an ignition wire had broken and was earthing out on the engine causing the car to cut out.
With the problems fixed we ran second in the next heat but because of not finishing the first heat we were only able to start in grid 13 for the feature. By half race distance we were up to fourth challenging for 3rd when the worst happened. I was full throttle coming off turn 2 when the right rear birdcage (bearing carrier) failed and leant over on the axle therefore cutting through it almost instantly. Next minute the right rear wheel flew off sending me into a short sharp violent roll over. The car was destroyed. Everything bar the seat, steering wheel and engine was broken.
We were due to race Ashburton at 10am the next morning. Luckily we had our spare chassis on the back of the ute and enough spares to build a new car. The only trouble was we had no time. My crew chief Lee Rusher with the help of Myles Forsey, Brian and Tiny stayed at the track all night to build a new car under a set of spot lights. By 10am Sunday the Makita/Wynns machine mark 2 was ready to hit the track, only for the meeting to be rained off!!
The next day we hit the road to Dunedin Speedway with the new car only to do hot laps and find the engine had a death rattle. We worked all night repairing a broken rocker in the engine (probably a result of reving hard upside down in the accident) and missed all the heat races. We made it in time for the feature which we started off the back and raced up to finish 3rd behind the USA and Aussie drivers and being the top Kiwi home. Good result considering.
The next day we hit the road to Invercargill and had trouble free motoring for a change! We qualified on grid 5 for the feature and raced to the lead. On the last lap I made a wrong call in lap traffic to get pipped for the win on the last lap by USA driver Barry Martinez. Still top Kiwi home and another good result for the team.
Next stop was Cromwell for the NZ Grand Prix. Qualifying went well and we put the Makita/Wynns machine on grid 1 for the main race. I jumped into the lead and was winning for two thirds of the race until USA driver Austin Weatly got by us and we finished 2nd. Still happy with the result, however I said to Lee the motor went off during the race and felt flat. We had our one day off the next day then did some checks on the engine. This is when we found we had 5 broken valve springs and a damaged valve. Very lucky on one hand because another lap and the engine would have blown up big time but very disappointing on the other as I did not have enough time to fly parts from USA to fix the engine in time for the NZ champs in Christchurch in 3 days time.
We made the decision to haul up to Christchurch straight away and go about finding a motor we could lease to see us out the rest of the trip. USA driver Barry Martinez very kindly offered us his spare engine at a very affordable rate so we went about the motor swap and turned up to Friday night qualifying for the NZ title.
More bad luck. We won the first qualifying heat with our borrowed engine but then in the second heat blew the teeth off our diff gear set which managed to smash its way out of the back of the diff causing us to not finish. When you drop a qualifying heat for the Nationals you are up against it as you have to start so far back in the main race. We went back to the shop and had a meeting after the race at midnight. We had to find another diff as we had destroyed 2 so far, and also we felt the engine we leased, although we were grateful, didn’t quite have the goods to get the job done. We were staying with Myles Forsey who was also putting up Aussie driver and team Alan Woods. Woodsie kindly offered us his spare engine at a good price and said use his spare diff for free. We had an awesome time with these guys and were blown away with the offer so Lee and the boys pulled another all night-er to do an engine swap and drive-line swap.
Eyes hanging out we turned up to Ruapuna for the main night of the NZ champs and managed to get enough points to qualify straight into the A Main without coming through the B main. We started on grid 12 and made our way up to 6th when I got a left rear puncture and couldn’t continue. Heartbreaking.
One show to go, which was the Ashburton Sprintcar Spectacular the next day. This was the one which was rained out after we built a car over night. I really wanted to do well in this show as the boys put in so much work to make it the first time and also as it was the last show of the trip. As it turned out we qualified top on points and won the A Main. It would have to rank as one of the more satisfying wins of my career for a number of reasons. Great way to end the trip and it certainly made the 19 hours straight we travelled home the next day a hell of a lot easier.
This has been a long post but there are a lot of people I really want to thank. Jason Scott and Daryl Wright from Edge parts and performance for putting the whole speedweek together, Myles, Cristy-Anne and Karen Forsey for putting us up down in Christchurch and taking up his whole workshop building cars and doing countless engine swaps, Alan Woods, Scooter and Trevor for their help and for the use of their spare engine and diff, Barry Martinez for the use of his spare engine. There are so many more people who helped and supported us, I can’t thank you enough and although it was a hell of a ride we can’t wait to do it all again next year.
This show was something quite different to a normal race meeting as Sprintcars were the only class on the program along with the Jordan Luck band (Exponents) playing during and after the racing. Unfortunately the weather really tried to disrupt proceedings but determination and a lot of wheel packing got us through in the end.
We had some big showers just before and during warm-up which really softened the track up but all the drivers stepped up and made a great effort to bring the track back to a point where we could race on it. First up was time trails and the Makita/Wynns/Edge Triple X car timed in second quick. Great result considering it’s only the second time we have run this car and the first time run at Cromwell. In our heat race we started from the front row and won the race by half the length of the straight.
Next up was the dash race which was the top 8 qualifiers inverted. This meant we started from grid 7. I took the green and in the first lap tried to go round the outside of a local car and got run wide. So the next corner I tried the same only when passing him he moved out and I got slammed into the wall and ended up rolling down the back straight a couple of times. I don’t think he knew I was coming, it was just one of those bad luck deals.
When I got out of the car it looked pretty bad, but once we got it back to the pit we decided to have a crack at fixing her. As it turned out we had very little time because sprintcars were the only class on the program and there was some urgency to get the racing through so the concert could start. A big thank you to my crew Lee and Codey and also to Darryl Wright, Adam and Broody who were running round all day like mad men and whoever else was hanging off a spanner to get me out the gate (there was a lot!). We only just made it as all the cars had been circulating for 3 laps all gridded up for the start when I finally pulled off the grass to get in position.
I moved into my starting spot of grid 8 and took the green flag. This is always nerve racking as you have fixed the car in a hurry and have not had a chance to test the car. Well I found out we missed a few things….. The bonnet wasn’t fastened down and kept flying up down the straights, we ran out of time to set the toe on the front end so it kept tracking down the straight. We hadn’t had time to set the car up and to top it off I forgot to put tear-offs on my helmet so ran out half way through the race! What a scene.
Despite all of the above we managed to guide the wounded Triple X past some cars to claim the last podium spot in 3rd place. Safe to say we were all stuffed by the end of the day but enjoyed the concert and a few cold ones after. Again a big thank you to Jason Scott for organising the whole show and to Jason and Darryl from the Edge Parts and Performance for putting me in their Triple X weapon for the second time this season.
