Fabcar - Final Results

Time 626.54
Overall 25th
Birkin Rank 3rd

A result of 25th out of 60 isn't bad given its my first attempt at anything like this. Certainly a few lessons:
1. Attack the damn corners - trust the brakes and the handling more
2. Read the map - one small mistake costs a lot of points. Better to be slower and more precise than faster and make mistakes
3. Drive around the course - throwing the backend out is fun but slow

I think the first one is the most telling. Looking at the results, the spread of times near the top is fractions of a second, so each tenth can put you down 10 places or more. So being more attacking in corners is going to help a lot. In the videos I can see that I'm really quite tentative on corners, even though at the time it felt like I was pushing it. But the tyres aren't being stressed, no squealing under brakes, so I'm not anywhere near the edge of the car. I need some more time in it to find it, I think.

Next attempt will be another superkhana at the Speed Dome, then its on to Barbagallo for some real race track stuff, none of the car park malarky!

Finally, at the start of the event, Dad asked what my objectives were for the day. They were:
1. To finish
2. To have nothing fall off the car
3. To have fun

All three objectives were met. To be honest, I think as long as I go into every event with these objectives in mind, it will be a good day. Winnning, top 10 and the rest of it can follow if it works out that way. But damn it was a lot of fun ;-)

Fabcar Rounds 15,16,and 17

Round 15
Time 47.06
Overall 17th
Birkin Rank 2nd


Round 16
Did not compete! Luckily, this round was cancelled from a results point of view ;-)


Round 17
Time 55.71 (garage infringement)
Overall 55th
Birkin Rank 4th


Rounds 15 and 17 were on the same track, but I stuffed up the last garage. Each round has you finishing in a garage made up of four traffic cones - you must stop with all four wheels inside the garage. I just slipped past the end this time, which cost a lot of points....I've cut the swearing out of the video....

Round 16 was cancelled - this was the paddock circuit on cut grass. Looks fun in a big car, a disaster for a low-riding clubman.

Anyway, here's he video from Round 17...

Fabcar Rounds 13 and 14

Round 13
Time 38.09 (36.45)
Overall 38th (36th)
Birkin Rank 2nd


Round 14
Time 19.72 (18.97)
Overall 28th (15th)
Birkin Rank 3rd


I know what you're thinking - what happened here? Going slower the second time around? These rounds were repeats on the Gloucester Park circuit, with all the gravel etc. I though this time around I'd try a different approach. Before, I was just driving around, keeping everything neat and tidy. This time, I thought I'd try playing with the back end more on the loose surface, seeing if sliding it would make a difference. Well, it did, but not in the right way.


I think I shall go back to the smooth and steady style from now on.

Fabcar Round 12

Time 37.62
Overall 17th
Birkin Rank 2nd

Round 12 was in the carpark at Cockburn central (pronounced Co-burn in case you were wondering). A relatively straight forward circuit, just going around by now really.....

Fabcar - Round 9, 10 and 11

Round 9
Time 43.53 (45.62)
Overall 18th (27th)
Birkin Rank 3rd


Round 10
Time 13.56 (13.62)
Overall 18th (17th)
Birkin Rank 2nd


Round 11
Time 55.19 (57.47)
Overall 15th (24th)
Birkin Rank 1st


I was wrong - I got another 1st (at least amongst the Birkins ;-) The figures in brackets are comparisons with the results from rounds 6,7 and 8.


Rounds 9, 10 and 11 were reruns of 6, 7 and 8, which was good because you can compare results. You can see my times were consistently coming down - but so was everyone elses as you can see from a faster drag result but one lower placing.

Fabcar - Rounds 6, 7 and 8

Round 6
Time 45.62
Overall 27th
Birkin Rank 4th

Round 7 (Quarter mile drag race)
Time 13.62
Overall 17th
Birkin Rank 2nd

Round 8
Time 57.47
Overall 24th
Birkin Rank 3rd

Rounds 6, 7 and 8 were at the Perth Motorplex. This is primarily a drag-strip, however their carparks and service roads are also very useful for motorkhana style events.

Round 6 was on a carpark, so we did switchbacks up and down the rows with some chicanes thrown in. Trick was at people were walking just off the track to go to the bathrooms at the end of the first straight, so if you miss the corner, you could end up ploughing through a crowd of people. One car did lose it there - luckily no-one was anywhere near it. Perhaps some element of crowd control or warning would have been appropriate - or perhaps just rely on the fact that people know what's going on and paying attention.



Round 7 was the drag strip, and having never even been to a dragstrip before, it was all a bit new. You pull up to a sensor, which lights up two little white lights to tell you you're locked in, then a christmas tree lights up and you're off. Great fun, and a 13.62 with a passenger is no mean result, with a 0-100 of 5.4 seconds. Problem was this was the run that Blair broke his half-shaft, so some concern there as I could see him pulled up in the rear-vision mirrors.



Round 8 was more carpark, with a nice round-about and some good high-speed corners. Actually one of the first opportunities to hit second gear all day (apart from the drags, of course). Only real tricky bit on this was where someone had kicked a pile of sand onto the track earlier from an accident, but overall fairly straightforward.

Fabcar - Rounds 4 and 5

Round 4
Time 36.45
Overall 36th
Birkin Rank 3rd (should be 2nd! - see below ;-)

Round 5
Time 18.97
Overall 15th
Birkin Rank 3rd

Rounds 4 and 5 were at the carpark at Gloucester Park. This is where all the horse floats, heavy machinery, road-works vehicles etc park, so the surface is loose, gravelly and uneven.

Interestingly, looking at the results sheet for Round 4, Conrad decided not to run this due to the risk of damage to the car, so he got a time of zero. However, this apparently gave him a first place overall - a cracking result! They sorted it out for Round 5 where he came last for not running.... I shall lodge a protest immediately! Now, where's my red flag.....

These rounds were your traditional traffic cone type events, where you turn a corner only to wonder which cone you should be aiming for, and which side you should pass it. Still, I managed to get by without any problems, just a little slow. Birkins should eat this course up. I remember thinking I should try and fling the car around the corners a little more, rather than just drive around them - so I vowed to try that when we returned again later in the day.

Fabcar - Rounds 2 and 3

Round 2
Time 50.72 with a wrong way penalty
Overall 49th
Birkin Rank 5th


Round 3
Time 31.78
Overall 6th
Birkin Rank 2nd


Round 2 was a disaster. After driving down from Midland, finding the carpark at Galleria, I got waved up to the start line without having read the map. Unfortunately it was the figure-8 circuit, so you go round and round and round - I just missed one of the go-rounds on the first attempt. I ended up diving into the garage having missed most of the lap, facing the wrong way entirely. Not exactly dignified - spectators must have thought I was an idiot....


The second run was much better, and getting 6th overall shows that this was a round where the Birkins should have moved up the rank, except I'd squandered the chance. Never mind, I learnt the lesson, and next time I turned up to a round where they were ready for me to run straight away, I parked it and watched others go first before stuffing it up again.

Fabcar - Round 1

Time 43:01 seconds
Overall 22nd
Birkin Rank 1st (only time that happened, mind you)


The first run around unfortunately wasn't video'd, as the thing stopped working again. Typically, as it was my best result.


The first run was at the Midland Speed-dome carpark, and having run there a few weeks ago, I think I had a bit more confidence going into it than the others. Hence the better result. The layout was a little different from the previous runs, but you get a feel for a place.


It was a good circuit, and the run was good. Only one minor issue when up-shifting from second to first approaching the round-about where I compression locked it for a fraction of a second, but not enough to unsettle the car as I was heading in a straight line anyway.

Probably the best thing to be said for the run was that it settled some nerves, and, we thought at the time, gave a chance to work on the driver / co-driver communication. Next round was to show that this perhaps wasn't the case ;-)

Birkin Wins Class at Fabcar

Nope, not me.....

Congrats to Paul and his co-driver Rodger for winning the '1986-2008 up to 2-litres' class at the Fabcar rally. Given that all the clubmans were in the one class, he's managed to beat a number of (on paper) more powerful vehicles, including mine! Goes to show it's more about the driver and less about the car, so I've been searching for performance driver training courses in Perth. More on that later. I'm also booking myself up for an AMR Speed Event Series round at Barbagallo, plus another Superkhana before the end of the year.

In other news, the grass stage at Fabcar is apparently not going to be included in the overall results calculations - I think the conditions were somewhat other than expected, sot the results from that stage would probably have skewed the overall results too much. The guys at AEM have made a good call to discount it, even though for those who ran it, it looked like a lot of fun ;-)

The full results are yet to be posted, and the videos are still stranded on the camera, so no additional updates yet.

Fabcar

I thought I might put up a series of posts on the Fabcar 1-Day Rally over the next few days, as there's a l0t to say. So to start with, an overall review, then I'll chuck in a few bits and pieces (hopefully with videos) on the various stages later on. I can also provide the results once they get posted on-line.

Overall the event was excellent - good stages, well organised, good volunteers etc. Getting between stages did require some long drives (top to tail, the two furthest events were 50km apart) but this is Perth - everything is far apart.

What was also really good was the variety - the recent Dutton seemed to call out every man and his dog who owned a Nissan Skyline, Mitsi Lancer Evo what-ever, or Subaru WRX. This event at least had some older (i.e. much older) muscle cars, the odd Jag, Fiats, even a nicely sorted (and well driven) Proton Satria. We had a Suzuki Swift GTi, a few MX-5's (supercharged, turbocharged and NA), an MGB, a Porsche, plus a few Commodores and Falcons to provide the V8 tyre smoke that makes it so much fun. But at least it wasn't a processing of cars that all looked the same, sounded the same and drove the same as each other.

I think that was the result of the 1-day format - older (and maybe more fragile) cars (and drivers?) felt they could participate in 1 day event without risking too much through over-stressing the car, or if something did go bang on the first run, they hadn't paid thousands in entry fees and setup. Plus reduced wear on tyres, brakes and other consumables made it a more affordable event. Apparently there was some surprise at how quickly it sold out (a week) - personally I'm not surprised at all. It seems an ideal format for those who want to have a bit of fun, but don't have their own pit crew and sponsors.

For a day with 17 stages, there were only a few hiccups - a few stages where the queues to run ended up being quite long (say, 15-20 cars), and the final stage had to be cancelled as we just ran out of time. Nothing serious, and certainly nothing to spoil the day.

Most importantly, there were no injuries or major accidents (at least that I'm aware of). We did lose one of the Birkin brethren when Blair's right-hand half-shaft snapped going down the drags - no major damage and a relatively easy fix. It just failed at a weld - can happen, I suppose. The effect was that drive was only going to one wheel, and the LSD simply let go and basically provided no torque to the one remaining shaft - which is probably a good thing otherwise it may have snapped as well, or at least seriously stressed it for a later failure.

One of the Jags also re-arranged the landscape somewhat on one of the stages at the Motorplex. What was interesting was he managed to shift a fairly chunky concrete curb some distance, and kick up a lot of dirt, yet when I spoke to him later (as he was queuing up for another stage) he said he may need a wheel alignment. That's what you get with an older, all steel car - do that in a Birkin and you'll be re-building your front end ;-)

All of the stages were on good quality road surfaces - apart from one. I (and the other Birkins) piked on this, which was held in a paddock laid with straw. Looking at the way the other cars (particularly the heavy, rear-wheel V8s) were cutting up the ground, the amount of dust and sand being thrown up, and the obviously rutted nature of the ground, we made a decision that 50mm ground clearance and open cars weren't really set up for this, and bailed out for a DNS. It looked like it would have been a lot of fun if you were in something a little higher, and little heavier, and a little better sealed (ie with windows). Quite a few entrants made it to the next round with large chunks of the local lawn embedded in various bits of the car.

The electronics all worked well - I have yet to review the PerformanceBox output, but we noted a fastest 0-100 time of 5.4 seconds, which given the two people in the car wasn't bad. I'll have to give that a go on track later with just me in it. The camera also did OK -except I think it was having problems with the white helmets in front of it, so the white balance is way off and everything looks blue. Occasionally it recovers, but most of the footage looks like it was shot underwater.

So, overall I'd say it was a damn fine event and if they run it again, I'll be there.