Tamworth Cup – April 18th-20th

Starting off (and not technically in may), over the Easter weekend, I made a (very) last minute decision to travel from Toowoomba down to Tamworth for the 10th Annual Tamworth Cup, which also incorporates a bit of a State of Origin competition between Queensland and New South Wales.

So, Friday morning at a bright and early 4:45am, I jumped in the car and drove the 500kms south… Not a bad journey at all really, quite scenic (once the sun came up), and made it there in a little under five and half hours, so plenty of time for practise.

I hadn’t been to Tamworth before, so spent pretty much all of friday learning the track, and trying to get both cars balanced. The Tamworth track is quite tight and twisty, with a fair few bumps in it, and also quite narrow. All quite a different challenge to what I’m used to.The track requires a real point and shoot approach, with a number of heavy braking and acceleration areas, so good braking stability, and ability to get through the middle of the corner were a must.

The main changes I made on the Mi5 were to go to a Speed6 shell (the LTC making the rear too unstable under braking), and more upright on the shocks. FX2 seemed to be the way forward additive wise, the track surface not really liking the oily style goop. However, I always would seem to swing from too much, to not enough steering, never getting truly happy with the balance. That left work to do on the Saturday in qualifying, which is not ideal!

The SP-1 was proving just as troublesome, couldn’t quite nail getting steering vs stability right, although switching back and forth between the two (very different) driving styles wasn’t helping either, as it was taking a few minutes to get in the groove each time… an omen for the rest of the weekend! Thankfully, pitting with mates made it very entertaining in the pits, and the evening was a good opportunity to relax, even having to put up with Hogs Breath steaks as no where else was open!

Saturday, qualifying! Given the time thats past since then… I really can’t remember what exactly, just that the first two rounds weren’t too bad, and then went down hill… for whatever reason, just couldn’t get “in the zone” all day. Was a tough one, with quite a few very frustrating moments. I’m not too proud to admit… that sucked, and really did think about giving up for the weekend! Still stuck with it, aided by remote and on site advice, and manged to get the Mi5 working much better by the end of the day. Raising the rear lower suspension balls helped massively to stop the rear of the car stepping out in the middle of the long infield banked turned. Driver was still making too many errors, but ended on a more positive note at least. The SP-1 had much better pace, changing the rear side springs to the hardest I had in the box keeping big corner speed, whilst still being stable. A little off the fastest guys, and having issues with traffic, but certainly podium contention.. just same issue as the TC in needing to string a full run together proving the biggest bug bare!

For Sunday, one round of qualifying, followed by three leg finals. For the tourer, I then made a big mistake. Instead of sticking with the tyres I had run all weekend, I decided to take a big swing, and try a brand new set of Sorex’s… which whilst quick, completely changed the feel of the car, and took me by suprise. Still, decided to stick with them for the rest of the day. The first finals came and went, and I think I was second in one of the F1 finals, whilst didn’t complete a single TC one.. which included destroying a left and right rear arm in two seperate legs… pretty bad day really.

Still, the Tamworth crew put on a really good event, very well run considering the small number of members, and off track was thankfully entertaining to provide some relief.

Final Mi5 Setup… what I should have run in the end!

The long drive home (thankfully on the monday after racing!) helped to provide some time for reflection, and highlighted a few things I would plan to do differently for the next event. First up, two classes were two too many… In a compressed schedule (especially when trying to learn a new track), trying to get two cars up to speed is just too much hard work, never really having time to sit back and think about changes, and whats going on. Second thing was preparation… having decided very late to go, this left little time to get stuff planned and sorted, and get the car prepared. Most of my other problems stemmed from these two ‘issues’, such as not getting my head round the track properly, managing event expectations, and simply paying attention to advice… from that I vowed to not make these mistakes again.