Hampton downs ICE BREAKER series

[RENOholic]

Hi everybody,

This weekend was the Ice Breaker event which meant that it is the opening of the season. It was a huge entry field throughout all classes and series. To give you an idea, there were 27 heats, a 1 hour enduro and that excludes the practice session over the 2 days.
Our series which is the AES/Tradezone Series had 40 entries. The Alfa Tropheo series had 17 entries, Classic Trial 27, Arrow Wheels 28, BMW E30 series 60, Historic single seaters 37. As you can see, the event was huge.

Our practice session was OK because our first 3 laps was dry and then the rain came down. That gave me 20th on the grid and 31st for Johan. Unfortunately that was the end for Johan for the weekend because when we lined up for the start of the first race on Saturday the toothed wheel for the Megajolt, welded on to the crank pulley, came off and destroyed the pickup. I finished 19th for that race. Half of it was dry and half wet. I think I have a problem on concentration because a car will overtake me and once he is in front of me, I can keep up with him and I even overtook him. It happened more than once.

The second race was my best ever but I had a very big senior moment. I was the fool of the day in my eyes but at least got some sympathy from my age group after they wiped the tears of laughter from their faces. Because I had a fan club of about 3 they watched me closely and according to Johan I was lying 5th just before the last lap. Now this is not Alzheimers it is just ...........?? The "Last Lap" board came out at the Start/Finish line and I stopped racing! My mind telling me "that was the last lap. I then saw the blue flags waving and then I started cursing all the idiots that is racing on the cooldown lap towards the pits. I realised my fault after 3/4 lap and raced to the end with a 26th place. The fan club rushed to the pits thinking that the car has run bearings or something broke down. If only it did.

The 3rd race was good as well although I overcooked it just exiting the esses and went wide onto the grass. I managed to straighten it out but it cost me dearly in the end with a 18th place.

Now this time I got my in-car camera working and I will put it up on Utube as soon as possible. I need to edit the races because it will be to long for Utube. The kids will have to help me because I have never edited an .AVI file.

I will post pictures if I find any but that's all folks.

Highlites.  Porsche 944 overtaking me midway through the race and then me taking him back on the    last lap in the wet!
              Overtaking an Alfa GTV on the outside of the hairpin!
              Improving my best time (on the dry) from 1:29.2 to 1:27.4. A big improvement.

Regards
Frans.

[kiwibrick]

Almost 2sec quicker on a lap is a big improvement!
Did you improve the car or just drive better??

[BigPete]

Sounds awesome. You should've told us to come, then you might've had a fan club of 6.

[sexyBerlingo]

dang i would of been keen.

i still havnt been to watch anything at hampton downs i always seem to only be able to make it to the pukekohe meetings

unless you count trying to race cars in the evening at 500ft in my 172 haha mean max rate turns to get around the tight turns. Is good low flying practice/ever so slightly illegal. Way harder than following the coastline haha

once i sort my 309 i wana do some of those twilight open track deals. Peter, you should come with your 205. Will be awesome

[RENOholic]

Hi All,

I have managed to upload the Saturday race on to U-tube. It has been edited very little so the race process is good but the sound quality is poor. Apparently the noise inside the car is to much for the mic and I will have to block it with cottonwool or something.
If you do have the sound on you will notice that I run into the limiter on the straight very quick. It doesn't sound like it because I lift my foot as soon as it gets to the soft cut stage and then I keep it there. Although I can't go faster, I am not that slow on top speed either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSHcf4Zv9P8

I hope you enjoy it.
Regards,
RENOholic

[2052NV]

The weather on sunday was mint! Such an awesome race meet. much cooler cars, more exiting, and the racing is better than the tier one classes imo. The reverse grid staggered starts are really cool to watch and also the one hour enduro, seeing cars that vary form a brand new e60 m3 full race car to an e46 m3 v8 that looks like it came strait from le mans to a zephyr 6 driven by a dude with his elbow out the window for the whole race!

was great!

oh and Franz's Gordini was ok aswell  .... haha. na was really cool seeing the blue battler in such standard form going so FASSSSSSSSSSSSSSST!!!

and gutted i didn't get any photo's as the dam camera store closed 5 mins before 12 on saturday so i couldn't pick it up after being fixed  next time though !