Successful Test For Several NSW Based Teams

As preparation for teams competing in the 2010 Armor All Bathurst 12 Hour race intensifies, almost 20 NSW based cars hit the track at Eastern Creek on Thursday for testing.

The test proved the many hours of hard work over the last six months is starting to pay dividends for Jim Hunter Motorsport, and also their choice of drivers, with their Subaru Sti driven by both their latest signing Barton Mawer and Jim Hunter.

The teams third driver the West Australian based Dean Herridge a Subaru Australia contracted driver wasn’t able to make the test, and wont drive the car until Friday practice at Bathurst.

Mawer is an experienced single seat racer, and considering his limited experience in touring cars was most impressive, and left Hunter, a long time team owner and driver very happy.

“I think we now are close to EVO 9 performance but carry 10 litres more fuel than them. Bart and I only did a few laps and were about 0.3 secs apart and both are very happy with the suspension setup now.

“We have improved the car a number of small amounts in different areas with revised shocks, given up on the standard ECU and replaced it with a Vipec ECU from Insight Motorsport as well as playing with the oil breather system to stop oil blowing into the inlet tract and intercooler which was de-tuning the octane rating, consequently pulling timing out of the engine.

“This is why we had decent numbers on the Dyno, where a power run only takes about 20 seconds, but there was no performance at the race track.

Another car seen testing during the day was the Team Bathurst Subaru Impreza RS 2.5 with all three drivers Matthew Windsor, Paul Newman and Steven Shiels taking the opportunity to reacquaint themselves with the 2009 class winning car, and they left the circuit more than happy.

With its extra 20 bhp they found recently during a rebuild and dyno-tuning the car

felt very strong according to team spokesman Windsor.

“We ran brakes in and went through our program for the day without a problem, and whilst we didn’t have the race tyres, just old ones from last year, the handling was still very good. Now once we put on the race tyres we will just need to re-adjust the wheel alignment, and do a final check.

“The only problem we encountered was with the computer which was causing a slight ‘hiccup’ between 4 and a half and 5 and a half thousand revs, but it has been there in the past however with everything else perfect we’d like to try to get to the bottom of it.

Also testing on the day and putting in some 23 laps on a track that was greasy and slippery for some time after rain, was Brian Walden in the all new Walden Motorsport VZ Commodore.

Walden said he found several items that will require attention before the race, but overall was very happy.

The former V8 Supercar team owner will be shooting for three straight wins in the Holden Motorsport supported entry along with the same two co-drivers from the winning years, his son Garth Walden and Michael Auld.

“This is an unbelievable car, horsepower is good, and its got much more power and torque than the old VY, but like any new car there were several issues, and we’ve got a bit to do yet, but the ingredients are there for a good race car.

“I was a bit at sea actually, for I hadn’t been on Oran Park for about four years, and hadn’t driven the new car before because I missed the two previous runs it had with Garth and Auldy (Auld) but the brakes were certainly an issue, and they’ll have to be looked at, but no, its real good” Walden said.

Another driver to be more than happy after the test was Garry Holt the 2007 race winner driving this year with Paul Morris with whom he won in ’07 and recent V8 hall of fame inductee John Bowe.

Holt and Bowe drove the car at Eastern Creek, and were very pleased with the end result of the exercise.

Comments

no comments so far