Newcastle 500 Recap Part 2 - 2019

We are back baby!

With the car back together we pushed out with no bumper to line up 17th on the grid, with blood still coming out of my knuckles from rebuilding the car I gripped the steering wheel with both hands ready for my first start. The lights went out, off we went and I slowly pulled to the left to allow the field to go past. We just rebuilt this car and the last thing I was going to do was interrupt someone else’s race with a mechanical problem into turn one with a car that has only done 400m of testing.

We rounded turn one and up Watt st and it was evident straight away we had issues. The engine became hard to shift into gear and the clutch let go, the vehicle was unstable at high speeds due to not having a bonnet and it was elected that the best thing to do would be to take it easy and just circulate laps, which was going fine until the engine cut out!

Back into the pits we found electrical gremlins, with our Auto Electrician (Josh, Wicked Wire Works) found one of the switches terminals snapped off. by the time repairs were done and still more repairs to carry out from the crash it was elected to miss race two and call it an early one to get some rest.

Just because i’m the driver doesn’t mean I don’t get out of working on the car!

Sunday rolls around and spirits are high, we are ready to attack and make some moves, well we were until we realised that the clutch now wont even get us off the line!

We had to come up with plan B, and fast!

So how did we get the car moving? Strap in, start pushing, high revs and smash it into first!

The best thing about these cars is you only really use the clutch when taking off, you can change gears without having to put your foot on the clutch.

Pull up to the line, into neutral, high revs and BANG into gear for the race start.

The clutch really was gone now, with every straight slipping and loosing power, sometimes resulting in only being able to use 50% throttle, not ideal in a race car, until another mechanical gremlin.

Coming past Fort Scratchly, Second gear, third, select forth, BANG the gear linkage let go from the gearbox locking me out of gear, cruising down to the hairpin where I parked it, yet again.

We might have not had the best weekend, but the fans supporting us were fantastic!

Back to the pits, put the shaft back on and lets get out there again.

Same story, Strap in, start pushing, high revs, BANG into gear, but now we have a new sound.

On the way out I found that now i have a broken first gear, no clutch and no neutral, oh no how will I start the race? As I pulled to the line the car stalled and locked it self in gear. How did I get started? I just held the starter motor on until the car eventually rolled and fired slowly away.

With all these gremlins I tried my best to limp the car around for the remaining laps, avoiding spinning cars and even cars tipped on there side, to eventually claim our first checkered flag for the event.

So, to say this weekend was a roller-coaster of emotions is an understatement but what made it easier was the help over the weekend by people like you who are reading this article.

If you were at the event, came up and said hello, offered help, bought hats, grabbed posters or even just sent us a message of encouragement over the weekend, from the bottom of our hearts we thank you for the support, because it’s people like you that push us to keep going in tough times!

We cant also forget the team, Adam, Dan, Wade and Aly are all volunteers, they gave up time with family and friends to be there supporting us and i am forever grateful!

And as a bonus, for the event we took home the local legend award. i might not of one but i still got a trophy!

Thank you once again guys! See you next season!