Eastern creek laptimes

[s4matt]

Im off to Eastern Creek tomorrow for the Dutton Rally
Curiosity Question???
Whats everyones best time in a standard or modified mini
Having done only 5 laps in my standard mini I was down to a 2.03
I wonder what the Lancia integrale will do???????????
I doubt I will beat that as I am still learning to drive it quickly
Its an unpredictable BEAST, not like a mini
Matthew freeburn

[TRELO]

My best time in my mini was 1.57.08 ( hard to get traction out of corners due to wheelspin ) ,
Oh, but in my Porsche 996 turbo I managed 1.49.32 on street tires.

[robbo mcs]

Hi,

My best time in the mini stock at Eastern Creek is 2.01.9.

I was out there on the weekend with the BMW club with all the mods. Trelo was also there. They still haven't emailed out the final times, but from memory my best on the weekend was 1.57.3.

The minis beat some very good cars on the weekend, and ruffled a few feathers! Once the club emails out the list I'll repost some of the times, along with some of the cars we beat!

By the way, have you seen the last edition of motorsport news? You get a mention in regards to the East Coast Rally.

Robbo

[Boo]

Hey Robbo,
Did you get close to Cam and Jason??

[robbo mcs]

Quote: Originally Posted by Boo

Hey Robbo,
Did you get close to Cam and Jason??

Hi,

The club results are now out.

I'll try and post the summary as an attachment. However, if anyone is interested all the results are available in detail at www.bmwclubnsw.asn.au (go to the news section).

Boo, Jason had an absolute blinder, and beat me by a long way! He is now seriously quick. I beat Cam however, to come second in our class. I had fun trying to keep ahead of Trelo!

Other points of note were that no standard M cars beat me, only modified M's being faster. All of the cars faster than me were either race cars, heavily modified street cars or porsches

Notable kills were E46M3 driven by Roy (who is normally much faster than me), several XR8's who are going in the dutton rally, and a fully race prepared commodore with roll cage, slicks etc

Robbo

[Darryl]

Quote: Originally Posted by TRELO

Oh, but in my Porsche 996 turbo I managed 149.32 on street tires.

1.49.18 - Road registered PRB clubman, street tyres - completely standard 88kw Corolla twin cam engine (sorry couldn't resist)

[robbo mcs]

Quote: Originally Posted by Darryl

1.49.18 - Road registered PRB clubman, street tyres - completely standard 88kw Corolla twin cam engine (sorry couldn't resist)

Hi Darryl,

I bet the clubman felt a lot faster too!

I have driven some clubmans, and they are awesome. Nothing like being close to the ground, in the open air, and able to see your front wheels!

Next week at Eastern Creek I am getting the opportunity to drive the Caterham Blackbird. This is has a 1100cc honda motorbike engine with a sequential gearbox.

Last month I went as a passenger in the car for some hot laps at Oran Park, which blew my mind. The car was very, very fast. I cant wait to get in it and drive it myself!

Robbo

[swamos]

Quote: Originally Posted by robbo mcs

Hi Darryl,

I bet the clubman felt a lot faster too!

I have driven some clubmans, and they are awesome. Nothing like being close to the ground, in the open air, and able to see your front wheels!

Next week at Eastern Creek I am getting the opportunity to drive the Caterham Blackbird. This is has a 1100cc honda motorbike engine with a sequential gearbox.

Last month I went as a passenger in the car for some hot laps at Oran Park, which blew my mind. The car was very, very fast. I cant wait to get in it and drive it myself!

Robbo

Is that a car for sale through the importer in Aus??

I wasn't aware that they were selling that here??

[robbo mcs]

Quote: Originally Posted by swamos

Is that a car for sale through the importer in Aus??

I wasn't aware that they were selling that here??

Swamos,

Yes the cars are for sale! In fact I am thinking of buying one! However, they are not road registered, and for track use only.

The deal is being put together by Vjay Angelo and his company Sterling Motorsport, and Luke O'Neill who organises the drive days Boo and I go to at Eastern Creek.

Vjay originally comes from the UK, but I believe he has been here for a while now. He and his team (Sterling Motorsport) run a BMW Mcoupe, which came 5th outright last year in the Bathurst 24 hour race.

I am not sure of his association with Caterham, but I presume he has some association from his time in the UK.

He has a Caterham Blackbird, which I presume he imported from the UK. He is trying to set up Caterham racing program in Australia, and is marketing the cars, along with a racing series due to start 2005. Also, they are offering support of the cars in terms of transport, pit crews, service etc.

If you check out the www.caterham.co.uk site and follow links to motorsport, international, Australia it links to the Sterling motorsport site so it would seem it is supported by Caterham.

The price they are asking for the car is very competitive.

However, at this stage they are still developing the concept.

I will know more after I drive the car next week.

Robbo

[Darryl]

VJ Angelo of Sterling Motorsport is trying to get a one make series going for the Blackbirds, he's sorting out the details now. At present their not road registerable.

You'll enjoy the drive Robbo (you got that cheque book handy?), a mate of mine has his Hyabusa powered PRB registered now, its manic, fastest car I've ever been in. On the dyno at a club Lotus meeting the other night it was pulling 138hp at the rear wheels at 10500 rpm and still climbing, we envisage 0-100km/h times of mid 3's and it should lap Eastern Creek in the low 1.40's on slicks.

Trouble with all this lap time business is unless all the cars are at the track in the same conditions its very hard to compare, Wakefields a bugger for that, its either nearly snowing or the tracks melting in the heat.

[Darryl]

oh dear, did we type that at exactly the same moment Robbo

[swamos]

Interesting news, guys. Make sure you let me know how much they are going to be.

I wonder who the other guy that is taking Caterhams around all the shows claiming he is the importer is??

[Darryl]

Swamos, Yes the people you mention are still the Caterham importers in Australia according to Caterhams UK web site. I've had numerous discussions with them with the veiw of possibly purchasing a R300. Frankly, selling the things out here without some lifting of the brand is a very hard call.

The local cars (PRB especially) have lots of chassis development and are the clubbies to beat on the track. I'd love to see some cats running around but mention Caterham to the vast bulk of the people in Australia and they have no idea what your talking about, case in point the Caterham JPE thats currently being raffled ($150 a ticket - 800 tickets) whilst being a very rare car in Caterhams history its also a very hard car to sell in this country.

Not sure whether VJ is going to just look after the motorsport side and where its all going but whatevers happening its got to be good for the clubman movement out here.

[Boo]

What ballpark figure are they asking Robbo?? Sounds like fun..

[swamos]

Quote: Originally Posted by Darryl

Swamos, Yes the people you mention are still the Caterham importers in Australia according to Caterhams UK web site. I've had numerous discussions with them with the veiw of possibly purchasing a R300. Frankly, selling the things out here without some lifting of the brand is a very hard call.

The local cars (PRB especially) have lots of chassis development and are the clubbies to beat on the track. I'd love to see some cats running around but mention Caterham to the vast bulk of the people in Australia and they have no idea what your talking about, case in point the Caterham JPE thats currently being raffled ($150 a ticket - 800 tickets) whilst being a very rare car in Caterhams history its also a very hard car to sell in this country.

Not sure whether VJ is going to just look after the motorsport side and where its all going but whatevers happening its got to be good for the clubman movement out here.

I'll be very interest to see how you guys go with these. I have done quite a bit of Caterham driving myself. In case you haven't guessed, I'm a bit of a Lotus fan. While I agree that the local copies are very good on the track, the real caterhams have a magic suppleness that makes them a joy on public roads. Their suspension tune reminds me a lot of my Elan. The real lotus sevens from the 60's are much closer in tune to the copies, very hard and harsh. It seems to me that Caterham have not wasted the 30 years of suspension development.

Having said that, as usually happens with English car importers is that they seem to get greedy, or maybe the costs are significant or something. Anyway, they seem to land here at absorbadent prices. The standard caterham that they are selling here is the roadsport 115 SV (wide body) which is 19k pounds in the UK, which is about $46k Aus. They are selling that car here for $70 if I remember. That's an increase of about half again.

Now the R300 in England is 22.4K pounds which is 54.5k Aus. If we follow the mystery factor applied above, that would make the R300 about $80k+ in Aus, which was about the figure I last heard bandied about.

I'll be very interested to see what this other importer wants to sell them for. I would think you're going to be paying a lot more than if you buy a PRB monoque $40 and a honda black bird $25 and put them together yourself. Mind you, that's presuming you can get Mr Bladwell to deliver. One of the guys up here had a firm order for the car for 2.5 years and gave up in the end. I'm not sure whether they are vapourware or not....

BTW, I also did the sums on the R500, and I came up with $120 Aus

Are you going to buy a ticket in the raffle. I'm still entertaining it for xmas