For the Tarmac Rally fans

[obrut]

We have just returned from running our 2.8 litre 911ST clone in the Mt Buller Sprint. The event is a cross between a tarmac rally and a giant hill climb.

It was a really tough event. Our sport had a double fatality down here very recently and, in light of that, we went to the event with the goals of racing safely, having fun and coming back with a straight car.

The course is something else, 16 kms long and the longest straight in our pace notes was 100m! It is also a huge climb to about 1700m from memory and non turbo, non efi cars like ours start to run very rich and lose power near the top.

The course runs on the only access road to the Mt Buller ski village and the tarmac is thus optimised for the Winter snow season. Given it is now Summer down under - the result is a very very slippery surface (and changable depending on the time of day!). You feel like you are pretty much driving on a wet circuit, yet there is no rain... Seriously.

Qualifying was the last 2 kms of the course. I was really taken aback by the lack of grip and we just slid everywhere. I'm almost too embarrassed to post the video...

We then chased setup all of Saturday and ended up with basically a full wet setup (hard rear, soft front, lots of fuel, lots of rear brakes, higher than normal tyre pressures etc etc) and still struggled with understeer and front brake lock up.

Our best run was the result of finally feeling comfortable in the car setup, deciding that you can't drive an old 911 timidly and going for it. The harder we pushed it seemed the more grip we generated.

The benchmark for classic cars seemed to be about 10 minutes. We did 10 runs, with our best a 10.05! We ended the event 7th in overall classic competition (against some fearsome cars/drivers) and a Win in our age category!

Here is the traditional view of our second best run:

1st half
http://www.youtube.com/0brut#p/u/0/TOZy2z_Fqlc

2nd half
http://www.youtube.com/0brut#p/u/1/olR7dDIqB20


Here is an alternative view of our best run (which also shows how steep the course is).

1st half
http://www.youtube.com/0brut#p/u/3/xUmgvxSmrOQ

2nd half
http://www.youtube.com/0brut#p/u/2/qYgWDI4JXIs

Hope you enjoy the ride!

ps. Here is our car:
http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...ghlight=samson

[boba]

Ryan,

Thanks for posting, love the cameras placement in your RHD, gives us in the LHD world a drivers seat view, very cool.

[Mark Morrissey]

Ryan, congratulations and thanks for posting. I just love this stuff.
My camera is mounted on the rear section of my roll bar/cage and the vibration is way over the top. I'll bet you could give me some tips.

[Bert]

That was fun to watch!

Thanks for sharing.

[obrut]

thanks guys - glad you liked it.

mark - my camera is just a cheap 'flip' unit. i'll try and take a pic of the mount for you.

[berettafan]

REALLY enjoyed that! Beautiful car doing beautiful stuff!

Were the corners as dusty/dirty as they looked in the video?

[obrut]

Erik,

I don't recall them being dirty, might just be the sunshine hitting them. We had 70+ cars running at 30 second intervals which kept the course pretty clean, and this is not a course where you tend to cut corners too much (as you risk falling off the mountain when doing so...).

Quickest time in the event was an '09 Lambo Galliardo Superleggera running in Modern competition.

[letsrollbabe]

Ryan:

It's really great getting a vicarious ride through these videos and listening to that 2.8L engine go through its rev range. Not many get to drive this kind of course with their completed projects, and getting the payoff for your work through an actual competition drive must be satisfying. We can only lean in our chairs going through those never-ending turns and grin.

Looking at the thread on the build again is a reminder for me of what a great job you did building this ST and how good it looks at every angle. Hopefully many more events will be in your summer schedule.

Gib

[Chuck Miller]

VERY cool Ryan.........
I can only sit back and be envious ......

[obrut]

Gib/Chuck

Thank you for the kind words. Getting to run a car like this on closed roads with no speed limits makes all the time, effort and $$'s that go into it worthwhile.

I'm also very lucky in that the guy who is crazy enough to sit next to me and call the corners is both an excellent navigator and one of my oldest and closest mates.