02/09/2025
Sydney Motorsport Park recap,
On the weekend we took our old faithful "Lucy" VW Scirocco to SMSP to compete in the State of Origin production cars race hosted by NSW Production Cars in an attempt to bring the trophy back to QLD. The weekend consisted of 3x practice sessions on Friday, driver A & B qualifying and 1x 45 minute race Saturday followed by 2x 45 minute races on Sunday.
Our weekend wasn't without a few little hiccups. 3 practice sessions on Friday went well. A driver qualifying Saturday morning started off good with Pat setting a new PB by more than 2 seconds off the last time we went down, after a quick tyre pressure check and heading back out on track there was a grinding noise in the car. Deciding to not risk anything we got it back to the pits safely and found a wheel hub bolt had wound itself loose digging into the drive shaft and splitting the boot.
With grease everywhere, hot brakes and B driver Qualifying coming up really soon after we had a quick re boot and grease of the drive shaft and back in the car with minutes to spare before getting back out.
Caity was setting very consistent fast times for her first visit to SMSP and not in her normal car! Between the rush to with all hands on deck to get the drive shaft replaced and get the car back out on track we did forget to add more fuel to the car. Caitys stint did have to be finished a little earlier than planned. With both of the qualifying sessions completed we finished both sessions 1st in class.
With a tyre shuffle and fuel added we were ready for the first race with both Pat and Caity sharing the car for this race. It didn't start off to well, with a slighy lapse in concentration and everything out of sequence the window net was forgotten to be put up, after having to serve a pitstop to rectify this Pat was sent back out to a clear track and just went for it. Once we pitted again for a driver change it was Caitys turn to bring it home ending in first place in class. After a few QLD cars not being able to complete the race we were on the back foot in points heading into day 2
Sunday morning we started to check over the car and had found our tyres had blistered very badly from the high degradation track, we dialed abit of camber out to try and cope with this as we were surprised we didn't have a tyre blow out. Race 2 Pat did the whole race by himself we pitted as early as possible to try a different tyre pressure strategy which ended up paying off as late in the race we ticked off another PB towards the end. Another P1 in class, a few more QLD cars crossed the line this time but not enough to get us close to the points NSW had.
Race 3 was all Caitys race, after a decent safety car intervention early on in the race she got her game face on and pushed all the way to the end, in typical Navin fashion setting green sectors and race PBs all the way to the finish line! Yet another 1st in class and importantly finishing the race to do our bit for QLD!
Unfortunately NSW have taken the trophy for another year but we did our best finishing all of our races!
Thanks to NSW Production Touring Cars for putting on an awesome event. We are back at Morgan Park raceway with QLD Production Cars this weekend for our last sprint round of the year before we hit the enduros!
Special mention also to James Hay and Paul Ansell for their 1st in class at the Winton 300 over the weekend too in their VW Scirocco backed by MRPS! Good weekend of racing for our Volkswagen's!
