08/12/2024
Masterton Motorplex. Outlaw 71 round. 7th & 8th December.
The Chaos team descended on Masterton Motorplex for the next round of the Outlaw 71 series. Steve ‘The Glove’, Trevor ‘The Legend’ and Mallory ‘MJ’ were still buoyed up from the NPB at Meremere the last time out. For this round ‘MJ’ would change her hat from ‘BUG’ to ‘TB’, and with the absence of ‘Egg with eyes’ The Legend would be the new BUG. Confused? You will be!
A very hot Saturday, there would be one practice and two qualifying rounds, and if time allowed one elimination round.
First run, strong burnout and launch but the car stepped sideways at half-track netting a lacklustre 8+ seconds and allowing Ross Brown in the other lane to gloat. A lot.
Second run and first qualifier was better. 7.4 seconds at 183mph. Ross Brown was in the other lane again and guess what? Yes, Ross (who would go on to win the meeting) got to the line first and subjected us to even more gloatiness.
Q2, again a good, strong 7.4, getting to the stripe a gnats before Gary Stinkinson, but all was not well as ‘old glovefoot’ had snapped the throttle cable.
Despite a handful of throttle cables being offered us, we use an unusual cable with 4 adjustment points so despite The Legend’s best efforts, a bush fix couldn’t be had and it looked like we’d be a now-show for the first eliminator. After a few frantic phone calls a possible solution was available locally so MJ and The Glove were hurriedly dispatched to the depths of Masterton to see if the solution would work. I hear banjo’s…….
An hour or so later, the dynamic duo re-appeared with a new end welded to our old cable and the thrash started to see if we could get it on in time. Fortunately (for us), just as we were being called to the staging lanes and with no chance of making it, there was a massive oil down which effectively curtailed racing for the day.
Overnight accommodation was to ‘The Glove’s usual high standards. He and The Legend would stay in L’otel Remorque De Voiture (look it up) and ‘MJ’ would stay in the penthouse suite at the adjacent Hotel Everest.
Dawn broke, and The Legend was woken by a cold, wet nose being forced between the covers. This wasn’t unusual as his dog always wakes him up at home. But wait a minute – he wasn’t at home!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!
With decorum reinstated, and ‘The Glove’ chastised (“Down boy, bad boy”) it was back to racing. We’d managed to make the repaired cable work, but couldn’t get full throttle so we really weren’t expecting much from Competition Round 1. A very off-pace 8 plus second run was worse than expected, but it transpired that the air system had leaked on the run leaving The Glove with no throttle at all by half track. Round 1 loss.
Fortunately, with the Outlaw 71 Series all racers get to come out on all rounds and can earn points at each round.
Competition round 2. We still did not have full throttle and Steve would have to launch off the foot brake as the trans-brake was in the same circuit as the air system. We hadn’t run faster than 7.4 with everything working so dialling in a 7.4 for round two was a safe bet. At the stripe the scoreboard showed a 7.30. It isn’t called Chaos for nothing…..
Round 3. Last round. Still with nothing working as it should we dialled a 7.28 just in case we could replicate the 7.3 run. Boom – 7.25 break out leaving a slowing Maxxed Out Racing altered to take the win. Bu**er! Still, with the way the points are distributed we actually finished just off the podium in 4th place.
With the racing over it seems we’ve now got a drivetrain problem which will need to be resolved by the next outing.
Thanks as always to the track, the organisers and particularly the safety crew for a great weekend, and thanks to the weather Gods for keeping it dry until after the last cars went down the track, and thanks to Ross Brown for nothing!