Autocross,  Pebblebrook,  August 2004

TCS Racing is sponsored by :

Results for this event can be seen at the HCMC website.
Photos from this event can bee seen at the HCMC website.

This event was another mixed bag for our team.  With SO863 still under repair and OE4203  a bit slow for an autocross (not to mention the handbrake still operating on the front wheels rather than rear),  Troy was short a car in the 2 litre class where he needs points.  He was going to use Trevors desiel Corolla but Chris Subritzky offered Troy the use of his Escort,  which Troy accepted.

Timothy had got ME8579 (1600cc class) going again and competed in that,  while Trevor had replaced some of the shock absorbers in the Corolla which he intended to compete in.

It all went wrong for Troy and Chris though when the gearbox blew up on the start line of Troys first run,  and Troy started before Chris so the Escort only moved about 2 metres for the entire day.  The Escort was pushed off the course and Troy received a DNF for his first time.  Chris borrowed Rod Hazeltons Toyota Corolla (1300cc class) while Troy shared the desiel Corolla with 
Trevor.

Timothy had a really bad day.  ME8579 had it's usual problem on loose surfaces and understeered straight off the course at every corner,  so while Timothy was able to avoid having an accident he got very poor times.  Tim tried several different techniques to get the car to oversteer but nothing worked,  and the handbrake was barely operating due to stretched cables and poor adjustment so handbrake turns weren't an option.  Unfortunately he also went the wrong way on three out of his four runs.  

Trevor did really well,  closing the gap between himself and Troy to about five seconds - down from ten.  Troys first full run (remembering his first was a DNF) was ten seconds quicker than Trevors first run.  Troy picked up about another five seconds on his next run but Trevor picked up even more and while Troy was still ahead at the end of the day the gap between the two was much smaller.  Troy was only a few seconds of Chris Subritzky in Rods Corolla,  which was pretty good driving too.

On his very last run Troy popped the front right tyre off the Corolla even though Trevor had the tyre pressures at 40psi.  At this point Trevor decided the Corolla had taken enough of a beating already and that was it for the day.

The replacement clutch in ME879 (which was a second hand spare we had lying around) was starting to slip like the last one,  and so a new one is now needed.

Troy was able to take a number of great photos and even some video with his new digital camera,  a Sony DSC-P73.  This has proven to be an excellent camera,  although Troy needs some practice with framing shots and using the manual settings to take action shots.  The good news is the camera has a near instant response when you click the shutter button which helps with  framing shots as it doesn't have the delay alot of other cameras have.  It also has manual shutter speed and aperature settings which allow for taking great action shots,  it takes excellent video,  and it has an constant-focus and multi-burst mode.  All of this makes it a great consumer level camera for taking motorsport pictures.  Troy's shots from the event can be seen by using the links at the top and bottom of this page that point to the HCMC site.  The video page (accessible from the menu on the left) will show some of the video he took.

Overall it was a good day,  except for the incident with the Escort.  Troy and Trevor did quite well,  while Timothy made the best of a difficult situation.

Results for this event can be seen at the HCMC website.
Photos from this event can bee seen at the HCMC website.

TCS Racing is sponsored by :
TRIPLE D CONSULTING