VN Production Saloon

[VNracer34G]

Got my right side tyres fully grooved up and had the car declared ready for the trailer before dark Friday night then went and worked on a Streetie till 1.30am - never a dull moment.
Saturday arvo we had a bit of rain out at my mates helping on a streetie, looked like the track had ahd a dousing but the surface looked like it would come up well with a few races on it and hopefully leave the water truck parked up.
Guess which class was first up Pulled the eight marble giving me grids 8, 17 and 4 for the night with twenty cars lined up.

I lost track of how many times we went around wheel packing before forming up to get started, the car felt like remaining on the track and keeping it shiny was going to be one hell of a mission - sure nuff i was keeping a modicum of control and pointed in the right direction but soon got eaten by a few front wheel drives having a much better time of it with the conditions, after four laps the 58G integra broke something and ended up beached by the wall and we got a caution, took a few laps single file for the officials to sort the order for the restart shuffling a couple of cars around, my mate in 13G got moved up about four spots which he didn't understand but he took it one way past me =D> by this time the track was improving and i managed to claw a couple of spots back and finished 10th , lost two spots but had only a couple of minor rub marks.

[VNracer34G]

Main Two Grid 17;

Track felt really good, clean start and the car was ON. This race was a hell of a rush, the car really hooked when i hit it and had grip in the front to go high or low, eight incredibly intense laps later i finished SIXTH - a few more laps would have been nice haha but really happy with that.

Feature Grid 4;

!7g Mazda Eunos V6 on pole, 37g Toyota Trueno outside him setting pace, My mate in his VL 13g next to me and 58g behind - thats how it stayed for us side by side mostly jostling for position for three laps keeping real close to the bumper of 37g with a bit more pace than 17g, through three i stayed high and took a run with plenty of grip and coming through four i was carrying momentum to get a slingshot on 17g and start racing my preffered line to challenge 37g - after a few days to cool off and think about things i think the driver of 17g was close to the limit of front end grip - saw me moving around coming onto the corner exit, gassed it to keep up and blew away his grip - any way his front end came slamming into my left front door ( hard enough to partially crush the sill) sending me cannoning into marbles then wall, hearing carnage behind i hit first and got the hell out of there - the car felt horrible and wobbly in the steering but picked up some momentum down the straight so i thought bugger it i'll finish this - got to the end of the straight - turned - nek minute WALL - time to make my wayto the infeild which is where i watched the rest of the race from along with four other cars. Car returned to pits and reversed onto trailer by tractor. carrying more damage than it ever has before in one race, the only panel without scars to show for it is the roof - but its all superficial and most of it got beaten out by a friend this evening - then theres the bent stuff

[Holden202T]

shame to end like that! i was loving the commentary till the wall came :S

[VNracer34G]

shame to end like that! i was loving the commentary till the wall came :S

and i was loving the racing till the wall came

[VNracer34G]

Bent Stuff

Right tie rod bent about 45 degrees before it snapped,
Steering rack - rack bent and housing split open,
Right front bottom arm - worst bent one i've seen yet out of 4 & a bit seasons & three commodores,
Right front strut housing bent - won't let go of the shock insert so i gotta buy a new one,
Strut top rubber tearing,

Panhard bar bent like a banana,
I put a dial indicator on the right rear disc - .050' runout so axle & disc are out

Two possibly three rims - havent checked runout on them yet although no need for that with the right front one.



With the exception of the strut insert i have spares on hand for all the above and by Tuesday i was no longer in pain, head on hits arent too hard on me but side on or an oblique angle into the wall tends to hurt a bit

[Holden202T]

geez, it sure stuff some parts!! including you!

[zrossa]

Just for next time....

I have a complete vn wagon if you need some front end parts. I am just using the drive train and pedal box.

Cheers,

Doug

[VNracer34G]

Got all the bent stuff changed out and back together with a couple of 'tweaks' by thursday and slapped the guards back on on Friday. Saturday morning at work got several messages around 9.30am that they had pulled the pin on the meeting due to it pissing down with rain. Gutted- .

[Holden202T]

lol its always the way, if you didn't have a car ready it would have been a perfect day!!

[VNracer34G]

lol its always the way, if you didn't have a car ready it would have been a perfect day!!

HMMM yup, went to track, unloaded, went through scrutineering - rain - pin pulled, loaded up, home - bourbon no damage to car trailers another story

Bloody well chomping at the bit to drive the old slapper in anger again and blow off some steam