Queens Birthday Weekend at Taupo

30 May 1998

The opportunity to throw caution, brake dust and tyre tread to the winds and throw the race car around Taupo Car Club’s cool little circuit over Queen’s Birthday Weekend was too much to resist. Saturday 30 May was the second round of the Taupo Car Club’s clubman series, and the following day was the Ford Capri Club’s dual sprint day. the possibility of two days racing and a day off afterwards to recover sounded like a perfect weekend in the making.

Because of the absolutely mental Auckland long weekend traffic, we decided to leave for Taupo early Saturday morning. We needed to be at Taupo in time for scrutineering between 8:00 and 9:30 which meant we had to leave Auckland at 5 am!!! Good Lord, if that ain’t dedication to motorsport, I dunno what is.

After many a curse and some trepidation about driving a car with no windows or heater for 3.5 hours in the dark and cold pre-dawn, we set off for Taupo. We swapped drivers in Hamilton when we met up with our friends and their 12A powered Mini, so we both got an opportunity to enjoy the open-air (frozen ears) motoring experience (!)

The grids for the Clubmans meeting are based on lap times, however, there is only limited scope for placement when you’ve got 5 grids to choose from, one of which was dual sprints for cars without rollcages, one was single seaters (basically), one was muscle cars and the other two were for saloon cars. Two drivers in the one car meant two grids, and I got put in Group A with all the RX7s and the rotary powered Mini, while Ade was put in with the second group of saloons and the Mini’s second driver.

As it turns out I probably would have had closer racing with the muscle cars than I had with the RX7s. Grid positions for the first of our 4 races was determined by lap times during practice and as expected I was to be starting off the back of the grid.

I must admit that I hadn’t raced on Taupo for a while and my enthusiasm was probably a lot higher than my skill level to start with. Coupled with a determination to do well, my rustiness resulted in some spectacular lock-ups under brakes and some sideways navigation for my practice session and my first two races. It was of some comfort (but not much) to see that Ade was suffering from a touch of the same problem which resulted in her parking up in the kitty litter at the sweeper after 2 laps of her practice session.

Race 1 saw me frustrated by the car’s ability to launch well, but having nowhere to go with 7 cars to get around. This situation didn’t last long as the chicken cookers all took off and left me floundering after the first corner. Now this may sound like blasphemy but these guys were all fairly experienced race drivers, driving fully race-prepped RX7 class or higher spec cars on race tyres, and worst of all .... the drivers had their brains plugged in!! In an over-exhuberent effort to at least keep up with some of these guys, I managed to fall off the track just after the hairpin. Ade couldn’t understand how I could fall off just after the hairpin, and I’m not entirely sure of the details myself, but it invloved fairly savage application of the accelerator, little sympathy for the traction limitations of the rear tyres and sloth-like responses when it came to correcting the pendulum effect of the massive amounts of oversteer. Never mind, no damage done and the marshalls seemed to enjoy the show.

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This driver also had problems with directional stability. The car is supposed to be going from right to left - look closely at the front wheel.

Race 2 saw me struggling in the dust of the gaggle of Wankel-powered cars again, however, I managed to pass one of the RX7s in a desperate braking manouvre at the end of the back straight. Feeling rather pleased with myself for passing this car, I was determined to stay in front of him, which I managed to do ..... for a while. It all ended in tears (almost) at the exit to the sweeper, Taupo’s trickiest corner. Trying just that little bit too hard, I overcooked it, the rear end slid out in a wild oversteer. Correction of that left me set up for a spectacular 270 degree spin which left me (briefly) travelling down the back straight backwards. This gave me a wonderful view of the car I’d passed earlier exiting the corner and emerging through a cloud of my tyre smoke towards me. Now, as one or two may be able to attest, travelling backwards at speed in an MR2 is not necessarily the most comfortable sensation. I decided I’d better do something about it and found that braking while travelling backwards at speed in an MR2 has the almost magical effect of spinning the car. What the hell, I was getting used to it by now. I finally managed to get it all together and finish the race, but I decided I had to try and avoid that particular manouvre again.

It was decided during lunch that while my immediately past performance may be interesting to watch, its best not to continue racing in the current manner and that I really needed to plug my brain back in. Races 3 and 4 were (thankfully) less spectacular and involved considerably more thinking and less spinning.

Ade had similar problems in the morning, but managed to recover well in the afternoon and enjoyed some good racing, including blitzing about 3 or 4 cars off the start line by passing them with two wheels on the grass. All in all it was good fun but I probably would have had closer racing with the muscle cars.

After thinking about things overnight, I realised that the cold weather probably meant that the tyres were not heating up properly and I was expecting way more grip than the tyres could provide. Having said that, the fastest lap time recorded for me was 48.02 seconds. My previous best was about 49.7, so I was pleased with that result but somewhat sceptical.

Sunday was the Capri Club dual sprint and Dave Nation made the trip from Hamilton to drive his newly repaired Mk1 MR2 in this event. The idea of a dual sprint event is that cars of approximately even performance are paired up and they sprint 3 laps around the track competing against each other and the clock. It can be a lot of fun if the cars are fairly even in their performance, and its the closest you can get to racing without having to have a rollcage, etc.

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David peddling his car through the ‘S’s

Anyway, being a Capri Club event, there were quite a few Capris in evidence. Some of them looked the business too, lowered, flairs, nice paint jobs, etc. Until you look under the bonnet or get them on the track. I don’t mean to insult people who have a penchant for Capris or Fords in general, but the Capri is a pretty heavy car. The suspension is the same setup as a 1960s Mk1 Escort. A lot of them have the standard SOHC Ford 2 litre .... some of them have a 1600. I’d say that many stock Capris could be seriously embarassed by your average MR2. Anyway, far be it from me to pour scorn on another persons choice in car, but I’ll just say that while some of the cars were quite quick, some of them were substantially less competitive.

Matching up against the Capris was a bit of a mixed bag. One or two of the cars were quicker than our MR2, others were way slower, but whatever car I was up against, I must admit I enjoyed the competition. One car in particular with the number plate GRUNTY was a lot of fun to race against as our two cars were very well matched in performance ... or should I say the two drivers were well matched.

After thinking about Saturday’s performance I managed to behave myself on Sunday. I didn’t fall off the track at all. Maybe it was because we’d played with tyre pressures, maybe it was because I had passengers, maybe it was just that I’d plugged my brain back in .... I dunno, but it was all a lot of fun.

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Ade entering the ‘S’s with a passenger

If you’re at all curious about motorsport, a dual sprint will certainly give you a very good idea of what happens in a real racing situation, but you only have to think about what you’re doing and what the car you’re paired up with is doing. Its certainly safer than playing on public roads, and there aren’t any cops to give you tickets on the track. Even falling off the track is not necessarily a big drama. Dave tried to scare thepants off me by taking an alternative route through the kitty litter at the sweeper (I told you it’s a tricky corner!) with me in the passenger’s seat. I kept my pants on, but I almost had to change them afterwards. No damage to car, driver or passenger .... just Dave’s pride.

Steve White