FTO AUSTRALIA

Hot off the heels of Bathurst we're going racing again

This time Eastern Creek, another 1 hour endurance weekend.

At this stage we still only have a 4 speed gearbox though but hopefully we'll have this restored to 5 gears again next weekend If not we'll be racing with 4 It won't hurt as much as it did at Bathurst though!

Following is a link to the event timetable.
http://www.eastern-creek-raceway.com/pd ... etable.pdf

I don't expect there will be as many GT cars running with us at this event, as this is also a national round of the Australian GT Championship, so they'll be running in there own races.

There'll be 10 to 20 million dollars worth of racecars at this event and entry is free so come on out for a look, and remember to drop into my garage and say Hi!

Damn it, I'm away that weekend, I would have defo come and watched if I wasn't.

Good luck Shane!

If I get a chance I will be out there to check it out .

I'll be at EC this sunday to support my mate's supersprint.
Good luck, bring back good results!

Semi successful practice day today. The gearbox is all good so we have all 5 gears again, plus reverse lol! Still not happy with the brake pedal but there wasn't time to test anything today.

Qualifying tomorrow is at 10am following by our sprint race (8 laps) at 1:30pm.

1 Hour Endurance race on Sunday starts at 3:45pm. Hoping for a class win this weekend

We're in garage 21 so if you make it out for a look drop in and say hi.

Remember entry is Free and there are some spectacular racecars running this weekend, including a brand new Mercedes SLS GT3, all wrapped in Chrome. Absolute sex on wheels!
http://www.speedcafe.com.au/2011/05/27/ ... y-testing/

How did you go today Shane?

Qualifying today was a bit disappointing. Lots of traffic and I just didn't get any clean laps. So ended up 38th out of 40 cars with a 1:55.4 laptime.
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/resul ... 11.ARDC.Q4

Our race this afternoon though was an absolute pearler

I'd hoped to gain a couple of spots off the start but backed off due to a stalled car ahead. I then sat in behind an MX5 & a Lotus battling for the first lap before beginning my attack! All three of us diced for position for several laps, all the while being lapped by the faster cars (read Lamborghini / Porsche / GT40 etc!) before I finally got past both and started to pull away. Next in my sites was a yellow RX7 that I was closing on fast but sadly I ran out of laps.

But I did pull another PB, 1:51.5 on the final lap to finish 28th! (several cars DNF'd though lol!) That's over a second faster than my previous best in the FTO at EC. And if it stays dry tomorrow, I'm confident of going faster still.
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/resul ... 11.ARDC.R4

Sadly I don't think we'll get a class win this weekend. There are several 1:4x second class C cars running this weekend, including an MX5 pulling mid 40 lap times. That's very fast considering the PWR limit for class C. So my goal for the weekend now is to break the 1:50 barrier

My only disappointment for the day was that no one was out there to see my battle with the MX5 & the Lotus This was one of my best races ever with constant dicing between multiple cars for several laps, would have been pretty exciting to watch, especially at turns 1 & 2. Was pretty awesome stuff from the drivers seat! This was only an 8 lap race and I was fully sweating at the end

Praying for a dry track for tomorrow... (please, please, please)

PS: Our race today starts at 3:50pm for anyone who wants to come out for a look

sh*t that's to late for me .
I won't get back in time to pick up my son.

Good luck mate hope to see a top 5 finish from you .

I just wrote out a detailed post about yesterdays race and of course once I hit submit the FTO website timed out, just adds to the disappointment that was yesterday. Can't be fucked writing it all out again...

In short, wrong tyre choice, car is OK, least enjoyable race I've ever had... no more to say...

that's not sounding good .

take it easy mate, thats part of a racing driver's life...

zuihoujueding wrote:take it easy mate, thats part of a racing driver's life...

Hi mate, I know all too well the ups and downs of motorsport. My first visit to Bathurst was bitter sweet. Awesome race on Saturday morning shaving over 7 seconds off my qualifying time and finishing 13th with a 2:42 laptime. I was on target for a top ten finish for the weekend but then it rained in the afternoon race and I put it into the wall at Reid Park and wrote the car off. And still I went home happy, was my first time at Bathurst

So no need to tell me to take it easy when I'm just sharing my disappointment with those that are interested. I take my motorsport very seriously, I'm not just out there doing track days, I'm out there pushing as hard as I can to get the best result I can. So when I rob myself of what would have been an awesome result for the weekend with a wrong decision then yes I'm pretty disappointed.

Focus now is on improving the car further for Philip Island in November. Though I'll probably do another sprint round at EC now just to get the result I didn't get on Sunday. Probably August. But the focus will be on finding time to do the improvements on the racecar to get me an even better result at PI. There is still a lot of development potential in the FTO. My biggest problem is finding time as I do most of the work myself, but all you can do is go out and do the very best you can with what you have, and unfortunately this didn't happen on Sunday. Hence my disappointment.

i think you are currently the only FTO race driver in oz land right now isnt it?

Probably?