DECA 22.3.14

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#RIPMINIWANG

Every year SAU Vic holds 4 Motorkahnas at DECA, located in Shepparton Vic.
There is always a feeling of elation when entries open, reflected both on the forum and amongst club members.
DECA is a quarterly reminder that I need to finish something on, or improve my race car!
Yep! This event spurs others and myself into action. None of us are in it for the glory, rather it’s an opportunity to refine car control skills, test out improvements and in some cases ease into the world of Motorsport without the stress of direct competition.
It is then that all of us, regardless of skill, car or knowledge, are in it for “the fun” and SAU did not disappoint!

My car, the silver AW11 was returning to Shep after a full year. I had previously debuted this new engine at Sandown and worked out most of the kinks. I only need to install a water temp gauge.
Mick’s VK only required a couple of small tweeks, again to do with cooling, so he made his own thermostat control kit from Jaycar.

Early start as per the norm. Upon arrival at DECA we were greeted with an unfamiliar sight. The concrete skid pan was completely black! Turns out a drift club thought they’d finish off their tyres.. possibly? Regardless this meant our grip was compromised! Also – during announcements and house keeping we were informed that the mini wang was deemed to be to degraded for our use and thus was off limits.

Time to try something new!
The back track was truncated and the basket ball court now played host to a mini motorkahna.
This was one bloody tight skid pan! I’m sure I hurt my ribs from they way I had to throw the AW11 around, I would have hated attempting it in a larger car.

VIDEO COMING SOON!

The main skid pan events unfortunately got the better of me..

However I’m sure I wasn’t the only one! There will be loads of WDs littering the results.
The skid pan showed me that the AW11 is far from finished! All of the tight turns resulted in violent scraping inside the front right guard and my rear left wheel was smoking up!
As a result I’m considering changing spring rates in the front and investigating if my rear swaybar has encouraged the liveliness of the rear left. While I acknowledge that a LSD would probably fix my single spinning problem, it’s approx. 1k and complicated to install! – so I’ll try and fix that cheaply..

Stand out cars:
The field had loads of quality beasts.
Ignoring the range of 180sx’s (because.. well.. they consistently out class us all) My eyes were drawn to the MiColour Ford Territory Turbo! Despite the body roll and there was a lot! It looked like it was loads of fun throwing the 2+Tone SUV around the cones.

Sticking with the Ford theme, my ears noticed a certain black XR5 Turbo sounded like it’s had some work done?? Eh Chris?

I had a moment that left spectators confused. Some how in my rush to queue I managed to wrap my seatbelt around my seats tilt control lever.
Taking off meant the belt pre-tensioned which jettisoned me backwards into the firewall. I leapt forward and regained control to steer through the next lot of cones, but I was unable to hold on, which resulted in a missed gear change.
At this point I felt it would be best to leave the skid pan. Still! That’s something to watch for people!

We can’t wait to see the results as per the norm. – But in the interim enjoy the pics.

As per norm, we’ve uploaded all the cars we have shots of, if we have missed your beast, sorry! Tap us on the shoulder at the next event to get some shots taken.