Biante Touring Car Masters
Round 6 – Bathurst, NSW
10-11 October 2009

I’ve heard commentators describe this event as the equivalent in motor sport to the AFL Grand Final in football, so to be support category at such a high profile event is a highlight for the Biante Series and for Whiteline Racing.

To make Bathurst is a highlight for Whiteline Racing. Pic courtesy James Smith.

Bob the Builder’s previous experience at the mountain was in an endurance race in a BMW co-driving with Wayne Russell and in a Whiteline Racing nascar and there is no denying this is a track takes some conquering. The long straight means high speed and so post Eastern Creek much work has taken place to present a competitive car for this round.

In preparation for the crown in the jewel event, the engine was removed and rebuilt following the push rod incident at Eastern Creek – given the fragments of metal found easily by the eye, rather than just replace the push rod, the decision was made to pull the engine down to freshen everything up and just as well we did, because the metal fragments went much deeper than realized.

Pic courtesy James Smith.

The compression ratio was changed, so too the camshaft, all of these modifications in search of more top end horse power. Mark designed and installed a new exhaust system designed to increase power. Installed a new clutch, more as a preventative move, as the old one was starting to develop cracks in the plates. Changed the diff ratio for Bathurst by installing a newly built diff. Fitted new brake rotors, rear brake hats and four new brake pads, partly as routine but more because there have been some minor updates on the brake packages available. This would result in a full new set on the car with the old set becoming spares. Checked over the gear box and fitted a new extension seal in it.

On completion, the WesTrac Camaro was loaded up on the Saturday as the scheduled departure for the triple was early Tuesday morning. Singo flew in from the Gold Coast and would go ‘two-up’ with the builder for the journey from Adelaide to Bathurst.

Pic courtesy James Smith

An incident free journey would see the team arrive at Bathurst 3.45 am on the Wednesday morning. I say incident free partly thanks to Colin driving the Black Cat Racing team and Triple A Motorsport Transporter – his truck has a bull bar and was wing man for the Whiteline Triple. Colin took a roo and near missed two others. When they arrived, despite Singo’s pleas for me to leave this out, Bob and Singo went nose to toes in the bunk for a couple of hours! The boys headed straight to the track to begin the unloading and setting up of our pit area.

Mark ‘Birdman’ Peacock and Gregg ‘Engine Builder’ Hayes headed off on the Wednesday in the Mercedes Benz Freightliner Vito Van, departing 5.00 a.m. and arriving into Bathurst 5.45 pm that night.
Our home base away from the track this weekend was Jingra Park close to the heart of Bathurst. Early races for Biante, means even earlier driver meetings and preparation time on each day, so being close to the track is vital. The population of Bathurst absolutely explodes each year in October. Home at Jingra was a couple of caravans and a tent. They have a sign up calling it “The Funny Farm”. Jenny was very helpful and did her absolute best to make things right for us. They breed dogs and horses so there were plenty of cute critters to see and given how much I miss Nuggett when I’m away from home, this was good for me!! Jenny would run around and turn our heaters on, so when we did get back from the track frozen and tired, at least our rooms were warm.

Bob in pit lane on Saturday’s race – the Camaro was stuck in 3rd gear. Pic courtesy of JB.

Thursday morning was a bit eventful, Mark had his phone alarm set for 3.50 a.m. from the day before when he drove up to Bathurst. Thursday morning the alarm went off at 3.50, the boys got up and dressed, rang the Builder and said ‘are you ready’ his response was ‘ it’s only 4.00 a.m. – then the penny dropped, Mark hadn’t revised the alarm time!! So with that they all went back to bed for a couple of hours !! Then the 2nd awaking they had a go at making raisin toast – the toaster is above the head of one of the beds !! The toast burnt, the white cliffs of dover took control of ‘THE VAN’.

Thursday the category were scheduled for a practice session and qualifying session. On arrival at the track, the windscreen of the Camaro was covered in thick ice, even after hosing off, the windscreen again then froze up. It had been an extremely cold night, so much so, the guys said they couldn’t even move their heads on their pillows it was that cold!

The practice session was held in the morning and in this session Bob would complete 6 laps with his quickest on lap 5. The builder reported the new engine was pulling really well, “I can’t believe the power’ he would comment. Bob further added that the newly fitted exhaust had made the WesTrac Camaro a lot quieter.

Pic courtesy James Smith

At the qualifying session later that day we would complete 7 laps, with the quickest time for Bob clocked in the 6th lap with a 2.36.6 making him 13th on the grid. 3/10ths of a second split him and 12th. Positions 1 – 11 were at this stage in pockets of their own 2 – 3 seconds quicker.
After the session, Bob commented he was not driving the Camaro to it’s full potential at this stage, losing some valuable time with cornering and braking into the corners, something that can only be improved by getting more laps under his belt. A slipping clutch issue had developed also and on inspection found the clutch to be sticking causing it to not release or re-engage. A build up of dust seemed to be the culprit, this was cleaned off. The builder further commented that perhaps the power from the engine was not as good as practice, which Mark believed could be an air temperature issue due to the altitude of the track, this would mean prior to Bob’s first race at 4.10 on Friday, they would evaluate the air temperature and combat the problem with a jet change, in other words play with the fuel mixture.

That night, the boys organized some meat and had a bbq at Jingra and caught up with other people staying there – word is it was a good laugh.

Up early Friday morning, they headed to the track and Mark put on his apron and made the breaky muffins. Bob’s only race for the day was at 4.10 so plenty of time to check over everything. Mark’s priority was to check the newly fitted brakes to see how they were wearing in. With the fast straight, which the builder clocked 289 in qualifying, being able to pull up at the end of it and get around the corner is kinda important !!

Timmy, JB and Gregg.

For me, Friday arvo would see me fly to Sydney then down on a itsy bitsy plane to Bathurst. Terrible weather conditions in Sydney severely delayed my plane – quite a bumpy experience !!! On arrival my team were hanging off the fence at Bathurst airport yelling out g’day much to the delight of fellow passengers. From there we headed into town for a Chinese meal as the guys had worked back late working on the car. We headed back to the track in the freightliner vito van going down pit straight around turn one imagining what it must be like in race conditions. Mind you, from the airport I was already given the designated driver hat and just as well, because on our way back into town were pulled over at the breath test station.

First race for the weekend was at 4.10 and over 7 laps. With the race away, initially a spring off the start only to a bog down, costing a couple of spots and then a few more spots up the hill resulting in 20 th spot on completion of lap one. Bob the Builder would work his way back up into 15th where he would finish and was consistently doing laps a second plus quicker than in qualifying, but the Camaro just seemed to be losing grunt. The quicker lap times were as a result of driving through the top of the hill taking better lines but the climb up and down the hill, the power that was there yesterday seems to have waned. Post race the crew were diagnosing the possibilities with a thought that the carby could be the issue, either not getting enough or getting too much fuel would result in the lack of power and could be contributing to the off the line bogging down issue also.

The other WesTrac sponsored car driven by Bowe was not without it’s problems also, having to start at the rear of the field, due to not qualifying when a snapped front input shaft to the gear box would put him out.

It was all just too much for Johnny B- buzy catching zeds on our way to Orange for the WesTrac dinner He was cutting timber big time.

After further consideration, the team decided to change the diff, it would cause the Camaro to rev more, but would give the pull up and down the hills – so this, combined with the improved driving style that Bob has found at the top of the hill should really return a positive outcome and more importantly a sprightly start off the line. It’s hard enough in the race environment to make up places, let alone losing them off the start. Tony Edwards the No. 8 entry is supplying the diff we require – unfortunately for him, he has again been plagued with engine issues and played no further part in racing for the weekend.
Arriving at the track Saturday morning was quite surreal – the atmosphere is like no other race meet you go to. The place is abuzz, helicopters hovering, people everywhere, camping ground city, apartments overlooking the track with people hanging off the balconies – just amazing. Really the die hard fans that have their camping spot year to year do it well – some of the sites are quite palatial and the facilities offered at the track for showering etc are really very good.

Also huge is the NRMA spray booth and workshop set up at the track. It is manned by apprentices from Australia wide who are on hand to rebuild race cars damaged leading up to the big race to make sure every available car hits the track.

With breakfast out the way, the boys prepared the car for race one. In between a flow of visitors from the WesTrac facility was very entertaining. Race 1 was held at 11.30 and over 7 laps, the starting position would be 15 where Bob finished yesterday.

The NRMA set up a spray booth to do the last minute repairs It is manned by TAFE Students.

As has become to be, Bob bogged down in the Camaro, but has luck would have it, the No. 3 Steve Mason entry had come to a stop when Steve accidently knocked his ‘kill’ switch inside the car. Had Bob have not bogged down, he may well have gone up the rear of Mason. In the meantime, the front 4 rows of the grid were haram scaram with cars going everywhere. Throughout the first lap, Richards and Bullas were having a great battle with Tilley entering the fray. By the start of lap 3, Bullas, Tilley were 1 – 3 respectively, with the Builder back in 18th. Bob would not progress any further up the field, due to the Camaro being stuck in third gear on the fifth lap. Bob drove through pit lane and the team was hopeful of being able to disengage the gear stick, so he could re enter the track to finish the race and collect points, however, it was found an oil leak had developed at the dry sump pump connection so the decision was made to retire for the race. In the meantime, Richards, Tilley, Bowe, Bullas, Marget were putting on a great show and this would be how they would finish.

On the way returning to the pit, Mark tried to free up the gear stick, but the exhaust which is quite close to the ground made contact with Mark’s arm, giving him a nasty burn, so the Camaro was then jacked up. This gear stick problem has occurred one other time at Winton, yet the design is not supposed to be able to do this. Mark has said this will be removed completely on return to Adelaide and replaced. Hopefully in the race tomorrow it will work properly. The dry sump hose was tightened, the engine started and tested. After these jobs were complete a fuel leak was noted, which was under the carby and may be why the Camaro has been bogging down. Mark would go about investigating this. It was decided to replace the Carby and again, thanks to the fact that Tony Edwards was out of contention with his engine issue, we were able to obtain one from him.

Saturday night we headed to Orange about 60 klms from Bathurst for the WesTrac gala dinner. Always a huge event for the weekend and extremely well organized with surprises a plenty. Dave Falvey created a singing with the stars theme, whereby 4 professional singers apart from do a floor show of their own, were assigned 4 ‘computer randomly selected participants’ and were given the job of mentoring and teaching them two songs that they would sing as a duet. Bob the Builder was one. I was selected on a panel of four judges along with Jim Walker – CEO of Westrac, Dave Richards owner of FPR Racing amongst other teams who had travelled from the UK and John Bowe. We were given mini white boards to write notes and hold up our score for the audience. Needless to say the performances were very ‘entertaining’ and a great time was had by all.

With the dinner coming to a close, we headed back into Bathurst – me as the designated driver. Throughout the night rain was pounding down and would bring a whole new ball game to the table for the team with set up for our Sunday morning race. To a point teams can decide whether they will run wets or drys, however, if the conditions are such that the category managers deem the wet extreme, they can hand down a ruling that wets will be fitted – it’s not enforceable, but more a gentleman’s agreement so all teams are on an even playing field.

Shaz manning the poster stall - note the brake parts used as a paper weight!

An early arrival at the track for Sunday – 6.30 a.m as the Biante race was scheduled for 8.15 a.m. over 7 laps. Bob’s starting position was 19 with the top 8 cars reverse grid. The new carby delivered a great start, with the builder getting terrific traction off the grid. It only took one lap for the reverse grid cars of Marget Bullas Bowe Richards and Mason to make their moves, however, McLean was withstanding the pressure up front. Bob by the second lap had moved up into 17th and on the fifth lap had got up into 16th when he got around the 43 Charger, but going up the hill would lose this spot and in fact lost all pulling power – No. 7 pushrod as per the previous round had again failed. Bob managed to continue to circulate to collect points for the race, but yet again another disappointment. In the meantime, Tilley in the 28 entry who went against the category decision to run wets had dry’s on and was now some 3 – 5 seconds quicker than the rest of the field and managed to gobble up McLean who had lead for the entire race to this point, so Tilley, McLean, Richards would finish 1 – 3 respectively. Bob finished in 18th.

On return to the pit, the team got busy packing up the triple – always a big job. After the work was out the way, we headed up to see Jim Walker, Dave Falvey, Terry Harwood in the WesTrac corporate facility.

Timmy and JB had the journey back to Yass, heading off at 3pm before the finish of the race – rumour has it that it can take hours to exit the track – I took advantage of their early departure to drop me off at Bathurst airport for the flight back to Sydney where I connected with a flight from Sydney to Adelaide.
Singo and Bob will leave Bathurst Monday and on return work will get under way to trouble shoot the engine issue in preparation for the final round in Sandown first week of November.

In the meantime, the final super truck round for the year will take place on 31st October, 1st November at Mallala, so I will be back in touch then.

Kind regards, Shaz Middleton

For further information

Sharon Middleton
Director
Whiteline Racing Promotions P.L.
mobile: 0418 826 272
email: shaz@wline.com.au

Gregg checks settings before the next race.

NRMA Tafe students doing some repair work to George Miedecke’s Slick No7 Ute.

Gregg and JB. Our pit lane was always full of people. The crowd love the cars of yesteryear.

Shaz & Timmy on the pit wall watching the race from the large screen - who is that masked man.

Our home at Jingra was a couple of caravans and a tent. They have a sign up calling it “The Funny Farm”.

caption

Plenty of cute critters there, but none as cute as Nuggy!

Mount Panorama, Bathurst

On the left is CEO of WesTrac Jim Walker and on the right David Falvey of WesTrac Sydney operations. David and his team went to a lot of effort to ensure a great night was had by all at Orange.