Forthcoming Events Update

See below the list of events in which NewTrix Racing plans to participate over the coming months:

22/02/2013:       Umm Al Quwain Solo Race

08/03/2013:       Umm Al Quwain Solo Race

29/03/2013:       Umm Al Quwain Solo Race

05-12/04/2013:  Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge (ADDC)
                           05: Documentation
                           06: Scrutineering
                           07: Prologue
                           08-12: Rally

21-26/04/2013:  Qatar Sealine Rally
                           21-22: Documentation and Scrutineering
                           23-26: Rally

There is a plan for three additional 'Pro Race' events at UAQ, but the dates for these are not yet confirmed.

The Hail Rally (Saudi Arabia) is understood to be scheduled for 22-29/03/2013.  However, due to its proximity to the ADDC, we will unfortunately have to give this one a miss.

 

UAQ Pro-Race Jan 24

Thursday dawned bright and clear, confounding weather prophets who’d forecast more fog, and we headed out to see what Umm Al Quwain had in store for us.  The answer was a newly-established 8.5km sand track, starting inside the Motorplex compound and heading out to the wild world beyond.  It was rather more challenging than the old course, with soft sand and a number of steep drops.

  After a convoy lap for familiarization, the quads and Barracudas set off at 30 sec intervals and completed their 4 laps, and then it was the turn of the Buggies and 4x4s.

I managed to miss a turn at the end of the first lap, resulting in a significant short-cut.  Fortunately, around 90% of the field made the same mistake, so no real harm was done.  Next time round, Sheila (bless her!) was waving her arms wildly from the trackside to prevent me from erring again.  The drama continued when one of the buggies broke down at the worst possible point – right in the gateway heading back into the compound – and the red Pro-truck got bogged down on the final turn and caught fire!  Next, Monish’s buggy broke down, and someone had a puncture.  It was all happening.

Unfortunately, the black-and-red Desert Force SWB Patrol pickup with a V8 Land Cruiser engine was having no such problems, and was gaining on me every lap.  His chance came when, on the final lap, my GoPro camera mount made a bid for freedom from the dashboard and ended up wedged under the pedals. To retrieve it I had to stop, unbuckle the harness, find it and then re-do the harness – which takes more time that you’d imagine.  He came past and gained a well-deserved victory, and I had to be content with 2^nd place.

The good news is that we seem to have cured the problem of running out of steam around 5000rpm.  After some serious head-scratching, Richard Bailey and I decided that we were not getting enough air through the intake.  So I replaced the restrictor with a straight pipe (this being a non-FIA event), treated the air cleaner to a new filter, and as an afterthought, wrapped some tiewraps round the flexible elbow leading into the throttle body.  The idea was that maybe this was collapsing under vacuum, and the tiewraps might prevent that happening.  Well, we seemed to have got it right because there were no such problems this time out, and I’m pretty sure that the elbow is collapsing when the restrictor is fitted.  So Robbie at Saluki has been charged with engineering a permanent solution, which will be a rigid elbow.

Thanks to Grumpy Goat for photographic support, Sheila for lunch, photos and directing traffic, and to Richard Bailey for coming along with his family and (as usual) getting his hands dirty!  More Goat-pix are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/110895353364127218017/UAQRally24Jan2013.

Next race will be at UAQ on 8^th March – I think.  Watch this space!

UAQ Tomorrow

For what it's worth - this is what we THINK is happening tomorrow.  I take no responsibility for the accuracy of this information!

Loction: out the back of the Motorplex somewhere - entry is usually from the LH side gate.  Rather than the short circuit inside the Motorplex boundary, this will be a longer circuit outside the boundary.

Format: One hour racing - one hour service - one hour racing.

Timing: Buggies start at 0900hrs, 4x4s start at 1000hours (when the buggies come in for service).  However...if this is a 20km circuit, the last vehicle could finish (say) 20 minutes after the hour, so the timings could easily end up a lot longer....who knows?

And if it starts on time, it will be the first time in history.

But it should be fun!

A Grand Day Out

Take three off-road race cars, a bunch of assorted petrolheads, add friends and family to taste and sprinkle liberally with sand, and what do you get?  A Grand Day Out, that's what, and if there's Wensleydale in the packed lunch, so much the better.

Some call it a shakedown, some call it testing, but let's face it, we're actually out for a blat. Mark Powell in the white Predator Buggy, Monish in the black one and myself in the Beast met up at Awir, zipped across to Fossil Rock, zoomed along to Big Red, had an icecream and then retraced our tracks to Awir.  Sounds like a quick one, but as we had to wait for the camp followers at various points it actually took most of the day.  But as it was a nice day for hanging around, that was no great hardship.

Particular thanks to Craig McAteer for providing photographic support, he's the one in the rather fetching pink shirt, seen here getting a much-needed sunshine fix in between stints in the frozen north of Canada, where it's about -40c at the moment.

So apart from having a Grand Day Out, what did we achieve?  Well, I was able to more accurately document the loss of power at around 5000rpm, which I now think may be due to lack of air rather than fuel.  Sometimes easing off the throttle will cause the engine to pick up again, and there is a lot of backfire on the over-run.  I await Mark Adams' opinion on this, but meanwhile I'll take out the FIA restrictor and throw in a new air filter and see if that changes anything.  The alternator, which curiously seems to output more volts on tickeover than at high revs, behaved itself and seems unlikely to be the culprit.

And believe it or not, we have a rally to look forward to on Thursday!  Allegedly, this will consist of eight laps of a 27km offroad circuit somewhere in Umm Al Quwain, with a service stop halfway through. If that is indeed the case, we're looking at over 200km, which is close to the length of a Desert Challenge stage, and far longer than any other local rally.  As usual in UAQ (cue for a song) I heard it through the grapevine and the precise details are shrouded in mystery.  Do we need co-drivers?  Are there any rules?  When's it starting?  Will there be cake?  These questions, dear reader, and many others besides, remain unanswerable.  If I find out anything at all before then, I'll let you know - otherwise you could just pop along to the Motorplex in UAQ on Thursday and see what's happening.... 

....because that's probably what we'll end up doing.