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| The 2013 MuchMore Masters was run over 3 beautiful days at SMA club in NSW on the 17th - 19th of May. Once again SMA presented an awesome track that seems to be getting better and better every time we race on it. |
| Stock Report by Gavin Hatherly |
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| Open practice on Friday started slow for Team Xray Australia, with rain the night before creating a cold low grip surface. The early runs were spent tuning the motor and ESC for the upcoming power battle in 17.5 boosted that would follow, the cooler temps allowing us to push the motors hard. |
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As the afternoon wore on the track warmed up and the grip came up with it. Early concerns were centred around the rear of the cars breaking out and trying to tame that while still keeping good steering and corner speed. It quickly became apparent that the use of the optional split blocks in the front of the car were a must, which gave the car great steering and allowed us to tune out some of the front bite which was causing the car to become loose in the rear. We ended the day with a solid setup on the cars producing good consistent lap times with ideas on where to go once the grip came up over the weekend. We also spent quite a bit of time testing out different ideas for preparation with the new MuchMore RUSH tyres that we would be using for the event. These tyres were new for Australia and were under a lot of pressure to do well.
Saturday morning started with a cold chill in the air, and our time spent on the track the day before in the slipperier conditions became quite valuable. The first qualifier saw a gauntlet thrown, with Andrew Sienniak producing lap times half a second quicker than anyone else and taking out first place. The reset of the field was a lot closer with the next 3 places being within 2 seconds of each other over the entire run with Damien Zarb and Gavin Hatherly taking out the next two spots. The rest of the day was much the same with the regrade after 4 rounds seeing 7 of the top 10 cars all Xray T4's. We made some small changes to the cars over the day as the grip came up which saw an increase in corner speed and overall grip. The lap records and race records continued to drop throughout the day, with more than a handful of the top 10 beating the old times. |
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The last two qualifiers were run and the grid listing for the finals were printed which saw Andrew Sienniak on pole, Gavin Hatherly in 2nd, and Deniz Demarco in 3rd. Nothing much had changed from the regrade with 7 of the a finalists all running Xray T4's. The MuchMore Rush tyres had performed great with 6 runs under their belts the lap times were consistent with the times ran throughout the event.
Race 1 saw Andrew get an early lead and stay there unchallenged. Gavin held out Deniz to take 2nd by 2 seconds. With some lively contact further back in the field, back markers started to come into play for the front runners producing some close calls.
Race 2 Gavin was able to put a bit more pressure on Andrew early on, but greater track knowledge soon paid dividends by half way through the race, with him pulling a 5 second lead on Gavin and staying there to wrap up the MuchMore Masters Stock Title. Gavin again finished in 2nd with Damian Zarb securing 3rd.
Race 3, Andrew was out to prove his domination but Gavin wanted to regain some pride and pushed Andrew hard with the closest racing we had seen all weekend from the Stock class. An early mistake by Andrew on lap 4 let Gavin through and for the next 6 laps he and Andrew ran nose to tail with Gavin running his lines as tight as possible and Andrew putting on the pressure trying to force a mistake. Gavin grabbed a little too much curb on lap 10 and rolled the car allowing Andrew back through for the win. With the rest of the field a fair way back, Gavin was able to recover and come back to secure 2nd place overall.
The day finished with Andrew Sienniak taking out first place, Gavin Hatherly second and Damian Zarb third. The weekend was a great success, not only for Team Xray, but also MuchMore. |
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| Modified Report by Timothy Lee |
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Arriving at the track on Friday night for some late practice, the conditions were very cold and strong winds made it impossible to find a good setup.
After making a few changes to the car I decided to go back to what I started with and just focus on my driving and try a few different additives to find what works best on the MuchMore RUSH tyres, knowing the conditions would be different for the race.
As expected on Saturday morning during open practice the car felt entirely different but I was fairly happy with the way my T4 was handling and knew I had a good base to start with for qualifying.
As qualifying began it was clear that the competition was going to be tough, as always the SMA track seemed to bunch up the field. Many of the qualifiers were decided by literally thousands of a second. Early on Ari Bakla and his T4 set the pace but was the victim of the sometimes unforgiving SMA curbs. XRAY driver Christian Silva seemed to just get faster and faster throughout qualifying with the track coming to his driving and T4.
The first change I made to my car was to change the shock oil to 300cst, the conditions were so cold that the shocks actually felt noticeably stiffer on the car that usual and the thinner oil really helped in the opening laps of the race. The next change that I made that was positive was to use the 1.6mm top deck. In the cold conditions I felt as if the car was flexing less and needed the optional top deck which gave me more corner speed and consistency. I tried some other things but didnâ™t find any more positive improvements.
In the first final there were an amazing amount of crashes, at the start there were a few in the mid field and I was able to get away out in front but I was struggling a little on the first run of the tyres. After a little while Christian with his T4 started to catch very fast and our cars came together a few times allowing the rest of the field to catch up and pass, a couple of times the body became tucked over the tyre and even got hung up over the inside of the battery which Iâ™d never seen before. After all that Ariâ™s T4 was into the lead after some problems at the start and I was in second with Christian who had kindly waited for me to get the body un-tucked in third. I was pushing really hard to catch Ari but made a bad mistake in the centre clipping a curb at full power sending the car flying though the infield, so then I just drive slowly till the end saving the tyres. |
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In the second final I changed the rear diff oil and the additive timing. Straight away I was able to set a new lap record of 15.0 with the car working much better. Again there were some crashes at the start that I was able to avoid and I was able to easily pull away and cruise to the end. I was really happy with the lap time which was 0.5s faster than anything I had done with the T3â™12.
In the last leg finally everyone got a clean start and I was able to get out in front with Ari second and Christian in third. I had swapped the tyres side to side for this run and during the first few laps the car was a bit inconsistent and sometimes would easily get loose in the infield, Ari and I had a close battle until he needed to drive defensively as Christian started to apply the pressure allowing me to get into a rhythm and take the win. |
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| Top 10 Stock |
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1. Andrew Sieniak
2. Gavin Hatherly - XRAY T4
3. Damien Zarb
4. David Harris - XRAY T4
5. Phillip Merrick
6. David Mcinerney - XRAY T4
7. Brett Drayton
8. Deniz Demarco - XRAY T4
9. Dustin Fletcher
10. James Ainslie - XRAY T4 |
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| Top 10 Mod |
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1. Timothy Lee - XRAY T4
2. Ari Bakla - XRAY T4
3. Christian Silva - XRAY T4
4. Craig McPhee
5. Lionel Saunders
6. Keith Chui - XRAY T4
7. Nathan Reese - XRAY T4
8. Aaron Lee
9. Joel Casey
10. Kane Alderton
Photo's Courtesy of Paul Smith. |
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