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Sept 20, 2009 15:21:16 GMT
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On the weekend the moons aligned and I finally got organised enough to get out there and do some more motorsport this year! The event was Round 2 of the 2009 South Australian Khanacross Championships at Lanac Park, and as I also have a new camera I decided that I would attempt to practice some photography between runs. I thought that you chaps might appreciate seeing what type of metal shows up to be flogged around a dirt track in South Australia these days.  The lineup of cars in the pits. Not all are present in the photo, there were a total of 33 entrants driving probably about 25 cars.  Team 510 Racing in the queue for scrutineering at about 8:45am. Like a lot of the more serious cars, these boys normally run in rallies, but they decided to go back to the grass roots and come out to the khanacross track for a laugh.  Their cars are both rally-prepared Datsun 1600s, fairly obviously. Note the cut-off rear valance on the green 1600. This is done for a number of reasons, namely ground clearance and rust removal!      The Celica GT4 in the centre was the overall winner of the event, driven by Michael Clements. The average-looking Subaru Leone to the right is anything but! It is a seriously rapid home-built weapon, with a turbo blowing roughly 10psi into a development of the original pushrod engine. He's currently on his third gearbox this year...  A refugee from the '90s! I had never seen this buggy before, because it has been out of action for about 13 years. Prior to that, it was campaigned by the current owner for more than 7000km of competitive off-road racing in SA.  A more familiar buggy, owned by Paul Kennedy of Volksfactory, who has helped me out a lot in the past. If anyone in Adelaide needs parts for their beetle or pre-1990 VW/Audi, he is the man to see!  The buggy has been on song recently, with the built 1835cc motor purring and good results following. Paul beat the other buggy for a class win, but is always a danger on the outright leaderboard as well.  And my humble Beetle, enjoying the day out and the chance to get sideways in the dirt! The only panel injuries sustained were a few good whacks to the right-hand running board with large reflective orange cones which were mysteriously in my way! ;D ;D Not to worry, as the only lasting damage is a dent in the stainless trim spear on the running board. I hope you enjoyed seeing this, please post away and let me know what you think. More pics to come soon! |
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tigran
Club Retro Rides Member
In rust we trust. Amen.
Posts: 6,444
Club RR Member Number: 142
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Sept 20, 2009 16:14:35 GMT
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Looks awesome. Can i ask what khanacross is? Is it a circuit laid out in a field or endurance event or time trial?
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1964 Rover P5 i6
1987 BMW 525e - The Rusty Streak
1992 Micra K10
2001 BMW E46 316i
2002 BMW E46 330Ci
2013 BMW F31 320d
2018 BMW G31 530d
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Sept 21, 2009 1:43:12 GMT
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Looks awesome. Can I ask what khanacross is? Is it a circuit laid out in a field or endurance event or time trial? Khanacross is classified as a non-speed autotest event, to be run on an unsealed surface. What that means is that the cars run one at a time and the fastest cumulative time wins. A khanacross consists of a series of different track layouts, called tests. The state championships are a day/night event, so we managed to get in 8 tests each. There are lots of road cones placed around the track, hitting any of them attracts a +5 second penalty. There are also slaloms on pretty much all khanacross tests. As Lanac Park is designed as an Autocross track, the straights are too long for Khanacross, so these had slaloms on them for each test. To change the circuit layout for each test, cones are moved and/or the order and direction in which you must drive around different parts of the track are changed or reversed. Khanacross also requires you to stop completely in a stop "garage" instead of a flying finish, which helps to keep the speed and hence insurance/licence costs down. Lanac Park has a X-shaped crossover in the middle of the track, which gives plenty of different track layouts. On with the pics!  This is the fearsome banked bowl section of Lanac Park. Due to erosion from all the cars running over the loose surface, a deep hole opened up in the bottom of the bowl by evening, which cost the yellow Corolla its exhaust system from the collector back!  More of the car lineup.  Graham Van Der Hoek's 1600cc powered Beetle, which took 3rd outright for the state championships and has won the last two state motorkhana series in a row. This thing is very well sorted and seriously rapid! Graham drives this car on the street and has done all the modifications himself, including a fresh hot engine build this year and a mysterious home-made suspension/sway-bar setup which seems to work well.  Thought you lads might appreciate this one! Mk2 Escort coupe rally car, with twin webbers and huge boxed arches.  4 door Escort and rear-wheel-drive Corolla.  Straight, rust-free Datsun 120Y coupe. Bought complete with mint plastic-on-doorcards interior for $100. Interior is now in landfill and the Datto is being used to teach the owner's two young sons (14 and 15 or so) how to drive on the khanacross course. Great to see them get started young!  Toyota Corolla which didn't run but was for sale in the car park for $2500 with race seat and stripped interior but no cage.  1981 Datsun Stanza rally car, which ran fairly quickly and was also for sale for $5,500. |
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Sept 21, 2009 1:58:08 GMT
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Time for some action pics! If only photobucket wasn't so slow to upload these would've all been in the first post, but oh well...   Toyota Corolla coupe, not shown in the previous close-ups  Holden Gemini, probably known overseas as some kind of Opel/Vauxhall/Isuzu.  Coming through the "esses"  Into the corner a bit hot and late  Interesting fact about this Corolla is that it was running on straight LPG, with the carby replaced by an LPG mixer and Ford Falcon throttle-body. The owner is an LPG fitter and was sponsored by his workplace, along with two other cars I didn't get photos of, a VL Commodore and an Alfasud.  Datsun 200B, which was next to me in the pits. They were in the road tyre class but were running GT Radial Champiro W/T Plus wintertreads, which are nearly rally tyres. A good strategy, which I am thinking about copying.   Note the fluffy dice! He was told in scrutineering that he wasn't allowed to have them on the mirror, and decided to have a laugh.  The pits at night. We ran until nearly 10pm, but unfortunately none of my night action shots came out. Well, that's it from me, please feel free to put up your own photos of retro rides in grass-roots motorsport and keep the thread going. |
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stealthstylz
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,835
Club RR Member Number: 174
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Sept 21, 2009 8:35:43 GMT
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Great post, looks like a good little event.
Matt
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Sept 21, 2009 15:13:17 GMT
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These videos aren't mine and they're not from the state championships, but they show off what a khanacross at Lanac Park is all about much better than photos can.
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Sept 21, 2009 15:21:24 GMT
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That looks like great fun! Thanks for sharing it.
PS a holden Gemini is an Vauxhall chevette / opel kadett - confusingly they sold both variants here with different engines and a slopey nose on the vauxhall.
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in |
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Sept 21, 2009 18:02:29 GMT
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this is great ... do we have anything similiar in the UK? If not, why not? If I win the lottery I will buy a few acres and create the very thing! ;-)
Seriously though, I would love to take my Capri to events like this... I am too old, fat and slow for track racing or road rallying ... but I loved watching rallycross on Grandstand as a kid and the idea of screaming around a figure of 8 (more or less) in a field somewhere in the Mongolia Capri would be a fitting way to enjoy my Capri with low risk of death and/or bankruptcy!
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Sept 28, 2009 5:25:22 GMT
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More competition last weekend, but on tarmac this time! I went to a Come'n'Try day at Collingrove Hillclimb, which was great fun. I had one spin, but other than that I improved pretty well over the course of the day's 6 runs, reducing my time from 52.73 seconds down to 49.3ish, which I thought was pretty respectable for a first-timer in a nearly standard Beetle. For sake of comparison, someone brought an Evo 10 and ran a 39.91, and the track record is apparently held by some kind of VW-engined Formula Libre special at 29.45 seconds. I went with my mate Rex and a whole bunch of mechanics from his work. They brought two Subaru Liberty (Legacy) RS Turbo's and an R31 Skyline, as well as Rex's BA Falcon XR6. Due to the fact that the runs were much closer together and I had company this time, I didn't bother taking many photos, so this is just what I have. Cool retros which competed and weren't photographed included a Westfield clubman (very recent build though), Fiat 124 Sport coupe, Triumph TR6, Mk. 2 Escort coupe (with a learner driver setting glacial times) and various other machinery. There was a plethora of Evo VIIIs and an Evo X for some reason, despite this being a practice event for beginners with no licence. Obviously they have decided they want to actually use their fast cars instead of just cruising the city streets, which is good to see!  Our little group. The R31 Skyline was a non-turbo auto, so sadly the owner decided not to run it and just watched.  This Liberty had recently been converted to separate Bosch coils mounted near the firewall, and was having misfiring problems in the morning. Bad connections were eventually traced and resoldered for a dramatic improvement in times of about 7 seconds!  The paddock soon became a quagmire and getting bogged was a real issue for some cars, but not the mighty Beetle! Visible here is the nose of Rex's blue XR6, R32 GTR (running in RWD-only mode and getting bogged in the pits a couple of times), CV8 Monaro, Evo 8 and some other things. Brown/gold Ford XR GT sounded the throatiest car there but times didn't seem to reflect the noise.  The other Liberty on a run. The track is extremely narrow, less than two car widths at it's widest, so precision is the order of the day.  "The chute". Main car of interest here is the Porsche 911 Cabrio, which was nice because it meant that I wasn't the only air-cooled car there! Also barely visible is a blue Daihatsu Mira TR.XX turbo, which looked awesome and had red alloy wheels. Should have photographed it, but was too busy having fun.  Bertie Beetle doing his best impression of a racing car. Amazingly, due to the mud from the pit area I even managed to light up the tires properly in the burnout lane before each run! On the road the car will almost always squat and go from a clutch dump, even in the rain. |
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johnrh
Part of things
Posts: 958
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I've just seen your thread and enjoyed reading it.
Great attitude - keep it up.
Did you get a tach sorted. The Smiths one that didn't work is from a Triumph... [insert your own punchline here]
Love the swing-axle gymnastics! Just a guess, but the trick suspension on that fast Beetle might involve a tramsverse compensator spring fitted between the swinging arms. It's like the opposite of an anti-roll bar - sounds curse word but it's very useful on a swing axle. It allows stiff springing (helpfully limiting your camber change & avoiding bottoming) without excessive roll stiffness (which would damage traction and generate more oversteer). Mercedes used it to very good effect on many of their swing-axle cars, from 220SEs on the Monte Carlo rally to the mighty 300SEL 6.3.
How are the brakes? In the UK, the 1500 was the first Beetle with front discs; does yours have them?
Anyway, get yourself a bracket fixed up for an in-car video camera. Can't wait the see the antics from inside!
Cheers and good luck!
John
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I've just seen your thread and enjoyed reading it. Great attitude - keep it up. Did you get a tach sorted. The Smiths one that didn't work is from a Triumph... [insert your own punchline here] Love the swing-axle gymnastics! Just a guess, but the trick suspension on that fast Beetle might involve a tramsverse compensator spring fitted between the swinging arms. It's like the opposite of an anti-roll bar - sounds curse word but it's very useful on a swing axle. It allows stiff springing (helpfully limiting your camber change & avoiding bottoming) without excessive roll stiffness (which would damage traction and generate more oversteer). Mercedes used it to very good effect on many of their swing-axle cars, from 220SEs on the Monte Carlo rally to the mighty 300SEL 6.3. How are the brakes? In the UK, the 1500 was the first Beetle with front discs; does yours have them? Anyway, get yourself a bracket fixed up for an in-car video camera. Can't wait the see the antics from inside! Cheers and good luck! John Hi John! Thanks for reading. Unfortunately the tacho is not sorted yet, but it is the least of my worries due to the need for a complete new front end due to accident damage.  See the bug's build thread for more info if you're interested. retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=50138&page=4As far as Graham's bug goes, that is mostly a mystery to me but I have seen under it and it uses three slim swaybars clamped together with little billet brackets which space them about a centimetre apart from each other. Apart from that it is like the factory swaybar setup. Yes, the Australian-delivered 1500s also have discs, and they work very well. The tarmac-oriented street tyres are by far the limiting factor when braking on dirt anyway, so that will do for now. Since the crash I have bought a Squareback for a daily driver, so the Bug will be going a lot more hardcore for next year's khanacross season. It's already had the full strip of the interior, and will probably be repainted as well. A roll cage and/or rally tyres will also possibly be on the cards within the next year, and if I get a cage made up then that will obviously provide an excellent mounting point for the camera. Anyway, g'day from Australia! |
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See the bug's build thread for more info if you're interested.