Track Day

[Hard-on]

Hi guys,

Julian Hardy from Motorsport Manawatu here. Yesterday was a learning curve for us here. There are a few things that I thought I would share with you that hopefully clears up what and how I have to operate.

Manfeild. To Hire Manfeild you have to be a MSNZ affiliated club. When Brad approached me I said happy to help. I read from the forums there are other MSNZ members here, perhaps they can use there club permits for other years. I understand that some of you are little miffed about memberships. Like I said at the end, if you were all members and had a clubsport licence you can run bigger and better events. Dual car sprints and singles in a day.

Scrutineering. Leon has pointed out in another forum that the checking was not up to standard. Once you are part of MSNZ there are rules and regs that you need to follow. I, personally, believe that to get anyone to particpate is the key for success. If you drove from Auckland to PN for this purpose and sent home, I bet that myself and club are the biggest pack of pricks known to mankind and you would never come back again.
I have been thinking overnight and believe that our Sport does not have the resouces to get the information to you. I have attached the safety schedule for all cars at the bottom of this link for you to go through at your own leisure. Leon, perhaps you should put together a pack for new entrants and post it on this site somewhere!!

Format: I hope you enjoyed the format. I read the earlier posts and a few of you were unhappy. I hope you all enjoyed it. A motorkhan should never be seen as a event that is silly or not for my car. Bollocks. You actually learn a whole lot about your car from these. However, if this is not what you want we can certainly make changes that better suit. The sprint format is a favorite of mine. I hope you all enjoyed that as well.

I could go on for hours about how many more things we can do with you guys, but I would like to think that you all enjoyed your day, That you all thanked Brad for his efforts, and they were huge, and that we can have you back for more events run by us.

It is my recommendation that you all join a MSNZ club, get a clubsport licence and from there get yourself the MSNZ rules and set your car up to suit. Leon is right that normally you would have been sent home without having a go. The truth is that 90% of the cars entered had a fault of some sort or another. I have listed to main faults so that you guys can fix/remedy these for the next time you compete so you DONT get sent home by other organisers
BATTERIES. Appendix 2 SchA (3) Must be held by 2 metal clamps with minimum 2x 8mm bolts if in the cockpit. If the battery is not sealed it must be contained in a sealed box. Dont bolt the box in and use the strap to hold the battery. This is not OK.
FUEL PUMPS AND FILTERS. If these are inside the car they must be sealed so that any leakage cannot get into the car.
HELMETS. You must wear a helmet that has current standards. Helmets are cheap these days, Get yourself a HJC or similar approx $200 for a helmet that should last you at least 4 years!!!
OVERALLS. [/b]100% COTTON. Most work mechanic's overalls are not. You need a Engineering set. They are $65ish dollars from Proctector safety or such places. If you want a slightly higher protection set get the Proban type. Or even better get some race sets, Heres a link for a place that sells new sets real cheap, www.bcracewear.co.nz .

I have attached a link to MNSZ Safety schedule. Have a look through. Our sport is guilty of not giving you the information, but we are changing and we are trying to help so you can get more track time.
http://www.motorsport.org.nz/Pdf/Manual ... 20SchA.pdf
Do have a look and ask me any questions to my email on this link (hopefully) manawatucarclub@xtra.co.nz

Thanks for giving me the chance to host you guys, it was a great day and I hope to have you back for more.

Cheers

Julian Hardy
Motorsport Manager
Motorsport Manawatu

[/b]

[Sideros]

I must confess I was very skeptical about the Motorkana, but you are right - it was quite fun to get out and have a thrash around. I definatly enoyed myself fully.

Thanks for running the day and it was good to be able to use the clubrooms afterwards for the prizegiving and bbq.

[Leon]

Leon, perhaps you should put together a pack for new entrants and post it on this site somewhere!!

[/b]

Yep, have done so about a year or so back, while running through similar issues with running drift cars in our local sealed events.

I wonder if that info might have died of old age though? It definitely exists though.

[Leon]

Right ... this is just a quick crack at a "Helping Newbies" post. So bear with me. These are the MINIMUMS, so you can always go bigger and better Wink

Driver and Car safety regs
Clubsport regulations

What do I need for a Motorkhana? (slaloms etc, any surface, low speed high precision).

1) Club membership to a MSNZ affiliated car club

What do I need for an Autocross (small race course, single car, any surface)

1) Club membership
2) Helmet (relatively new), Overalls (100% cotton, tight fitting at wrists and ankles, and sew up the pocket slits that run all the way through the overalls)

What do I need for a Single Car Sprint at a racetrack
1) Club membership
2) Helmet and overalls as above
3) 0.9kg Fire Extinguisher, metal bracket, two bolts, big panel washers under the floor

What do I need for a sealed sprint away from a racetrack (eg: Port Road), or a Gravel Sprint?
1) Club membership
2) Helmet and overalls as above
3) 0.9kg Fire Extinguisher, metal bracket, two bolts, big panel washers under the floor
4) Clubsport licence Clubsport Licence application form

NB: a lot of events will also require your car to be fitted with Homologated (approved) roll protection, due to the risks involved to your health if something goes wrong when you are competing (eg: hitting trees, driving off big drops etc). So this will require a Logbook, and Roll Protection Homologation.

What do I need for a Dual Car Sprint at a racetrack
1) Club membership
2) Helmet and overalls as above
3) 0.9kg Fire Extinguisher, metal bracket, two bolts, big panel washers under the floor
4) Clubsport licence
5) additionally, if you are running in the intermarque series, you apply for a vehicle logbook also logbook application form

What do I need for a Race meeting?
1) Club membership
2) Helmet and overalls as above
3) 0.9kg Fire Extinguisher, metal bracket, two bolts, big panel washers under the floor
4) National Race licence Race licence questions
5) If your car is NOT road registered, you will require homologated (approved) Roll Protection. Additionally, some events may require roll protection to be fitted regardless of the road going status of your car.

NB: to ALL events other than Motorkhana and Autocross events. All convertible cars MUST have Homologated Roll Protection.

and

There's some more getting started stuff up on the MotorSport NZ website now too...

Clickage

There's an info sheet on most of the different disciplines of our sport, with Clubsport Basic, Advanced, Race, Rally, and volunteer officials

is some of the stuff that I've previously put together.

[pc]

I have a golden rule that I think is fool proof:
If it's in a factory configuration and will pass a WOF it's ok. If you modify ANYTHING, you should follow the rules as set out in the motorsport manual to the letter, or not modify it at all.

This should apply whether you intend to race your car or not. the rules in the motorsport manual are a culmination of many people's many years of experience, and are good safe guidelines for modifying anything in your car.

[gurutasker]

Manfeild. To Hire Manfeild you have to be a MSNZ affiliated club.

Are we absolutely sure on this?

[JIZRAG]

I definatly had a good day even tho i only got one full sprint session in before all my crappy intercooler hose clamps decided to go pop. Cant beat a day at the track.

Motorkhana was an eye opener for how shit my driving skillz are at low speed,

Thanx Julian for giving up ya labour day monday 4 all us chumpz

[AngelTwin]

Admitedly I too was skeptical about the proposed format, but everything ran well and everyone seemed to be happy, so no love lost!

We chose not to run our car in the motorkhana as our own personal choice, but we compete in those all the time down here in Welly, so didn't feel like we were missing out anyway!
(besides, our club car wasn't there and that's the one we prefer to use for autocross/motorkhana events)
And it was entertaining just spectating! Go SAM!!! haha

The sprints were fun and I'm glad I got the opportunity to test the new car on the track, after competing in dual car sprints previously in the Toyota Levin & Cynos - was tonnes of fun and I'm very keen to take the STI back for future events...

Thanks Julian!

[Santa'sBoostinSleigh]

im keen to take the STi for a spin too

[Hard-on]

You guys (and girls) are great. Great attitude, great fun , you really are what all our clubs are missing. As a one of the older members of MSNZ we struggle to keep/get new guys coming through. Upto 5 years ago we used to own the track outright, and believe me it was a mission. I am lucky(!?!?) enough to work in this sport, and I have to keep exploring ways to get things better.
The format we used is part of what we do in our Multievent weekend in january. It only costs $60 to enter and you get a sprint, autocross and motorkhana and a BBQ tea.

Other sprints I run through the year only cost you $50 to enter.

Someone asked about the hiring? That is what I am being told. I took out the permit for Dfactor drifting this year as they were not MSNZ affiliated. Other tracks may not have this setup, it is their own choice, but that is what I have been advised by Manfeild. I was rung by the TR Triumph group the other day to organise a day for them!! becasue fo this reason.

Can I be real forward here and ask 2 questions? Perhaps another string would be better? but it would be great to hear from you guys as our sport (and our club) as a whole misses your age group.
1. What do you guys want to do? Race,rally, track time?
2. What can we do to make access to motorsport easier/better/clearer?

But rememeber I can only operate inside the rules I have to abide by....

Oh and thanks for the use of the Subaru Jason very very impressed with that handbrake!!

[Hard-on]

Here are the results for you guys as well.

http://www.motorsportmanawatu.org.nz/Ev ... rticle=161

Thanks again.

[Leon]

As a one of the older members of MSNZ we struggle to keep/get new guys coming through.

C'mon Julian, you're only about 45 or 50 now aren't you?

[Pelo]

Personally I loved the motorkhana and will definitely be looking into getting a licence and club membership as you said, once I have money and my project car going. I was in the slow corolla
The day ran quite well, thanks heaps to everybody involved!

1. What do you guys want to do? Race,rally, track time?
2. What can we do to make access to motorsport easier/better/clearer?

1. Everything haha, but realistically I will be doing dual/single sprints motorkhanas autocrossing and "driver training".
Proper racing is above the budget of many members here I'd say.

2. MCC seems to be a lot better with getting the news of events out there compared to say Taupo car club. The radio slots and regular newspaper articles are good.
It is hard to get people involved, us at the trackdays are the keen ones and some still won't bother with licensed events. Basic entry price lists for each event type might help?

NB: to ALL events other than Motorkhana and Autocross events. All convertible cars MUST have Homologated Roll Protection.

Do cars like targa top MR2s count as convertibles? Or is it just cars without anything but a windscreen for roll protection?

[Lith]

Nice results - good to see. Quite interesting to see that in some cases what appeared to be quicker outright cars weren't as quick for the timed 3 laps as what seemed to be slower cars.

[Leon]

Targa top cars don't count as an "open car", but only just

[Sideros]

1. What do you guys want to do? Race,rally, track time?
2. What can we do to make access to motorsport easier/better/clearer?

Well the initial point of us having the track for the day was for sprints - or driver training if you will. All day on the track just going around in groups.

However I thought it was still a really good day having the motorkana.

As for future events if we were to get it run through you guys - which I think would prolly be quite a good choice as everything was pretty well organised and ran quite close to schedule then it would be good if we can have exactly what we want from the start - be that another day like Monday or just sprints, or a whole day of more complicated motorkana etc...

As for myself I'd love to do everything! My car's running very well at the moment after so long off the road or with troubles so Race, Sprints, motorkana all sounds good! (No rally in this car alhough I'd love to get a suitable car and give it a go!)

Also as a foot note... With the trackday and as my comment above stood with driver training - having passengers would have been excellent. I'm not very familiar with the track and would have loved to have had a more experienced person ride with me and give me some pointers etc.

[o0hoe rolla0o]

what a @#$n great day!!! i had so much fun on everthing !! awww 2nd fastest n/a on the track!!! woop woop hahaha thanks heeps guys it was awsome!!

[Sideros]

Targa top cars don't count as an "open car", but only just

**** **** **** ****!!! Are you telling me my Aerotop Supra HAS to have a homologated cage?

[o0hoe rolla0o]

youll be right tristin that things not fast enuf to warrent a cage anyway

[JIZRAG]

3rd overall in starlet and only completed one run at full speed damn could have been quickest timed car of the day if my damn pipes held together.

Man im stoked!