Collie Supersprint

CMT just came back from Collie after competing in the Super Sprint event at the Collie Motorplex Feb 28th. This was round 3 of the 2010 LF Performance Speed Event Series www.speedeventseries.com of which CMT is attempting to compete in as many rounds as possible this year in Class 1A - Outright under 2000cc Open Cars.

The event was run by Motoring South West www.motoringsouthwest.org.au/ The team headed down Saturday afternoon after preparing our race car. We arrived late afternoon and had a chance to mingle with some of the competitors, staying over night at the track.

Sunday started with high hopes to get out on the track. After a small warm up of the engine and a double check that the car was ready to go, we had some problems with the plugs being fouled by too much fuel.

With a quick swap of plugs during the drivers briefing, the car got out on the track for the practice with Errol Hassett behind the wheel. The car wasn't quite getting full throttle so the practice didn't go as well as hoped.

The sprint event sees multiple cars run at the same time and with our car running the competition compliant 20mm air intake restrictor, we knew we would have to keep a watch out for some of the fastest cars, as there were a bunch of GTR Skylines and even a supercharged Hayabusa open wheeler. To try and stay out of their way, we pulled the rear view mirror out of Errol's Magna wagon and fixed it to the side pod of our race car, so that we could keep a look out.

A few changes were made after practice to give the car full throttle and Micheal Holland, one of our university technicians, jumped in and set out to make an impression on the eager on-lookers. We looked good out on the track, rounding up a Mini and setting a 55 second lap time before the engine blew up due to oil starvation. (Supersprint course lap record is 46.3494 seconds)2009 Lap Records Collie Supersprint

We have always battled with this problem, as we still run a modified wet sump, and we have experimented with baffling and gates in the sump to try and limit the problem, but at the high speeds seen on the track we really had no hope of finishing a full sprint.

We will get the engine out and try to re-build it for use in the 2008 race car as a driver training and race day prep tool.

We have just received two new Honda 600 RR engines so we now hope to move into development of these into our new designs for the 2010 and 2011 race cars.

Also don't forget to see the official CMT website Curtin Motorsport Team Official Site