Round 2 Formula Xtreme Oran Park
Friday Practice.
Having totally rebuilt the bike after a round one failure,
the day was spent getting the suspension dialled in. Because the suspension
was all new and had only landed days before it did prove to be more difficult
than we had hoped. None the less we did learn a lot in the time available
and were happy to be inside the top ten on day one.
Our best times for the day were high 1,14s achieved late
in the day with fresh tyres.
Saturday Qualifying and Race One
Struggling with a good setup and lack of time we still
managed to finish qualifying in 10th place which was not quite where we
would like to be but given our lack of setup and track time, it was a good
starting point to work from. Cameron was a bit frustrated knowing that
on a good day he would be in front of most of the field.
Our main focus for this weekend then turned to maintaining
good consistent results, finishing every race and collecting points to
stand us in good stead for the rest of the series.
Saturday Race One
Cameron got a good start and settled into 8th place where
he was never headed. He posted a best time of 1,13.43. Traction was proving
to be a big problem though, as he could not get the power on early enough
and was fighting some big slides mid corner, finishing 8th outright and
4th privateer.
Sunday Race Two
It was good to get one race under our belt yesterday as
it gave us a gauge as to where we were in relation to everyone else. We
continued to make small changes to the bike and again Cameron got a great
start to be in 5th place at the end of the 1st lap. By the end of lap 2
he had dropped one place but was managing to hold his own. By mid race
he had lost another place, though he was consistently lapping in the mid
1,13 bracket. We did have a little bit of luck when Kevin Kurtain crashed
while leading the field bumping us up on place to finish 6th outright and
3rd privateer
Sunday Race Three
We fitted a fresh set of tyres for this race and made
some more minor changes to suspension. This race turned out to be a cracker
and was a battle between Cameron Donald, Nick Barton, Jason Kain and Ben
Attard. Cameron got a great start to be 5th at turn one but could not make
a break managing to hold a concerted attack, with a best lap of 1,12.66
on lap 3 of 8. The suspension changes, though improving the bike was to
much for the tyres to cope with and by the end of the race he had dropped
2 places to finish 7th outright and 3rd privateer.
Sunday Race Four
As the track temperature was at it's highest we struggled
for grip and Cameron settled into the race in 8th place which he maintained
bring the bike home in one piece and 5th privateer.
Summary
Given the lack of track time and tests, the results were
encouraging. We finished 3rd privateer for the weekend ahead of Aluma Light
team rider Ben Attard who has the advantage of riding for a big budget
team. By the end of the weekend we were only 1.5 sec off the pace. The
bike has plenty of speed to match the others, we simply lack some set time.
Over the next two weeks we will be addressing this, culminated in a test
at Winton on the Friday the 28th of March, followed by the 1st round of
the Vic Camps on April 5th and 6th.
Formula Extreme Racing
Formula Extreme
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