APR 2021
Event: NSW 6HR (5th Anniversary)
Location: SMP GP Circuit
Notes: With a need for officials and the uncertainty of events due to Cov-ID, this was the only event that I ended up running this year.
My car club (SSCC) ran two teams this year “Southern Motorsport” and “Southern Sporting Stars”. I managed to get a gig with the Southern Motorsport team.
If you haven’t done a team regularity before, there’s a bit to it. But at a high level this event ran for 6hrs. A driver cannot run for longer than 15min at any one session. After which a minimum break must be had before their next run. There is also a cap on the total number of laps (as a percentage) any one driver can do. You can run up to six in a team, each with their own car or you share a car.
We had four drivers this year, myself in the subi, veteran David Livian (MX5) and two regularity noobs Sean Walsh (BMW) and Bailey Rusten (subi).
Our team ran each driver for 10-12 laps, the driver returns to the pits, a sash is taken off the car, placed on the next team members car and they head out onto the track for their session.
Each driver nominates a time. In my case I nominated a 1:57. So each lap I do within a second of that time, points are accumulated. Each team member nominates their own time.
Points were accrued as follows…
+5 points within 0.5 seconds of nominated time
+3 points within 0.5001 to 1.0 second of nominated time
+2 points within 1.0001 to 1.5 seconds of nominated time
+1 point within 1.5001 to 2.0 seconds of nominated time
0 points for any other lap time
The winner of the event is the team that ends up with the greatest average number of points per completed lap (bonus points minus penalty points divided by completed laps) at the end of the event (while also satisfying any other conditions stipulated in the scoring doucument).
This year the event was changed to a single day affair. Where previously we had run practice on the Saturday and race Sunday, we were running practice in the morning and the event later afternoon / evening. It was a BIG day. While I had a great event, it was probably a bit much for one day. It was a LOT of work to setup, practice, race, pack-up. Running in the evening under lights changed the entire perspective and it was super cool. But I think two days is preferred.
At the checkered flag we managed to accumulate enough points to beat Southern Sporting Stars (which was important) and come 7th outright, the Stars coming 8th. That was great, considering we had two new drivers.
The car ran strong all day and with the exception of the brake pedal discipline required for the soft initial push, all went according to plan. So I was very happy.
Here’s to hoping we get a podium next year.