A cold and damp morning on the esplanade in New Norfolk just outside of Hobart met the teams for the first of four rounds on Saturday June 5. Over twenty crews made the start line and after the safety brief, the first car and winners of the 2009 series Lynn Rattray and Lyndon Hills in their brand new ex-Cody Crocker Subaru Impreza Sti Spec C headed off to the forest for some flat out racing.
The top teams were all in Subaru’s with only one Mitsubishi Evolution Lancer among them being driven by Jamie Vandenberg. Sadly, the lancer destroyed an engine on the very first forest stage leaving it all to the Subaru’s.
The DSA team of driver Mark Butcher and co-driver James Heinrich had a good few stages but were unable to match the ex-factory cars and so were settling for a comfortable pace. However after a spin on the 4th stage – the team let a hard charging Lee Peterson (Nissan Pulsar GTi) slip buy with a margin of 12 seconds. After the lunch time stop the team felt more confident with the new gearbox and differential settings and set some better stage times – managing to regain 4th place by the final stage.
“The event was great fun with a real mix of fast open roads and tight twisty sections. We were in 6th gear on a number of occasions indicating speeds of 170km/h+ however it seems the other cars had a power advantage and were taking between 1-2 seconds a kilometre from us. The car run perfectly so we are going to now retune it for more turbo boost and hopefully more get up and go!” said Butcher.
The team are now in talks with engine management specialists ChipTorque about how to extract more horsepower from the engine.
“We need a bit more horsepower and a budget for new tyres before the next event and I reckon we will be able to give those ex-factory cars a run for their money” said Butcher.
Sponsorship is available and the team offer a range of promotional opportunities including free driver training from Driver Skills Australia (www.driverskillsaustralia.com).
SUBSCRIBE BELOW TO READ THE FULL STORY
