Between Hampton Downs races

Now that the first Hampton Downs weekend is done, time to put the new clutch parts into the race box (and see if the new bits work with the engine). Since I decided not to do the last wet race, I started teardown on Sunday afternoon. Travis suggested a time-lapse video would be interesting, so I mounted my Activeon camera on a broomstick sitting on the bench. Wires and hoses were disconnected by dinner time.

We were in the garage nice and early on Monday. Me to continue the gearbox update, the GMT guys to do maintenance on the other race cars. We have done 4 race weekends at this point so maintenance is required. I continued the time lapse until the gearbox was out of the car (needed the bench space so the broom had to go).

With the new input shaft and support in the gearbox, I did a trial fit to the engine without the pressure plate and disk. I found no free end-play because a chamfer on the input shaft was interfering slightly with the pilot bushing. So a chamfer was added on the bushing ID to give clearance. Adding the disk and pressure plate showed insufficient release free play. I found there was some interference between the release bearing spring retainer and the case. A little bending, a little filing, all good. By 5:30, it was pretty much back together with the help of the GMT guys (JR, Josh and Andreas). Security wanted to lock up, so we left for the day.

Ready to put it all back together

I was in by myself the next morning to finish off the installation. Mainly wiring and check of all bolts. Now to see if the clutch works properly. It won't quite disengage enough with the desired free-play at the release bearing. The clutch pedal was hitting the front bulkhead only at the bottom (near the pivot). A bit of filing on the pedal gave enough extra travel to get the clutch to release fully. I will have to take a look at this in the future. I think I need an offset key to move the starting position back. All done.

Wednesday was my only tourist day as I knew we probably would have to change garages on Thursday. First stop was the Hakarimata Scenic Reserve in Ngaruawahia, halfway between Huntly and Hamilton. Just a quick hike up to the old dam on the Waterworks Walk.

On the Waterworks Walk	The 1922 dam was almost completely silted up

Small waterfall along the trail

Now it was time for the main event, the Hobbiton movie set tour and some nice twisty roads to get there. The original Hobbiton set for the Lord of the Rings trilogy was not made to last so that it was easy to return the Alexander sheep and cattle farm to it's original state. When The Hobbit movies were made, they had to re-create the set, this time with the intent of becoming an attraction (based on the popularity of the Lord of the Rings movies). The set takes up 12 acres of the 1250 acre farm with 13,000 sheep and 400 cattle. A shuttle bus takes you from the Shire's Rest visitors centre through the farm to the set.

Welcome to Hobbiton!	A Hobbit hole

There are 2 sizes of Hobbit holes, big and small. If they wanted an actor to look small like a Hobbit, they filmed in front of big Hobbit hole. Likewise if  they want the actor to look big like a human, they would film in front of a small Hobbit hole.

And another	Flowers in the garden

There are 44 Hobbit holes	Complete with washing on the line

Minimal inside	Overlooking Hobbiton

None of the holes had much inside. All the interior shots were done on a soundstage.

The tree over Bilbo Baggins' hole	Bilbo Baggins' Hobbit hole

The tree above Bilbo Baggins' house is the only artificial tree on the set. They had to duplicate the tree since it had to exactly match the scenes from the Lord of the Rings, even though the production of The Hobbit movies was years later. The tree is made from foam on a steel framework. The leaves are all from Taiwan. A pretty cool place all in all.

Next stop was the Bridal Veil Falls near Makomako. A short hike at the top of the 55 metre falls, followed by 261 stairs to the bottom. The wind was moving the impact point around a lot.

View from mid way	Bottom of falls with wind

The town of Raglan was nearby, which I had read was a surfing mecca. The local museum showed the history of surfing in the area. Back in the 70's, most surfers in Hamilton had to drive an hour just to see if the surf was up. That led to the local university successfully developing wave prediction algorithms that are still in use today. The museum also showed the history of the Maori in this area and their interaction with the European settlers. Outside was a 1902 Pelton water wheel that was used until 1925 to drive flax strippers. Flax was a major export from the area in those days.

1902 Pelton water wheel

It is interesting to see the different colours of sand in the area. The volcanic rock makes the sand more black. There were a number of waka ama near the harbour. Waka means canoe, ama means outrigger.

Dark beach sand in Raglan	Waka Ama

South from Raglan is Ngarunui beach. The beach was a considerable way down from the car park. The rising land was handy for the parasailers. They could pretty well stay stationary using the updraft.

Surfers going down to the beach	Parasailers using the cliffs

There was a class learning surfing just finishing when I arrived.

Above Ngarunui Beach	Surf class in bottom right

Manu Bay and Whale Bay are the big surf spots. They are similar in that the beach is not sand, but boulders.

Manu Bay	You have to work before you play at Manu Bay

Surfing at Manu Bay

At Whale Bay the beach was similar. Both gave good progressive breaking waves. Who needs a car when you have a scooter?

Whale Bay break	Scooter with board holder

That's enough looking around. Back to race preparations on Thursday. There is no chance we will get the same garage as the first Hampton Downs event.

Hampton Downs Tasman Revival

Hampton Downs is a relatively new track and has several configurations available. The National Circuit was used for the Tasman Revival. We will be on the International Circuit next weekend. The Formula Junior numbers were down a bit as this is not a points race for the World Series.

Hampton Downs National Circuit

I arrived at the track on Thursday morning. Travis, JR and crew had been there on Wednesday for the biosecurity inspection and unloading. New Zealand is very careful about what comes into the country.

UK, Australia, US/Canada containers	Cool self-loading flatbed trailer

The containers were just outside the garages, quite convenient for unloading. They got moved to the back of the paddock later in the day to free up space.

The car checked out fine after the trip from Australia. I've been pleasantly surprised with the lack of corrosion. Time for testing new parts. After the clutch blowup at Sandown, I decided to change to a spring-loaded centre in the disk. Of course that change rippled through the gearbox. The disk has a larger spline meaning new input shafts. That also requires the release bearing and support to get bigger. Many chips were sacrificed to make pretty new parts.

Lots of chips	2 sets of parts

I installed the new bits in the spare gearbox to see if I made the parts correctly. The only issue was getting enough retraction travel for the release bearing. A little filing on the release fork got just enough extra room. This makes me comfortable to schedule changing the gearbox in the car on Monday after the race weekend.

Friday practice dawned with overcast skies. It was really coming down by the drivers meeting but it was supposed to clear later. I decided to wait to learn the track in the dry. By noon, the track was dry so out we went. Corner 1 (Pirelli Corner) is quite steep downhill after turn-in. Easy to slide out wide if you get your turn-in point wrong. Corner 2 is visually confusing because this is where the track continues on for the International layout. Had to watch the braking point to make the uphill right then over a crest left. A short straight which was just short enough to stay in 3rd gear, before the first 2nd gear hairpin. Another short straight to the other 2nd gear hairpin. This one having a downhill braking area and tightening exit. Turn in too early puts you off in the dirt at the exit. And how would I know that?? Exit speed is important because this leads onto the second longest straight. The last corner is a wide and looong sweeper onto the front straight. Patience is a virtue at this corner. On throttle too soon will show you the curbing at the exit. Good track with interesting use of elevation changes.

I ran in 3 of the afternoon sessions before parking the car to save wear and tear. Others were not so lucky as Duncan broke a piston in his Mk1 Alexis.

Saturday was nice and sunny pretty much all day. Time for qualifying and the first races of the weekend. I started in a small group in qualifying so I backed off on the second lap to get a gap. Qualified 6th of 12 with a 1:23.890. The results look a bit odd as they were still getting cars/drivers associated with transponder number.

Since Nick Grewal was not present but his car was, Nick kindly allowed Duncan to use his Lotus 18 for the rest of the weekend.

I had a good conversation with the crew of the Elva-DKW in the garages. I have not seen many DKW powered cars before. The 3 cylinder 2 stroke makes a unique sound. Smelled nice too as they were using Castrol R (synthetic version) for lubrication. Little did I know how much I would see of Walter Findlay in this car over the weekend.

Elva 100	With DKW engine

Our first race was the last of the day. Several people had issues with getting into the correct grid position so there was some last second shuffling about. Had a decent start with a bit of a bog. Held position until the first hairpin when the Elva lost momentum (got passed awkwardly by another car) and I was able to get by as well. The rest of the time was racing hard to stay ahead of Walter. I would make some time in over the hill (corner 2 & 3) and through the second hairpin. He would make time in Corner 1 and the sweeper onto the front straight. I had one big moment in Corner 1 with some serious opposite lock due to oil on the track. JR had a good start (up to second by the first turn) and took 1.5 seconds off his best time to finish 3rd.

Sunday had mixed conditions most of the day. Luckily, our next race started dry. Grid positions were based on your quickest lap of the weekend, so I started 6th again, just behind JR in 4th. Got a decent start with the Elva right ahead of me. For the first couple of laps, I was right with him giving me an interesting view. It had a different attitude through the sweeper with the right front wheel a good 4" off the ground. There were a few drops of rain in the middle of the race which made me back off a bit. It cleared, only to come back for the last couple laps. I backed off more as I could feel the grip dropping off. Paul Halford's Autosud and Jim Barclay's Gemini didn't seem to mind the rain and they powered on by making me finish 8th overall.

The rain continued on and off for the rest of the day. The track was full wet by the time our last race came around. I decided not to go out as there are 5 more race weekends to go. Five started and three finished.

I started teardown of the car in preparation for the gearbox change on Monday. It was a good low-key weekend to get some bugs worked out of my and others' cars.

Off to New Zealand

The first leg was RobertQ Airbus from Chatham to the Toronto airport. Why does their schedule never match what I need? The choice was arrival 1.5hr before flight time (too short for an international flight) or 6 hours before my flight. That means I left Chatham at 4am for a 2pm flight. Oh well, it gave me time to fix the handle on my checked bag since it failed to retract as soon as I stepped in the terminal. The flight route was a little less complicated than the Australian trip. This was just Toronto-Vancouver-Auckland. Only 23 hours from pushback in Toronto to arrival in Auckland at 7am.

First view of Auckland NZ

No issues with the car parts I declared in my luggage. There were 4 FJr drivers in the arrivals area when I came out of customs. One from the UK, the rest from Australia. I must be in the right place.

My plan was to get some shopping done and stay overnight in Auckland before heading to the track. It was too early for any shopping, so I went down to the harbour. There were a couple of America's Cup boats (NZL41 and NZL68) run by the same company I sailed with in Sydney. Steinlager2 (Sir Peter Blake's 1989-90 Whitbread winner) and a 6.50 Mini (6.5 meter long single-handed ocean racer) shows the range of racing boats at dock.

Steinlager 2 Whitbread racer	6.50 Mini Transat racer

There was a cool 1932 rolling bridge that used to open to let boats out of the inner harbour. A 102 tonne concrete counterweight allowed the bridge to be moved with only a 15 hp electric motor. Also a free library made from a shipping container (take a book, leave a book).

Rolling bridge	Waterfront Container Library

Stores were open by now, so I bought some camping gear that I did not want to carry on the flight. The plan is to camp at the track for 3 of the 6 races. Plus some camping on some of the hikes.

I did not want to take a nap to try and get my body clock to sync quicker to the local time. So time for some touring. Drove up to the top of One Tree Hill as not ready for big hikes yet. There were cows and sheep in the surrounding Cornwall Park. I was confused by the number of families in the park in the middle of the day on a Wednesday until I remembered it is 'summer' vacation down here.

Monument on One Tree Hill	Auckland from One Tree Hill

Cows in Cornwall Park	Flowering trees with bees

Next was Mount Eden. This required a short hike. The road to the summit was too narrow for both vehicles and pedestrians, so cars are not allowed (except for limited mobility services). The top looks down from the highest natural point in Auckland. The volcanic crater has spiritual significance to the Maori.

Looking down into the crater from the summit Auckland in the background	Looking up at the summit from the lower crater rim

Drove along the coast on Tamaki Drive to Mission Bay beach. Pretty busy for what I thought was a cool day.

Stayed overnight at YHA Auckland City. Good rooms, no parking.

My accommodations for the next week are at Manor Views in Hunley, 20 minutes south of Hampton Downs racetrack. The building used to be part of a 1926 general hospital (changed to a maternity hospital after a couple of years) until 1996. It was renovated in 2006 as a hotel.

Bridge over Waikato River at Huntly