I hope that everyone has had a safe and happy Christmas and new year.
It is hard to believe that another year has come and gone, and the hillclimbing over the past 2009 season has had some highlights and a few lowlights but overall the first year of hillclimbing for the new rotary hillclimb racing car RPV02 has been a great. With the last run of the year breaking the sub 40 second bracket at Mt Cotton. It has taken me of over 11 years of driving an open wheeler to get this result.
Above is a photo of the medallion and the plaque that I received from the MG Car Club for breaking the sub 40 second barrier, you can see the names of the other members of this exclusive club.
Well what’s in store for 2010, we have a busy year ahead with 6 rounds of the Tighe Cams Series as well as other one-off events like the Queensland Hillclimb Championships, Mt Cootha Classic Hillclimb and Historic Noosa Hillclimb. We have up-dated the events page for 2010 so you can see what’s happening this year.
Over the Christmas break I have done a bit of maintenance on the RPV02 like changing the engine oil, oil filter and fuel filter. As well as looking into a few modifications to the front wing mounts and trying to reduce the weight of the wing assembles as well as trying to reduce the weight of other components on the car.
The other thing that needed to be done is move the fire-extinguisher because where it is currently it is difficult to get to and if it came loose it is under my legs in the cockpit of the car and it could be dangerous. So I have decided to move it to the rear of the car and to try to keep it as low as possible, so it will now be moved to the rear of the gear box. To do this I have to make a bracket and bolt the bracket onto the gear box.
Finding the best position on the box and working out the bracket so that I can fix it so it will not become loose during each run.
And now this is the new position required for the fire-extinguisher.
The bracket is to be bolted on both sides but I need to make a small bracket on the RHS.
That the same time I have lightened the bracket by drilling holes in it and the finished job is lighter than the original set-up.
Finally the finished bracket bolted onto the gear box. I hope this will not get in the road or foul on anything during a run, time will tell.
See you at the first hillclimb for 2010 at Mt Cotton on Sunday the 7th March.