Ever since last year’s Superlap event at Oran Park, Time Attack has been labelled the next best thing in Motorsport in Australia. Every local forum has seen threads titled “Superlap” and “time attack” with multiple pages of replies. Build threads have been popping up all over the place with people getting cars ready for 2009. Can time attack really be a successful formula??? Last weekend saw all the anticipation finally come together where over 80 Entrants and thousands of spectators converged on Oran Park Raceway in Sydney to witness man and machine take on nothing else but the stop watch.
Like most time attack events around the world the field was split up into different class based on tyres used and modifications. Superlap has three different classes. Club sprint is the bottom class which caters for street registered vehicles running on true street tyres (non semi slick), running on pump fuel and the driver must be the registered owner of the vehicle. The next level up is the open class where semi slick tyres are allowed, race fuel can be used and professional drivers can get behind the wheel. The final and premier class is the Pro class which is invitational only and shares the same rules as the open class.
The pace was set early by Garth Walden, winner of last year’s event in the Tilton Interiors Evo 9 RS setting the fastest time of the day of a 1:12.1088 however he couldn’t back it up in the shootout lap were the car suffered a large crack to the inlet manifold.
Another of the Front runners was Martin Notoaras in his EVO 9 who finished 3rd overall with a fastest time of 1:14.2470
The Japanese time attack style is rubbing off in Australia especially on Andrew Reeds EVO 5 which shares a similar style to the Cyber Evo from Japan.
The most talked about car of the event was Mark Berrys newly completed Advan sponsored R34 Skyline. The new car was built specifically for time attack based on the knowledge previously obtained from his old r32 which he took to Tsukuba to compete in the Hyper Rev event in 2007. The R34 set the second fastest time of the day with a 1:13.6310 and was the fastest car in the shootout although having issues with the 4WD system sending 90% of the power to the rear wheels.
Mark was taking this event very seriously and plans to take the car to Tsukuba later this year.
Open class had its fair share of well prepared cars with John Boston taking out the honours in the Southern Motor Work Lotus Elise with a 1:15.2250.
Russel Newman’s R35 was also present and sporting some nice modifications after being built up as a tarmac rally car.
Ryan Brown a regular competitor in Improved Production Racing was out in his NA powered Series 1 RX7 which gave the big workshops a run for their money, setting the second fastest time in the Pro Class with a 1:15.8300.
Jacky Yick also a competition in Improved Production Racing impressed the field with consistent low 1:17 lap times which placed him 6th overall in the Pro class with his NA powered EK9 Civic sponsored by Pro Concept.
The club sprint class should have been renamed the EVO only class with the top 9 finishers being Evos!!! Fastest of them all was Jeramiah Thomas who set a blistering time in the shootout of 1:18.7680 which was a second faster than the rest and is pretty impressive time for only being on street tyres.
All in all it was another successful event, however the spectator numbers looked to be down on last year due to the F1 being on in Melbourne, but the drivers, teams and organises have defiantly stepped it up this year and I hope it turns into a multi round series in 2010.
More images from the day can be found at this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewmead/sets/72157615969232649/
Official Results can be found here:
http://www.natsoft.com.au/cgi-bin/results.cgi?29/03/2009.ORAN.SL
Superlap Website http://www.superlap.com.au/
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