Fraser Kit Car Blogged | Lotus 7 Replica

Clubman Racing

This great picture was sitting in the email inbox, thought it needed to be shared. Chris (bronze Fraser Clubman) and John (red Fraser Clubman) having some fun at Hampton Downs this weekend.

Kit Car Track Day | Taupo 2012

The Fraser Car Club are looking forward to an action packed day at Taupo Motorsport Park on Saturday 25 February 2012.

This year is going to be bigger and better than ever.

The Track Day is open to members of the Fraser Car Club. If you would like to become a member of the club and join in the fun email ida@fraser.co.nz and you will be sent a membership form and contact details of the club. Membership is only $25 per year.

This annual event is a great way to experience Frasers and other Lotus 7s and replicas on mass.  If you are keen to come and look at the cars and chat to the owners, you are most welcome.

There is a small grid of tintop cars that join in the fun too.

Fraser Cars will be taking a small number of passengers for a Fraser experience on the track in the demo car.  Contact info@fraser.co.nz asap for details, or to make a booking.

Here's a video of some of the fun from last year.

Fraser Car Club - 2011 Track Day (part 1) from Simon on Vimeo.

 

CannonBall Run 2012

Waaa hooooo it's that time of year soon, the date and theme are set...  It's CannonBall Run time - Saturday 7th January 2012.  The Fraser Team had a total blast last year, you can read about it here.

This year the CannonBall Run is all about Heroes & Villains, check out the information page on the Auckland Motorsport Website here.

The most exciting news (besides having a blast around the track at Hampton Downs on the day) is that Big V has put up a challenge to get as many Frasers involved as possible, you'll be rewarded if you join in the fun. 

It is an AWESOME day out, it's HUGE, it's IMPRESSIVE and the Fraser Team are in. Are you? Email ida@fraser.co.nz to let us know!

Doctors Hill - Hillclimb

With the weather forecast looking very average on Saturday we made the call to drive up first thing Sunday morning to the annual Northland Car Club hill climb at Doctors Rd, Ruakaka.

With a 6:15am start on Sunday it turns out the weather forecasters were correct. But we jumped in the ute and headed up north via the BP for a caffeine fix. It rained the whole way there, but we arrived at about 9am. So we sat in the ute thinking this is too wet maybe we should just go home, but then Bruce reminded me that if I didn’t race he would tell everyone that I was a girl. That was it we were racing. Off we went to fill the appropriate forms in and complete scrutineering. With the car and driver ready to go we just had to wait for the officals.

We eventually lined up for the first run, with this being the first time we had been at this event I had decided to use the first couple of runs as a see how the course is. We were lined up behind a 520hp 3 rotor 4WD Series 1 RX7 rally car off he went and we were next. Off at the start lots of wheel spin trying to get traction and around the second corner and hello I thought this was a tarmac hill climb the monster RX7 had only been using half the road his inside two tyres were in the mud and gravel and had nicely coated the road in marble sized stones. Wet road, marble sized stones and a light car equals a slippery ride. This was how it was to remain for the rest of the day, we all had 6 attempts at the hill and by the end of it we had used some petrol and tyres, made the car dirty and had a good time.

We will have to wait until the results get posted to see how we ended up. It was nice to drive home in the warm dry ute. We will go back to do this event again, bring on the Autocross on Labour day.

Scott

   

Auckland Motorsport - Gymkhana & Track

This Sunday we're off to Hampton Downs to have some fun with Auckland Motorsport.  These guys put on the Cannonball Run - which you can read about here. Their events are extremely well run and a lot of fun.  The Fraser Team are really looking forward to a great day out.

$90 will get you entered in three events, or just pick one or two.  DMOFSR is entering the Track Event and Gymkhana Racing, we'll leave the Burnout Comp to the big boys.

If you're not keen to put your hand in your pocket, the entry for spectators is FREE and we have heard a rumor that there will be a static display of cars, as well as plenty of action to check out.

Head to Hampton Downs this Sunday 29 May as a spectator, or even better enter NOW. Further details here.

Rally NZ

Thanks to Gareth Davis for the photos

I set off for my first ever gravel rally with the skid legend himself, Mark Parsons, in his Truimph TR7 V8. We arrived at Manukau for documentation and the ceremonial start, which includes a drive over the ramp short interview and a pre rally catch up with the other competitors.

We were lucky to be able to use one of the apartments at Hampton Downs as our rally base, so we woke up on Saturday morning ready to go with the car having its final check over the night before. So we belted up and headed to our first control. Rallies are run on a very tight time schedule you have to be in the right place at the right time, there is only a 1 minute leeway. Off we set to our first special stage Te Akau North. Off we went. Flat out on gravel is quite the experience, it’s amazing how the grip and turn comes in at just the right time, although I do think that the driver has quite a bit to do with that. It was a very wet stage with some heavy rain the day before. We came flying around a corner and then saw a safety triangle. These normally are put there by competitors that haven’t managed to stick to the road to let you know that they are there. This one was to let us know that a branch of the Waikato river have taken over the road, slowly through the first one, then we see Dave Strong’s Fiesta stuck in the middle of the next one. His engine took in a lung fill of water and seized. Around the Fiesta we went and then into the next one, in hindsight slightly too fast, and with a splutter our engine stopped also. Ours was luckily an electronic problem. With the water lapping at the bottom of the door, out we got to push the car out and try to get it restarted. I didn’t think swimming was part of rallying. With the TR7 finally out off the water and with some time to dry out it fired up into life again. Quickly we jumped back into the car, belted up and away we went, with Mark trying to make up the 7 minutes we have lost.

The next stage went well but we had started to develop what we initially thought was an exhaust leak, so we continued on to the next stage and then on to the service at Hampton Downs, with our ‘exhaust leak’ getting worse. When we arrived at Hampton Downs it was obvious to our service crew outside the car that this was not an exhaust leak but another more serious problem. So we temporarily withdrew from the event and got the car up to the apartment where we could diagnosis it better. Luckily we had Tim from Bygone Autos as part of our service crew and also Russ that is ex Bygone Autos turned up. The boys had the head off in about 1 hour to reveal a blown head gasket. With a few phone calls and a trip back to Auckland to get the parts required we were confident that we were going to be ready for the following day, so we re-joined the rally and Tim and Russ worked hard and got the TR7 back on 8. Thank you to them, otherwise it would have been a short weekend.

With the car ready for Sunday morning we headed off to the famous WRC stages of Te Hutewai and Whaanga Coast. After the first stage we could relax as the car seemed to be going as good as it should. It was on these stages that we were able to wind the V8 up doing 180kph on gravel is f*#@en good. Mark is extremely skilled at throwing the car around and the crowd loved it. With Mark never wanting to ‘waste a crowd’ he was trying hard on one corner but oopps trying too hard, crowd wasted, not as spectacular as he would have liked. Luckily we were able to do the stage again and redeem himself he did, the spectators couldn’t get enough of his car and the V8 noise. Second to last stage we hit a rock and punctured the tyre, with only 10 km’s to go we decided to keep going and continue racing. This made every right hand bend interesting but Mark being Mark overcame any under steer with more right foot. Only at one point did that almost not work for us, we almost ended up down a bank but once again amazed at how the grip comes in at just the right time. We made it to the end of the stage with the tyre getting worse and worse, we then decided to tour to the service and make it the service crews problem, but with about 2 km’s to go the tyre decided to let go completed and forced us to change it on the side of the road. We made it back to service within the time allowed. With us fuelled and tyres changed we headed back to Hampton for the final stage of the day. Mark wanted to put on a show for the final stage and a show he did put on. We got a little carried away and did a couple more laps than we were supposed to and finished with a couple of donuts. The crowd loved it, the officials not so much. But it was worth it, with the rear tyres through to the canvas the rally was over. Thanks to everyone that helped out and also to Mark, a ride of a life time, I’ll be back as soon as I can -  that’s too good to only do once in a lifetime.

Scott

Possum Bourne Rally

 

This weekend is action packed.  The Fraser Cars Club are off to explore Taranaki, other Frasers will be on show at the Wheels of Fortune show in Pukekohe.  I'm off to co-drive the Possum Bourne Rally which is run in conjunction with Rally New Zealand.

I'll be sitting beside Mark Parsons, in his Triumph TR7 V8. Mark is a very skilled driver and is renowned for his sideways smoky approach to all things driving. I am really looking forward to the event, I am sure it will be a good ride.

If you want to head over for a look there is link to a route map on this webpage. I will try and keep you posted about our adventure.

Scott

Kit Car Racing - Legends of Speed

 
 
 
 Legends of Speed at Hampton Downs 19th and 20th March 2011

The email had gone out from Richard to say there were 3 Fraser's racing on the weekend so we packed up the kids and off we went to the track on Sunday. We arrived just before midday which turns out wasn't that long after racing had started. They had a delayed start due to the fog.

 It was great to see the Fraser's of James Coup, Craig Alexander and John Bloemendal out there doing well. They were racing with a very competitive and fast grid with a mixture of one F5000, Formula Libre, Formula Holden, Radical's, a Juno and the Redline's. With over 20 seconds separating the fastest to the slowest cars there was quite a big speed differential and it wasn't long before the faster cars were starting to catch the tail enders.

The Fraser's did very well and were having good racing between the other road legal cars in the grid.

It was great to see other Fraser owners out supporting the guys and generally enjoying the other racing that was happening during the day.

Scott

Thanks to David Harvey for these photos

Frasers at Hampton Downs

Richard is looking smart in this clip

More Kit Car Track Action

Another fun RMA Track Day.