WOW... What a weekend. Just got home from running the Monaro Nationals in the Barossa Valley. What a blast.
But the highlight would have to be the hillclimb. 65 Monaros all running up the Collingrove hillclimb.
The AllPaw Monaro performed flawlessly. Here is the story.
Ol mate was back in his tuned, cammed 2006 GTO - 6 litre...... Running a fresh set of slicks.
I was too busy to do much to the AllPaw CV8, the tossers that I ordered the slicks through never called me back. So I washed the dust off her and it was game on with the road tyres that I use everywhere.
Nice and hot so the track had some temperature in it. First run I hooked in and laid down a 39.04. Pretty close to my best ever of 38.5ish. Ol mate put down a 38.73, now considering he had never dropped it into the 38's before, I could see the track was fast.
Next run was a 38.25, my fastest ever, super happy for about 10 mins until he ran with a 38.28. Oh dear, I didnt think there was much left in the car with me doing the steering.
Next run saw me do a 38.21 (well at least I was consistent) He did a 38.30. Here I was thinking he had nothing left either.
Next time out saw me do a 38.04, oh man so close to that magical 37 I have been hunting for. Here I was thinking that he could never get down that low considering he had never dropped it into the 38's before. So he goes and runs a 38 flat. Well I tell you, that sure ruined my arvo. I wasnt meant to run any more as I had to leave to set up for the presentation dinner that arvo.
I convinced myself to hang around for one more run with 2 goals, but the same out come. Beat ol' mate and drop it into the 37's, and to win this thing I had to do both.
AND............... I gotta say... I smoked it. The run felt very fast, dropped the back wheel off the track on the first turn but kept on it and let the AWD do its thing, rest of the run felt damn close to perfect
Laid down a 37.55.... Man that felt good.
I then had to madly pack up my stuff and high tail it back to the dinner to start setting up. I saw his next run which was a 38.52. The pressure was on for his last run which I never got to see, They tell me he was on target to beat me (yeah yeah show me the time slip) but ran out of talent at the top of the hill and spun off, recovering to do a 43.32
At the Presentation Dinner I accepted the trophy for "King of the Hill - Outright Fastest"............ SO STOKED!!
Gotta say a MASSIVE thank you to Ian for the AWD conversion. Without his help and expertise, the CV8 would still be 2WD and be languishing somewhere in the midpack with the other stocker CV8's. We had some blown CV8's that could get off the line quick, but this track is all about traction, With bucket loads of traction you can keep the momentum going and run faster times.
Now considering that this engine is basically stock, it has a gumpy tune that is set for the old configuration when the engine had extractors. When we did the conversion I was a tight arse and put the AWD exhaust manifolds off the Adventra on. Just wanted to get it all working and worry about the exhaust after that, just haven't got around to it yet. (having too much fun in the thing)
So for a stock car to dominate the cars running slicks and even the blown 2WD cars, just goes to show what an advantage the AWD is.
So once again Ian, thank you so much for putting this thing together. The car is just a level above anything that I ever thought it would be. I start getting all excited when I think about what it would be like with a supercharger and a set of slicks.
Here is the old girl in action.
But if I have to swap the gauges out for something else then that is what I will have to do.
