gixxerdrew
DSM Wiseman
- 664
- 21
- Oct 5, 2007
-
Yokohama, Japan,
Asia
Firstly I want to apologize to those who have followed and supported this project for so long I know you all wanted to see us do well in Australia but we decided to withdraw from racing at WTAC at least for now.
There are a million reasons, a very long story behind it but the basic summary is that we had a real struggle to get the car in condition to run, firstly we got murdered on the shipping from the US due to a shady shipping agent and that destroyed the first year budgets.
Then the car turned out to need a lot more work than I anticipated, this is where I screwed up the job scope creeped on the workshop like mad. We tried to run out there understaffed, under-budget and meanwhile our competition labored on smartly and the bar was raised continually. So we run a lap time in 2014 that could have fought for a win in 2012, but thats the way of racing you stay ahead or you get left behind.
After a lack luster performance the first year we lost our support from Yokohama tire. Deservingly so, as we did not show the potential of the car or even close. But to give you some idea what that meant to us, its $2300 a set for tires that do basically one lap. So without tire support, we are just simply playing outside our pay grade. WTAC is a very expensive event to run.
One of the final straws was that the regulations changed to put in a minimum weight of 20% less than your original car. What this meant in reality was that our competitors have min weights of 700 and 900kg while ours is 1050. I would like to think I design good aero but it gets hard to make up for 3-5 seconds a lap of weight. Even the lap time we ran last year with a very much sub optimal car, if we had a similar weight, you can just imagine. I support the rule makers and their reasons for the regs, we are just one of the unfortunate victims.
I hope someday we are in a better position, but my plan for now is to fix the car up on our own schedule and then decide what to do with it next. So sadly, for those that gave us so much support, it is just more waiting. I will post again when we have a future plan in place to do something with the car. I do feel a sense of pride anyway, to have thrown our hat in the ring at the top level for this kind of racing. To have raced the car my friends and I built under a tree on two continents.
As a side note, we did find a super ultra rare Holinger HML gearbox, which is probably the most exciting development for the car in a long time.
Thank you for everything,
Andrew Brilliant
There are a million reasons, a very long story behind it but the basic summary is that we had a real struggle to get the car in condition to run, firstly we got murdered on the shipping from the US due to a shady shipping agent and that destroyed the first year budgets.
Then the car turned out to need a lot more work than I anticipated, this is where I screwed up the job scope creeped on the workshop like mad. We tried to run out there understaffed, under-budget and meanwhile our competition labored on smartly and the bar was raised continually. So we run a lap time in 2014 that could have fought for a win in 2012, but thats the way of racing you stay ahead or you get left behind.
After a lack luster performance the first year we lost our support from Yokohama tire. Deservingly so, as we did not show the potential of the car or even close. But to give you some idea what that meant to us, its $2300 a set for tires that do basically one lap. So without tire support, we are just simply playing outside our pay grade. WTAC is a very expensive event to run.
One of the final straws was that the regulations changed to put in a minimum weight of 20% less than your original car. What this meant in reality was that our competitors have min weights of 700 and 900kg while ours is 1050. I would like to think I design good aero but it gets hard to make up for 3-5 seconds a lap of weight. Even the lap time we ran last year with a very much sub optimal car, if we had a similar weight, you can just imagine. I support the rule makers and their reasons for the regs, we are just one of the unfortunate victims.
I hope someday we are in a better position, but my plan for now is to fix the car up on our own schedule and then decide what to do with it next. So sadly, for those that gave us so much support, it is just more waiting. I will post again when we have a future plan in place to do something with the car. I do feel a sense of pride anyway, to have thrown our hat in the ring at the top level for this kind of racing. To have raced the car my friends and I built under a tree on two continents.
As a side note, we did find a super ultra rare Holinger HML gearbox, which is probably the most exciting development for the car in a long time.
Thank you for everything,
Andrew Brilliant
