Russell cracks the 200mph barrier!
Latest report from Russell Pavey (14/6/05)
(Pic by Visual Velocity)
 

Hi All

Just thought I would drop a line after the Winternationals.

The "Winters" is the biggest meeting outside of the USA and this year it was an absolute whopper. 553 race teams made the entry list and the crowd was estimated at over 40,000. The weather was perfect and the track crew did an amazing job of preparing the stickiest track on the planet.

The Morrie was preped and ready to go. I spent some extra time doing some maths trying to figure out fuel volumes and clutch plate loads. The clutch in the Morrie is still an unknown quantity - we just dont know what it wants.

Our first shot at qualifiing was on Friday morning. The track looked great and very sticky. I raised the launch RPM to around 5000 and nailed the throttle. The Morrie carried its front wheels for around 50 feet in a pretty little wheelstand and settled for an arrow straight run. It felt good - damm good. Its a strange feeling to describe but when its rocketing towards the finish line with the engine screaming over 8000 rpm - its almost surreal.

Waiting in the braking area up after the run, I could hear the crew coming down the return road long before saw them. The numbers were 6.76 @ 205mph yahoo !

We took the Morrie back to the pits for post race maintenence. The engine was happy and it all looked very good. I added some more static clutch load to it and got ready for the next qualifiing session.

And thats where things started to turn. After warming the engine for the second session, we fronted the startline but the car refused to start. The magneto kill switch had decided to die. We raced back to the pits and found the fault - bypassed the switch and towed straight back to the staging lanes. The officials were waiting for us and refused to allow us to run. They figured we had our turn despite what the rules say.

The final qualifing session was cancelled when the program ran too late and we readied the Morrie for first round action the next day.

Race day came and we were ready. The Morrie ran great but the driver was a little off. A slow reaction on the startline cost us the race and we were out. The run was still quite stout - a 6.81 at a slowing 193 mph - seeing I shut the car off at 1100 feet.

There is now a big gap until the next meeting - November - and I'm contemplating the Morrrie future. There is some body work to finish and I'm thinking of changing its shape. I'm interested in hearing from you guys about what changes I should make. All comments are welcome - I dont offend easily.

Keep smiling

Russ
 

PS There will be a speedweek program coming soon with some footage of my Morrie doing its thing. I'll post some details soon.
 
 

Updated 14/6/05