2013 Much More Masters – Report

The 2013  MuchMore Masters was run over three days at the SMA club in NSW. Once again SMA presented an awesome track that seems to be getting better and better every time. Open practice of the Stock class on Friday started slow, with rain the night before creating a cold low grip surface. The early runs were spent tuning the motor and ESC for the upcoming power battle in 17.5 boosted that would follow, the cooler temps allowing everyone to push the motors hard. In the afternoon the track warmed up and the grip came up with it. The teams spent quite a bit of time testing out different ideas for preparation with the new MuchMore Rush tyres that we would be using for the event. These tyres were new for Australia and were under a lot of pressure to do well.

Saturday morning started with a cold chill in the air, and the time spent on the track the day before in the slipperier conditions became quite valuable. The first qualifier saw a gauntlet thrown, with Andrew Sienniak producing lap times half a second quicker than anyone else and taking out first place. The reset of the field was a lot closer with the next three places being within two seconds of each other over the entire run with Damien Zarb and Gavin Hatherly taking out the next two spots.  The rest of the day was much the same with the regrade after four rounds seeing seven of the top 10 cars all Xray T4’s.

The last two qualifiers were run and the grid listing for the finals were printed which saw Andrew Sienniak on pole, Gavin Hatherly in 2nd, and Deniz Demarco in 3rd. Nothing much had changed from the regrade with seven of the A finalists all running Xray T4’s. The MuchMore Rush tyres had performed great with six runs under their belts the lap times were consistent with the times ran throughout the event.

Race 1 saw Andrew get an early lead and stay there unchallenged. Gavin held out Deniz to take 2nd by two seconds. With some lively contact further back in the field, back markers started to come into play for the front runners producing some close calls. Race 2 Gavin was able to put a bit more pressure on Andrew early on, but greater track knowledge soon paid dividends by half way through the race, with him pulling a five second lead on Gavin and staying there to wrap up the MuchMore Masters Stock Title. Gavin again finished in 2nd with Damian Zarb securing 3rd. Race 3, Andrew was out to prove his domination but Gavin wanted to regain some pride and pushed Andrew hard with the closest racing we had seen all weekend from the Stock class. An early mistake by Andrew on lap four let Gavin through and for the next six laps he and Andrew ran nose to tail with Gavin running his lines as tight as possible and Andrew putting on the pressure trying to force a mistake. Gavin grabbed a little too much curb on lap 10 and rolled the car allowing Andrew back through for the win. With the rest of the field a fair way back, Gavin was able to recover and come back to secure 2nd place overall. The day finished with Andrew Sienniak taking out first place, Gavin Hatherly second and Damian Zarb third.

Top 10 Stock
1. Andrew Sieniak
2. Gavin Hatherly
3. Damien Zarb
4. David Harris
5. Phillip Merrick
6. David Mcinerney
7. Brett Drayton
8. Deniz Demarco
9. Dustin Fletcher
10.James Ainslie

In the Modified class it was clear that the competition was going to be tough, as always the SMA track seemed to bunch up the field. Many of the qualifiers were decided by literally thousands of a second. Early on Ari Bakla and his Xray T4 set the pace but was the victim of the sometimes unforgiving SMA curbs. Xray’s Christian Silva seemed to just get faster and faster throughout qualifying with the track coming to his driving. In the first final there were an amazing amount of crashes, at the start there were a few in the mid field and Timothy Lee was able to get away out in front but he was struggling a little on the first run of the tyres. After a little while Christian started to catch very fast and both cars came together a few times allowing the rest of the field to catch up and pass, a couple of times the body became tucked over the tyre and even got hung up over the inside of the battery. After all that Ari was into the lead after some problems at the start and Timothy was in second with Christian who had kindly waited for him to get the body un-tucked in third. Timothy was pushing really hard to catch Ari but made a bad mistake in the centre clipping a curb at full power sending the car flying though the infield, so then he just drove slowly till the end saving the tyres.

For the second final Timothy changed the rear diff oil and the additive timing. Straight away he was able to set a new lap record of 15.0 with the car working much better. Again there were some crashes at the start that he was able to avoid and able to easily pull away and cruise to the end.

In the last leg finally everyone got a clean start and the pole setter was able to get out in front with Ari second and Christian in third. Timothy had swapped the tyres side to side for this run and during the first few laps the car was a bit inconsistent and sometimes would easily get loose in the infield, Ari and he had a close battle until Ari needed to drive defensively as Christian started to apply the pressure allowing me to get into a rhythm and take the win.

Top 10 Modified
1. Timothy Lee
2. Ari Bakla
3. Christian Silva
4. Craig McPhee
5. Lionel Saunders
6. Keith Chui
7. Nathan Reese
8. Aaron Lee
9. Joel Casey
10.Kane Alderton

Source: Xray [teamxray.com] | Images: Paul Smith