15/02/2026
Race Report Time!
Another big night of ups and downs...
Race 1 Heat 7 P7 > P8 - Straight out the gate with a field stacked with fast cars and drivers wowsers. Car felt very nice, track was great and basically tacked on the back of the field and went for it! Had a blast and happy to be keeping up with them, only finishing about 4 seconds off the lead car over the line, second to last!
Quick check under the hood and Jacob found a horsepower leak, looking like the front seal has started to let go, breathing oil out a bit, likely from the bolt incedent last week... Cleaned it up and sent it out again....
Race 2 Heat 12 P5 > DNF - Track by now was very rutted out, again with lots of fast cars and got swamped in the first lap. Car felt a bit sluggish up top but was getting out of the corners still OK. Running 8th in lap 5 and popped a outside rear tyre on a decent rut which nearly put me in the wall but managed to calm it down to pull infield. Bummer.
Engine check and yep, seal is worse and she's getting tired, bit of oil painting going on under there. Another clean up, change blown tyre thanks to GMHC & HDTSV and ready to send it again.
Race 3 Heat 20 P4 > P8 - By now track is pretty cooked, looking like a staircase, going less favourable way around. Just wanted to get through this one to make the finals, so took it pretty easy down low, avoiding as much carnage as possible. Happy to just push through to the end.
Car still pushing oil out, blown engine quite the possibility going out in the B Main 2... Let's just send it and hope for the best.
Race 4 B Main 2 P21 > P13 Amazing run, down on power but straight in the mix early making up a few spots till I got smacked into a bit, causing another car to spin off and cause yellow. Had to pull infield so they could remove their front guard from my car! Restart and I was loving ripping around up high at full noise, but defs down on power as cars were pulling away from me in the straights, but I had good corner speed. All was well tried a few different lines down low but so rutted everywhere making no gains so went back up high. Last lap I was full noise coming out of the grass end and hit big rut which spat me into the wall hard. Ouch, big hit that one! Limped it straight back to the pits to survey the damage.
First glance it didn't look too bad but on closer inspection under the bonnet the damage is pretty nasty. Bent steel and tell tale bends in the chassis rails. Cooked the K Frame again. Potentially terminal for this car. Might be time for a reshell unfortunately. Really disappointing to end the night like that but as I keep getting reminded, it's only my first season of racing and we have learned so so much, just in the last few Months. There were about 5 others that hit ruts and the wall. I am getting better and that was some of my best racing to date.
Thanks again to Jacob and Brodie for crewing for me, you guys are awesome 🤘
At this stage I'll be missing the next couple of local races, but will aim to get back out for the last race of the season, April 18th and then maybe do a few more races at other tracks. I have a great bunch of people behind me, so we will be working our asses off in the meantime to get back out there.
Stay tuned for the updates on what we decide to do with the car.
Cheers Ash & Meg
