Motorkhana July 2018

Rally

Rally

Forum Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2008
Messages
3,928
Location
Sydney
Car Year
1999
Car Model
WRX
Transmission
6 Speed
I had a great day competing at a motorkhana in my wrx today. I had e second places, missing out on a win by the narrowest possible margin-1,000th of a second. Considering 2 years ago I was watching in a wheelchair with a very bleak health outlook, I am absolutely delighted.
 
Congratulations! Well done.

It's quite a few years since I competed in the Queensland motorkhana championship and I'm well past that now but I still enjoy seeing the skill displayed by drivers making Ken Blockish moves on bitumen.

Go Rally!

Just one question for my own edification. How do you manage the understeer that is built into the wrx, particularly on a slalom? I'm from the old school of rear drive, (when the WRX first arrived it was banned from motorkhanas for some time 'till we all got over the shock) so I know how that works but managing 4 wheel drive in a motorkhana is a bit of a mystery to me.
 
As with off roading, it's all in the diffs. My car tends to oversteer more than understeer. I lock the centre diff, and rely on the plated rear and helical front diffs as well to do their magic. Here is a video from the day. https://youtu.be/AX5Ydj48Ogs
 
Nice video. Navigation looks pretty good to me. It's a bit hard to see anything wrong at that distance anyway. As long as you didn't get a WD. Still, if you did hesitate once or twice, that could have been the difference between first and second. More study of the layouts before the next event. :)

Rally said:
Video 2 from today. Still trying to get my navigation sorted so I don't hesitate at times. https://youtu.be/fmVoWMk4yYQ
Click to expand...
 
Not really my cup of tea, but I couldn't come anywhere close to driving that precisely.
Excellent stuff!
 
Because my navigation was a problem, I would give up in frustration and just do the biggest powerslides and had enormous fun. Yet, when you know where you need to go, there is immense satisfaction of having nailed it. I think it's the best bang for your buck motorsport there is. There was a bloke there with the last of the RWD Corollas with a VN V6 in it, and another guy with a Civic I think it was, with a 200SX drivetrain in it- converting it to RWD. At the el cheapo end though, there was a Hyundai Excel ****ter there and he was having heaps of fun too. For those with more money, there as a Nissan GTR, a few Evos, a BMW 135i. Something for almost everyone. I've previously seen a Mitsubishi Mirage with an EVO engine, gearbox and diffs in it.
 
I was interested to see the course was being watered. Is this a safety measure? When I first started doing motorkhanas they were always on dirt as the sport derives from rallying and in those days there wasn't much tarmac in rallying. Rollovers were not uncommon as a berm built up on the outside of the corners.

When I quit the sport we were using bitumen but the only time it was wet was when it was raining. Dry bitumen courses = lots of tyre squeal and smoke. It got to the point where we couldn't get approval to use sealed areas. I think the last event I attended was the car park of the Caltex servo across the highway from Dreamworld and that was a wet one due to the weather.
 
No, not a safety measure. Well, not to my knowledge. To reduce tyre wear and possibly noise too. Khnacrosses are normally on dirt, as are some motorkhanas. Many people don’t like taking their car on dirt, so they do this. Some events are dry, especially drift event on the skidpan and on the figure 8.
 
I just remembered that run in the first video the timing equipment failed to get a time, so I was able to re-do it. Which was indeed fortunate because I opened the throttle too hard at the far cone and lost heaps of time. When I re-did it, I had a much better run but unfortunately it wasn’t filmed.
 
Rally said:
when you know where you need to go, there is immense satisfaction of having nailed it.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Like hitting the moguls perfectly skiing down a black run.
Haven't done that sort of thing since my early 20's though, I'd probably fall over in the first 5-10 seconds and tumble the rest of the way if I tried now. :biggrin:
 
Just catching up on this news... Congratulations, Rally! Next time you've got one of these events coming up please let me know, I'll be there to spectate and help you in any way you need. I'd like to participate, but without an introduction I'm not going to do that yet.
 
19th August next event
 
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