How it all got started

In the 1995/96 Season I was crewing for Nees Racing when the opportunity to purchase a Mitsubishi Mirage Production Saloon was offered, and so I became the proud owner of a Racecar. I drove at a couple of race meetings at Ellesemere, and then rebuilt the car in a new body-shell to ensure the standard of presentation that I required. We also adopted "TAZ" the cartoon Tasmanian Devil as our mascot and bought a large stuffed toy to sit on the racecar. We felt that this would engender a special interest in the children, which in turn attracts the interest of their parents, which gives our Sponsors better exposure. This has been most successful with many of the children waving to "TAZ" as he sits with me on the front of the car during the Grand Parade at the start of each meeting.

My first season of racing at Woodford Glen (1996/97) was spent experimenting with car set-up, and with transmission ratios to obtain optimum performance. Considering it was my first season it was quite successful. In the off-season I built a new engine to give the performance required to be fully competitive with the Holden Commodores which predominate in the class. With this new engine my second season was a good one performance-wise, but was not so good with regard to structural damage incurred.

This necessitated the complete rebuild into a new body-shell during the off-season. The camshaft was also reground with the intention of increased performance.

In my third season (1998/99) I was again very competitive even though all the cars had increased their performance in the off-season. Fortunately, this season was not as bad for structural damage, and we finished the season in relatively tidy condition, not requiring significant panel repairs to bring the car back to a good standard of presentation for the new season.
For my 4^th season a new set of rings, rework of the flywheel, and a further modification to the camshaft resulted in an increase from 7000 rpm to 8000 rpm at the end of the straight. This was enough to keep me up with the Commodores, most of which had spent big money on reworking cylinder heads to get the break over everyone else.

That was the end of my eligibility to race Production Class at Woodford Glen, and so I purchased the Mitsubishi GTO to race in the "A" Grade Saloon Class.

I also race at Greenstone Park in the "King 'o the 'Coast" Championship each year, and any other race meeting I can get to. I have raced at the Central Speedway in Cromwell and Eastern States in Blenheim and look forward to doing so again.

MITSUBISHI - Mirage

		Make		Mitsubishi
		Model		Mirage Mk3
		Year		1986
		Class		Production Saloon
		Race Number		29c
		Engine		Mitsubishi
		CC Rating		1800

 

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