Bartlett Motorsport

Nice day to wash the South Island Endurance Series season off while we prep for a wee summer race series cameo in the new year at NZ’s No.1 race track 🤙South Canterbury Car Club / Levels Raceway

Bespoke
base
auto refinishing
Fabrication
up safety
site supplies
glass
in one excavation

That’s the season done! And I’d say for the debut of the new whip it was a roaring success.

We finished up the season 3rd in class for the South Island Endurance Series and 5th overall for the Class 4/5 1 hour races, and the Integra showed huuuge potential, but budget and the organic space possibly held us back a wee bit. I have been out of the hot seat for a couple seasons now and jeez it was a tough call on what corner got that 1 brand new Kumho slick for the race at highlands 😂

The DC2R only just made it to the final chequered flag with a miss, random cutout, very loud fuel pump whine and a soft brake pedal slowing us down(or not slowing us down), which ultimately cost us 4th overall for the race but it held onto the end just! We had to winch it on the trailer and now won’t start 😅 but once the budget has recovered we’ll get to the bottom of it, iron out the rest of the kinks and come back with an even stronger package.

The whole season wouldn’t have been possible without the team behind me. First up, massive thank you to my wife Cate for letting me come and play in her race series! And to the lads that gave up their weekends and travelled (sometimes over 10 hours!) To help at each of the rounds; Carl, JC, Turner, Kitch, Liam, Gibby, Oli, Dayle & Kirby. A lot was learned about speedsockets, what kerbs not to hit, how not to drain fuel tanks and Nissan Stagea CV boots. Thank you to Jarrod and the guys at Auto Gas Specialists for changing countless tyres, setting up a rocket and even chucking in a new clutch after Ruapuna. No hurry with the bill! Thanks to Chris Wall at Prestige for coming to the rescue with spares on more than one occasion, and thanks to the special babysitters that came to help out and keep wee George from running into the live pit lane with, as far as I am aware, 100% success 🙌🏻

A huge thank you to my sponsors who helped us get to the track

YTG NZ
Sign Base
SD Fabrication
Queenstown Auto Refinishing
Norton Site Supplies
Ground Up Safety
Nasko Factory 😉

Also thank you to the team at SIERDC for putting on NZs best endurance racing series and all the volunteers at each race track that put the race days together 🙌🏻

Survived the South Island Endurance Series 👌🏻 and managed to snag another class podium too 🥉how good! Even got some free beer for my troubles 🍻

Speeding into race week at Highlands this weekend for the final round of the South Island Endurance Series (the BEST endurance series in NZ) and bloody stoked to welcome the guys at Bespoke NZ on board to support the campaign. Check them out at

https://ytg.co/nz

https://www.instagram.com/ytg_bespoke_nz?igsh=MWRjdTVjcG8zNDB1aQ==

We are currently sitting 4th in class for the series. Can we sneak onto the podium? The weather is certainly looking like it’ll make it interesting!

📸 opiee

Happy with that! Changed to slicks at the very last minute and just made pit exit before it closed, she was a bit greasy at the start but came on after 20 minutes and got better and better as the track dried. Hell of a stop by the boys for fuel and the car held together till the end. Cheers! 🍻

Sunny day testing down at Teretonga! The Integra showing heaps of potential again, over 1.5 seconds faster than I’ve been round here in the old civic after final practice. Car felt pretty good and behaved, apart from a split CV boot which seems to be a thing. But thanks heaps to Dayle, JC and Carl we’ve got it all fixed up and ready for qualifying at 9am tomorrow. Hopefully the weather keeps up!

Race week! So I guess I should start prepping the car 😅

The ‘couple of things’ for Jarrod at Auto Gas Specialists to have a look at escalated a wee bit, so thank you Jarrod for getg it all done in such a tight time frame! Race car things… Time now to unload, prep and clean then straight back on the trailer. Ready to head to Invercargill in the morning for South Island Endurance Series Round 2

“Quick” recap for the weekend. Firstly huge shout out to my crew JC, Carl, Gibby, Kitch, DT, Kibirby, Liam, George, Cate, James and Bev!

It was always going to be a steep learning curve in a new car and turning a sprint car into an enduro one. But after throwing new bags at it in P2 it showed it had plenty of potential pumping out a 1:33 with a fairly rusty driver, and later putting down a 1:32 in official practice going 3 seconds faster than KANPAI, and a new PB for me around Ruapuna. A few teething issues showed over the weekend though but only…

-shifter bush falling apart
-fuel tank full of crap
-clogged fuel pump
-disintegrated fuel filter
-wheel clearance issues
-radios straight up not working
-split CV boot
-blown tyre(s)
-leaking brakes

But we go it all sorted sort of for qualifying Saturday morning thanks to some legends in the pits and in Christchurch. Evan, mike, Chris Wall and James to name but a few!

Qualifying went pretty well, managed to put down a 1:31.4, a new PB an a very respectable time for a little 2 litre NA that put us in 3rd for a bit until Chris wall put down a blinding 1:30 but stoked to be starting off the second row in the fist real hit out in the car in anger!

And thats about where we peaked

Rolling start was a bit of a mess, dropped to 6th? Then after a pretty cool battle with Donovan and the BMW Z4 settled into 5th to ride out till the first pit stop. The brakes started to soften lapping at 1:32, so slowed to 1:33 and realised the chase for 4th would have to wait. It would never happen 😅 Then safety car came out before we could pit as we were delaying to make sure we had room to so a full fuel dump and under safety car the vibration from the front right turned into a full blown puncture. With over3/4 of a lap to cycle round before i could get to pits. The pit stop needs a bit of practice. Back out and after safety car now we can do our compulsory pitstop and put fuel in to The end. This time it was clean! We practiced our fuel dump, and the boys, espeially gibby were on point! Back out with cooler brakes, made some passes that meant nothing as we were 3 laps down but felt like we had a bit of pace thwn red flag, then safety car to the chequered flag. Which was handy as the front right caliper was leaking and had drained the fluid out of the front reservoir so all we had was rears and the new endless pads were down to steal.

In the end, we finished! But down in 10th overall and 6th in class. The car showing a heap of potential which hopefully we can extract at Teretonga next weekend with the help of Jarrod from Autogas in Timaru who currently has The gearbox out of the car. It’s all learning and all in all a positive weekend. Let’s go SIERDC Round 2!

Photo credits Richard Opie(the good photos)