Honda Nationals 2022 was to be held on the Sunday 25th September, with an EXE day on the 24th Saturday prior, which everyone planned to use as a practice day. Plan was to drive down Friday, practice Saturday, race Sunday, drive back Monday. I'll be doing the whole weekend with my club MWSCC so it's bound to be a weekend full of laughs! Lets go!

Friday driving down

Raining in Sydney NSW & Benella (Winton track) Victoria on the Friday, luckily I love this weather. Was set to be a lovely trip down south. Usually my father and brother come however they are both currently in the UK, so the missus decided to tag along for the road trip.

Had to hire a trailer for the first time in ages, as my mate sold his trailer which I usually borrow. $120 a day, geez.. First time missus has come in a while, when she realised that was $120 a day, we have it for 4 days.. On the way down she questioned why I hadn't bought one yet. Guess we can do that in the new year!

Few pit stops along the way for a toilet break and some food/coffee. The Navara is so comfy especially with cruise control, it's a matter of get into 6th, set cruise control, sit back and relax. Makes life real easy.

EXE Practice Day

Good thing we had a practice day lets say.. I didn't do too much driving it seems. It was a session day, I missed the first session as I was too busy chatting with my interstate friends. The format was timed, passenger, timed, passenger etc, so I only got to do 2 timed sessions, although I have my in car timing with the 10hz GPS receiver luckily.

Prepped in the pits, I decided to bring a coffee pod machine with me for once. Very happy I did so!

Checking over the car, the oil was way overfilled which seemed strange, I could of sworn I only filled up to the max line, oh well. I did drain a bit as going around I seemed to be burning out coming out of T7, a hard right hair pin. I'd floor it in 2nd and see smoke coming out the back, but this was the only turn.

I saw a few other Honda's doing the same thing, asking around a bit apparently it's a kinda known thing, and it could be the oil sloshing up and hitting the bottom of the piston.

With the oil thing in mind, I still unfortunately had that loud noise coming from the front left as mentioned in the previous 2 posts, so that means the rebuilt CV & wheel bearings wern't the issue... I'm now starting to think gearbox. Maybe it's the inner guard, but it feels like it hasn't moved. I should have yanked it out to test.

As the day went on, it was getting harder and harder to shift gears, then biting the clutch was having issues as well.. I stopped in the end, messaging a few mates to see if we could potentially diagnose the issue, and whether or not I need to get a clutch to replace as that seemed to be the issue. I thought maybe the clutch cable had stretched again so I did try tigtening it again but it didn't really seem to work.

It was already 4pm, kinda in the middle of nowhere, 3hrs away from Melbourne. Decided to pack up and head back into town with the club for dinner. Below is the 2 timed session results, fastest being a 1:39.69.

Session 1: 1:45.1068 1:42.2090

Session 2: 1:54.8648 1:39.6902 1:39.9398 1:40.2816 1:49.0638

Honda Nationals

The following morning, had a few things to test to try diagnose the issue after speaking with a few mates. As I started to go about, there was a few older guys in the pit garage next to me. They came over and asked what was wrong and if I needed a hand. They seemed quite knowledgable, so I ran the issue past them, they asked a few questions with how the car was behaving.

I didn't mention in the post from yesterday, but it was something like I can't get into first with the car on, but if I turn it off I can force it in, then start it. But doing this with my foot on the clutch, the starter motor leaps the car forward (like a push start) and it worked, then I only had 2nd-5th.

Relaying all this to the guys, one said to jump in and push the clutch pedal. After he observed the cable whilst I pushed the pedal, he tightened it a lot more, then I was magically able to get it into 1st! Started the car and everything seemed back to normal. Woo! He was saying I just had to tighten it, and explained his thinking process as to what I said. Extremely helpful. Thanked them many times.

Throughout the rest of the day I actually chatted with them a lot, extremely nice guys, full of history. They were just here to support their mate running a really fast turbo K series DC2. One of them is more of a muscle car guy whose only done to drags, but after going in his mates DC2 his now thinking of prepping one of his few cars for some track activities. Hopefully we see him out on track in the future!

As the day went on, the car still made the noise on the front left but I decided to just send it, knowing I'm gonna do my overhaul on the car after this weekend. We got a bit faster as the day went on, but somewhat felt like I was struggling.

Even went off at one stage as you can see from above, completely locked up at the end of the back straight. As it had rained a lot during the week, the outfield was a swamp.. There's grass all throughout the engine bay.. lovely.

A few photos from the missus.. Great photographer.. I laughed a lot. She also got a new Samsung S22 Ultra with me, it has up to a x100 zoom, so she was playing around with that.

By the end of the day, we ended up with a new PB of 1.37.52. It's not bad, I wanted to get towards the 1.35s but that isn't gonna happen. Watching my footage back, everything is very sloppy. I think with the issues around the car this weekend it put me off overall, even though I thought I was focusing on my driving to improve, maybe I was too busy concentrating on the issues it had.

Anyways, still a good weekend, many laughs with everyone, new PB, car still works. We will return after making some changes to the car and reviewing some data.

2:12.3232 1:39.3852 1:39.0678 1:39.7962 :**.*** 1:54.4570 1:37.9650 :**.*** 1:50.5940 1:37.8960 10 1:37.8820 :**.*** 1:48.6660 1:38.9720 1:38.7880 2:09.6740 :**.*** 1:38.7900 1:37.6660 1:53.5760 20 1:38.3990 :**.*** 1:37.5200

Interstate HH friends.

Monday driving back

Monday we drove back home with some of the MWSCC members who attended. Good time to reflect on everything around the car, decide where to take it from here. We are going to the UK in 3 weeks for a month so it'll be a while until I do anything Civic related.

Home

Everything survived the trip, woo! Thanks to HQ (the missus) for coming down for the trip, helping out where she could. Time to quickly return the trailer as it was hired (mad rush to get this back due to traffic), then unpack the ute and tuck the Civic away for a little rest.

Photographer photos

Some great shots from various photographers, thank you all!