Whilst the lights are burning bright late into the night in workshops around the country and in fact around the world as the August date draws nearer, nowhere are they on later than the Sydney based race shop of Fernandez motorsport. Headed by former V8 Supercar driver Jose Fernandez, the team certainly raised some eyebrows last year when, for a bit of fun, they took a BA Falcon V8 supercar they had lying around and repowered it with a dry sump XR6 turbo engine.
“We certainly learnt an awful lot last year” said Jose “and the first thing we learnt is that you cannot compete with 900kg purpose built time attack cars in a heavyweight 1500kg endurance racing car”. So with this in mind the bright green car that appeared in 2010 was returned to its original format of V8 Supercar and sold off to fund a purpose built time attack car that is built to do one job and one job only – lap Eastern Creek in the lowest possible time.
With this in mind Jose went in search of a body shell to commence the project and secured a 2010 FPV FG ute body that was stolen and recovered. “whilst the ute may seem like a strange choice to some, and I have read many people’s comments questioning what I am doing with people comparing the traction issues with road going sedan to a road going ute” said Jose “the reality is that once we build a chassis like this it really doesn’t know what the body style is on top of it and with the calculations we have done we should end up with very close to near optimum 50/50 weight distribution”
Much of this is achieved by some very clever engineering with many of the ancillaries such as radiator and oil tank and several other unique features that we promised not to discuss finding their way into the rear area behind the seats.
The engine with be the same dry sump 4 litre XR6 motor although with a revised turbo configuration with the scope to go over 800hp should it be needed. The turbo positioning will also be revised to improve weight distribution and get all the weight as low as physically possible in the vehicle.
The work has also begun in earnest on the body with Carbon fibre wiz Ian Pollard taking care of the panels “which will all be carbon and include quite a healthy aero package” said Jose “we will be building this car to the absolute limit of the World Time Attack rulebook ,whilst still making it instantly recognisable as a Falcon utility.”
The rear Suspension uses a four link style rear with Ohlins dampers and a V8 supercar diff assembly. The gearbox will likely be a Holinger and the brakes will be much smaller than the V8 spec brakes to keep weight to a minimum “don’t forget, we are only out to do one really quick lap not one hundred” said Jose.
The front suspension will be modified factory as the team deem it good enough and much lighter than the V8 supercar setup although a set of Ohlins shocks will be adapted to fit and every single thing that goes on is carefully weighed to analyse if there is a lighter option.
In between late nights working on the ute the Fernandez Motorsport find time to run a front running two car team in the Shannons V8 touring car series “that was my old car and the other one was the Jason Bright 07 car” said Jose, they run a very successful GTHO in the Touring Car Masters and numerous other projects including a Ferrari 360 Modena that bears the Fernandez brand on the windscreen.
When I mentioned to Jose that it looks like he has his work cut out for him to finish the ute in time for August he simply smiled and said “don’t worry we will be there 100%. We were there last year and we will be there this year. This is what we do for a living! And certainly we hope the Australian Ford fans will be there to cheer us on as we take on the foreigners”
