There is no denying that many of the international cars certainly raised a few eyebrows at Eastern Creek in May 2010 and the big talk of the Australian race community afterwards was the fact that the Cyber Evo beat the longstanding V8 Supercar qualifying lap record with a time of 1.30.58 and they did it on road legal tyres, something that, only a few short years ago would have been deemed downright impossible.
There will always be the argument that we shouldn’t compare the times to other classes of racing, such as the V8 Supercars as they have restrictions on their aero, engine, tyre size and many other things which there is no denying are true.
What is worth noting however, is that most of the top professional teams have yearly development budgets pushing well into the millions of dollars (often tens of millions) and a majority of the time attack community will make do with a mere fraction of that. To put this into some sort of perspective – most professional race teams employ more staff in data acquisition alone than what even the world’s very top time attack teams employ in total!
Although the top time attack cars certainly are as good as any top race car in any class of racing worldwide in terms of build quality, you only needed to walk around the pits at World Time Attack Challenge to know that this is still very “grass roots” form of motorsport and that is exactly what the fans love about it!
We thought it would be fun to show you some of the lap records around Eastern Creek and remembering these times listed here are actual “race” times not qualifying times and the qualifying times may have been quicker but it gives you an idea anyway!
It probably comes as no surprise that the lap record is held by an A1 GP car driven by Nico Hulkenberg from Germany with a time of 1.19.1 with Nathan Carrati clocking 1.24.4 at the wheel of a Dallara Mercedes for the Formula 3 record.
The Eastern Creek lap record is held by an A1 GP driven Nico Hulkenberg
Of somewhat more relevance is the group 2A sports car record held by a Radical SR3 driven by none other than former Australian Superlap champion Garth Walden with a time of 1.30.7. The Carrera cup record is held by Alex Davison in a 911 GT3 with a time of 1.34.2 and Peter Hackett holds the GT sports record in a Lamborghini Gallardo with a time of 1.32.8
Radicals are notoriously fast around the ‘Creek.
James Sera holds the Sports Sedan record at 1.29.9 in the crazy Chev powered Saab Aero and Superlap veteran Dave Loftus holds the improved production class record with a 1.42.5 in the BSM Skyline before it was converted to full time attack guise.
James Sera’s Chev-powered Saab Aero holds the Sports Sedans lap record.
While we are talking production cars it is worth noting Nathan Pretty in the 7 litre endurance factory backed Monaro with a time of 1.33.9 and 2008 Superlap Champion Peter Lucas holds the under 2 litre production car record in his feisty little Lotus with a time of 1.44.8 and production car veteran Bob Pearson (pictured below) holds the 3E production car record in his Evo X with a time of 1.45.7.
On a side note the motorcycle record is held by Alex Criville on an NSR500 in 1996 at the GP with a time of 1.30.3, a time that conjures up images of Tarzan chasing him around the Creek in the Cyber Evo and just being pipped on the finish line!
Alex Criville on his NSR500 GP bike (above) only marginally faster than Tarzan in the CyberEVO (below)
With many of the fastest teams eager to head down under in August only time will tell how fast the winner will be this year but as you can see the time attack cars, because of the sheer nature of the freedom of rules in Time Attack, they can certainly hold their own in amongst the best of them and it certainly makes for good bragging rights!
There was always going to be the question of “but how fast is compared to XXXX?” and now you know!
The 2010 WTAC Champion Tarzan Yamada shows how it’s done:
To see the rest of the Eastern Creek records click here.
