News - as sent by our customers & product news

Software Engineer/Developer opportunity

Stephanie Royds — 2012-05-02T05:30:17Z

Connect people with their vehicle’s performance and work in Motor Sport as part of our passionate team
5+ years’ experience developing Windows applications
Previous experience in electronics, R&D and software development
“Hands on” motorsport experience
Based in greater Christchurch

Go to Seek to get the job description and apply. We look forward to having you on our team.

Afterburner 2 on display at Emex

Stephanie Royds — 2012-04-29T21:39:06Z

The Afterburner 2 dragbike will be on display at the Emex Show in Auckland this week on the Burkert Fluid Control Systems stand. Ian will be attending the stand during the show from Tuesday through to the show's completion on Thursday.

2012 XK120 revisited

Stephanie Royds — 2012-04-12T23:57:34Z

Here's a few specs on the car, which is conceived, designed, constructed and raced by Sam Lyle of Gisborne and is his 9th self-built car.

The design philosophy was to produce -

(a) the fastest Jaguar-powered circuit race car in NZ

(b) the wildest-looking jag in the country.

The spaceframe chassis is mainly constructed from NZ made Southwards HiStrength 25mm steel tubing.

Rollover protection made from Southwards QA rollcage tubing.

Front hubs and rear end is Jag XJS. Front suspension fabricated upper and lower A-arms. Steering is Jag XJS rack with assistance by Toyota MR2 electric p/s pump. Rear suspension heavily modified Jag. QA1 coilovers and Eibach springs all round.

Wheels are NZ made Arrow 16x12 rear and 16x10 front with Dunlop slicks.

Brakes are Willwood 6piston front , 4 piston rear with ducted cooling.

Engine is Jag 5.3 litre V12 from a late model XJS H.E. with Ross 8.5 to 1 forged pistons, O-ringed cylinder liners, 5-stage dry sump lubrication. Heads are pre-H.E. which are more suited to forced induction than the later heads.

The motor is the work of William White and features his custom, NZ made inlet manifolds, dry sump pan, valley cover (deleting the Jag dizzy) and reluctor pedestal. The turbo installation uses 4 turbos each feeding 3 cylinders(approx 1400 cc per turbo) via 4 intercoolers (mounted on the flanks of the car and fed cooling air via ducts from the fake headlights) 4 blowoff valves and 4 throttle bodies. A custom billet flywheel mounts a Tilton triple-plate clutch and co-axial release bearing driving a Tremec TKO 5 Speed. Injectors are"mystery specials".

ECU is also proudly NZ made, being Link G4 Xtreme running wasted spark multi-point group injection with 60 tooth chopper disc and Subaru reluctor. 2 Motorcraft triple twin-post coil packs handle the sparks. Sam has been exclusively using Link since the first generation ECU, on a total of 14 installations, race and road.

The carbon fibre bodywork is made by Sam from moulds taken off a 1952 Jag XK120, widened 10 inches each side. Front and rear carbonfibre aerodynamic appendages are serious downforce-producers and work in conjunction with a fully sealed undertray and venturi.

We hope to compete in some rounds of the Sports and GT series as well as jaguar cub events and track days.

Find out about the Leadfoot Festival.

Last event of the season for Midget 91a

Stephanie Royds — 2012-04-12T02:00:52Z

We were supposed to run at Palmerston North Speedway on the Saturday night which got rained off unfortunately, which led to a very sociable night for a lot of speedway people with nothing else to do.

The next day we toured 30 minutes north to Harrisville Speedway at Ohakea Airbase which was a new track for us at an amazing facility! This is an Outlaw track which meant no muffler and very little rules!

We started off 12th in our first heat and finished 6th and then grid three to finish 2nd. We started the feature off 6th and made it as high as 3rd before finishing in 5th overall, which we were very happy with considering the size of the track and most people had run there apart from us. There was an amazing prize giving afterwards at the track and a very big night with food etc . . . all laid on for the drivers and crew.

The biggest event of the day though, was Ryno who passed Jamie McDonald with 2 laps to go to win the Outlaw Sprintcar Event in a truly amazing race that only the people who were there could understand. I will send the video once its public as it was unbelievable to see him drive like this and win back to back. He won this event last time it was held, also with 40+ top cars in the running and I congratulate him on this.

Also thanks to Dave at Logick Print as we will have some O’Connor Motorsport Calendars for next year for anyone who is interested!

Our preparation for next year has already started and we won't be doing any more events for this year unfortunately, with only a couple to go as we have huge plans on the horizon but . . . I won't be releasing all for a little bit. But what I can say is thank you very much to all of the people, Sponsors, Family, Crew and all the little people that help us as without you I wouldn't have got to where we have got to today and be presented with what's ahead in the future!

Thanks to the following who are on board as part of the O’Connor Motorsport Sponsor’s team as you have all been amazing for helping us get to where we are!

Terry and the team from Vernon and Vazey Truck Parts
Gary and the team from Waiuku Car Spares
Phil from GT International Logistics
Craig from Ortho at Ormiston
Dave & Jess from Waiheke Easy Store
Simon from Link ElectroSystems
Bryan from Carbon Fibre Designs
Angus from Garage 9 Performance
Tim and Chris from Motul Oils
Dave from Logick Print
Chris from CSR Fabrications
Ryno from Ryno Designs
Troy from TWC Contracting

Take care until then,

Cheers,
Shane O'Connor
Vernon and Vazey Truck Parts Midget 91a

Afterburner 2 end the season on another high note!

Stephanie Royds — 2012-04-10T10:14:09Z

Well who would have thought at the debut of the Link G4 Xtreme controlled Afterburner turbo methanol dragbike 3rd January 2011, that the next season after initial testing would be the one that rewrote New Zealand drag bike racing history. Afterburner 2 has run faster than any other NZ bike in competition in NZ, and we STILL haven't dyno tuned this monster yet!!!

You need only to read through all our other news posts to realise just how incredible the performance of this machine has been so far, and we are still only at the start of releasing it's true potential. As I keep stating, the tuning done by Dtech Motorsport's Dave Heerdegin on the Link Xtreme based only on data gathered from runs on the track shows clearly what a top tuner can do with the Link G4 engine management when all the rest of the machine preparation has been done correctly.

I must pat my own team on the back for their efforts and support - Dean Fry ( crew chief ) Mark Sanderson ( data aquisition and general maintenance ) Roger Bloor ( RBP owner- multiple ANDRA Top Fuel bike winning crew chief with Nitro Voodoo - technical adviser to Afterburner team ). I make the main technical decisions and maintenance schedule on the Afterburner 2 bike with the help and assistance of all of these people, along with getting the job of piloting the beast. For some reason they are happy with their lot and refuse any offer of a ride.

Getting back to the bike itself, the tune in the Link G4 is still a mild setup with only 1/3rd of the possible boost, conservative ignition timing along with a safe and rich fuel map coupled with some very clever setup of the rest of the engine management and the other factors such as chassis, suspension, clutch, track conditions and the rider I guess! Put simply the number of functions available with the Xtreme is simply staggering. I would not have thought the bike would perform so well with this setup, however the shear accuracy of the Link and the expertise of all involved has produced a success story we can all be proud of.

We finished last season's initial testing on a high with a PB for me of 8.01 seconds, and after winning the 2012 NZDRA championship, records etc ( just read the rest of the news posts! ) we had one more meeting to attend at Fram Autolite Dragway - Meremere. The IHRA Nationals, 20th March 2012. Now this was the first time we had actually raced at Meremere since March last year, so we were nervous about several things.

The clutch setup has been a continuing development, but we had much more success of late as we gathered more data and modified the setup. The track conditions had worsened with regards to the further settling of the braking area the bumps were bigger, and our speeds are higher. Meremere has always been a bumpy track, but it is degrading and is marked for resurfacing. The traction is however, the best on any drag strip in NZ, hence the need to be on top of the clutch setup.

We went out to qualify and the track had set the AA/DB class index at 7.83 seconds based on performance of the Afterburner 2 bike from this season at Taupo. We thought this a little unfair as it was not an officially claimed record and at least 2 of our competitors had run 2/10ths under their index ( we were the only AA/DB and were up against slower bikes on softer indexes ). The first pass we did was an early shutoff test pass to feel out the track. 8.2 at 168mph. Then came stopping....oh my, the surface was far worse than last year, and I spent the braking area being bounced into the air, landing and grabbing some brakes prior to the next bump followed by the same until it smoothed out and a ferocious hand full of both brakes applied to avoid the dreaded gravel at the end.

During the tow back the crew got to see what I had to negotiate, watching from the return road as top alcohol cars were jumping up and down with chutes deployed and tyres screaming as they negotiated the same bumps. Dean and Mark were shaking their heads in shock and disbelief as we debriefed back in the pits. We had figured the right hand lane was our preferred lane after earlier walking the track. One problem was the groove ( point of best traction ) in the right hand lane was in line with the worst bumps at the finish line so our strategy was that I had to stay in the groove as long as I could prior to muscling the bike over to right out of the groove by about 1 meter just before the finish line, shutting off early if required. Now this may sound easy, but you need to realise that this all happens very quickly when you run in the sevens and are trying to get that all perfect at nearly 300kmh.

We managed to qualify right on the index with a 7.83 at a lowly ( for us ) 168mph due to my early shutoffs.

The next day dawned and we were up against Laurie Webster on another turbocharged Kawasaki funnybike. Laurie had run his first 8 second run at this meeting, and should have been an easy target for us with his BB/DB index of 8.6 seconds, though he had run 8.5 we were confident I could ride under our 7.83. I did run well under with a 7.65 against Laurie's 8.6. I should have had the win....but in my bid to dispatch him I had unfortunately red lit by 2/100ths of a second....bugger.

We were not unhappy though, as during our team discussion at the start of the meeting we had decided we just wanted to run this last meeting aiming to go as fast as we could on the sticky surface. The track allowed us to come out and do an exhibition race. We packed a new clutch and discussed some startline setup of the bike and rider ( long story ) then went out and ripped out a half track burnout just to show off and entertain.

I staged the bike, lined up in a grudge race against Bill Hamilton on his low 8 second outlaw turbo bike imported from the USA, I pushed the launch limit button to activate the RPM limit and antilag, pulled the throttle to the stop and waited for the tree. It dropped and I waited for the middle light then let the button go, and got smashed up the backside by the fruits of our labour, making 60 feet in 1.13 seconds, half track in 4.9 seconds at 149mph ( 239.79kmh ) and at the top end the bike was really flying, but aimed right at the worst bumps, so I shut the throttle at 1100 feet ( quarter mile is 1320 feet ) and tried to pull the bike away from the bumps as I broke the quarter mile beams at 7.47 seconds and 174mph ( 280kmh ).

The braking area was very difficult and I ended with the bike howling the tyres, coming to a stop with a due sense of relief, not knowing what we had just achieved. The crew came through to pick me up and lept out, all very excited with fellow drag bike racer Ian Hilder on board to break the news to me. We had run yet again the fastest ever side by side dragbike run in NZ history, and had also run faster than the Hays Nitro Harley which previously held this record.

Thats it... I have said enough for now. We are as happy as you can imagine. More updates to follow in our off season preparations. Thanks to Link Engine Management, Dtech Motorsport, Burkert Fluid Control Systems, Leading Edge Cylinder Heads, Penrite Oil, Kellow Engineering, RBP and Roger Bloor, and my awesome crew.

Link vs Link

Stephanie Royds — 2012-03-30T01:20:00Z

Great 'in car' video from both the 911 IROC Porsche and the WRX STi Subaru while racing at Levels Raceway, Timaru in March 2012.

The Porsche is running the Link G4 Xtreme and the Subaru WRX STi runs the Link G4 Storm.

With thanks to Guy Stewart (Porsche) and Sharon Woods (Subaru) for the video.

New G4 Plug-In for new Minis

Stephanie Royds — 2012-03-25T20:55:00Z

The G4 MiniLink is our brand new Plug-In Engine Management System for the Mini Cooper S (R50 - R53). It covers R50-R53 models from years 2002 - 2006.

Key Features

Based on the G4 Xtreme
Supports OEM CAN bus (fully functional dashboard)
In its own case but fits into the same space as the original ECU
Extra ignition outputs for sequential ignition upgrade
Boost control for boost mapping
CNC aluminium case

The G4 MiniLink is in stock so place your orders now, part # MINI06.

RIPS wins IHRA Championship and cracks a 6!!!

Stephanie Royds — 2012-03-20T23:52:38Z

We had the Championship sewn up before the event so knew there was no pressure as such, although we always want to win, but the main goal of the weekend was to get that 6.

We qualified well and won our first round due to a no show by the Rasoline 20b rail.

We then had Karen Hay in the 32 roadster with a 2000hp blown big block, she had run 6.6 in qualifying and was running off a 7.0 index at this meeting.

We were running off a 7.14 index so knew I didn't really stand much of a chance.

I had to cut a good light and hope she had problems, I cut a 0.006 light and got a huge lead on her off the line, I couldn't hear my motor over the roar of her engine. I could hear her behind me so kept my foot planted hard, the finish line was coming up and I thought I had it. Then right at the last second she got a surge and came past to take the win by 0.03 seconds - what an incredible race. (I'll post the video's on youtube)

We were allowed out to have another couple of runs so we decided to wind the old girl up some more and see if we could get that 6.

On the first attempt we ran a 7.06 so we made a few changes and went straight back out, next run, straight as a die, front wheels skipping along the track all the way, 6.990 @ 192.7mph!!!.

The motor didn't miss a beat all weekend and we ran 7.16, 7.13, 7.07, 7.06, 6.99. I'm more than happy with that.

Below is a copy of the track record certificate and here's a link to a video a guy called Rob at the track did for me:

I want to thank Link, Infomotive, Rotorua Steel Structures, Turbosmart, Dodsons, B.O.P Polishers, Morbark, Regal Automotive, Motorsport Fabrication, NZ Performance, Kiwi Race Cars, GSS, Ross Dampers, Robson Signs, Stitch n Print, Nitto, Hi Octane, Argo, Rotorua Powder Coaters, NZPC, Scottie's Bar, Jason, Spook, Brad, Sheryl, Annie, Angie, Shane Bird, Scottie, any other sponser I may have forgotten and all my supporters etc,

Next meeting is Dragmasters on Saturday 21st April.

Regards
Robbie
RIPS

Championship win for Afterburner 2

Stephanie Royds — 2012-03-15T01:05:46Z

All the plans and preparation for the NZDRA Nationals at Taupo International Dragway paid off big time for the Afterburner 2 dragbike team. In fact this season has been the most successful we have ever had, with multiple records and great performance from the bike and team.

One thing proven beyond doubt this season by the Afterburner 2 team and Robbie Ward in the RIPs front engined dragster has been the total dominance of the Link G4 Xtreme ECU over everything else out there this season. Both vehicles run this ECU and have broken record after record, and we shared success at the NZDRA Nationals with RIPs as we also wrapped up the NZDRA points championship, securing enough points overall by the second elimination round of the Nationals to win the #1 plate for the season.

We started the Nationals with a day off due to weather conditions. Rather than leaving the track, the team stayed and went over the bike carefully from front to back, and spent some time on the phone to Dave from Dtech Motorsport as he tapped into the Link Xtreme via the internet and made some adjustments to the ECU, while looking through some log downloads and discussing the information with us. Now how cool is that - to be able to talk to the Link from anywhere via the internet! Dave does this through Team Viewer software, and taps into our laptop to communicate with the Link via the standard cable.

We dealt with tricky track conditions at this meeting with cold weather not doing much to assist the well prepped track surface. We had difficulty getting the bike to behave at the launch as we struggled with the ever changing track which resulted in a couple of wild runs with either tyre shake or wheel spin making for a very busy time for me on board the bike regaining control and making the most of each pass.

We were the fastest bike by a fair margin in qualifying and eliminations, and the only bike running in the 7's as has been the case all season. We made it to the final where we were to face Steve Whitham on the rotary powered turbo dragbike. Unfortunately Steve failed to fire, handing me the win. Rather than take it easy I decided to treat the run as normal and upon leaving the line the bike went hard left due to tyre shake. I flicked the throttle off and back on quickly to eliminate the tyre shake and spent the whole run hanging off one side or the other of the bike to steer it down what had become a slippery track making the bike move around a lot, and finished up with a messy but satisfying 7.81@173mph (278kmh ) and a Nationals win to add to the championship title we had won.

Let's just clarify one more point about the ECU and the Afterburner bike . . . we were meant to have dyno tuned the bike at Dtech, but several technical issues have prevented each attempt at that so far. Dave has been able to set up enough of the ECU to run the bike off his tuning knowledge and the data gathered during runs so far.

You would have thought this would have limited the performance of the bike, however our results prove the opposite as the bike ran within 2/10ths of a second of the record on it's 6th pass after debuting last season, then came out at the first meeting this season and immediately broke the national record, continuing to rebreak it at every meeting so far this season. The RIPs front engined dragster has performed in a similar manner. I believe there are two main factors in this - the ease of use for the tuner of the G4 Xtreme and it's brilliant datalogging which assists the tuner in easily analysing and adjusting where needed, and the accuracy and reliability of the ECU in these harsh environments. This ECU walks all over everything out there as far as I am concerned . . . and it's made in NZ! Of course we cannot ignore the undeniable abilities of Dave Heerdegin from Dtech Motorsport who has done a stunning job so far on tuning and setup of the Link Xtreme on Afterburner 2. Dave is clearly a very clever man with world leading tuning skills and advanced knowledge of the Link ECU, and the Afterburner 2 team owe all our success to his fine work

This weekend sees the final outing for Afterburner 2 this season with the IHRA Nationals at Fram Autolite Dragway Meremere. The goal this weekend is the same as the previous meetings-charge hard, break records, win and take no prisoners!

O'Connor Motorsport videos

Stephanie Royds — 2012-03-08T23:29:46Z

Hey Team,

Have just made two videos of some footage over the past year and will add some more as i do them. One is of some rearward racing footage and the other is a compilation of my band of guys that help me out each night and some of the stuff they get up to behind my back!

Racing at Western Springs Speedway - video footage from the rear facing camera

91a crew

Cheers!
Shane O’Connor
Midget 91a

RIPS FED wins the nationals and NZDRA championship

Stephanie Royds — 2012-03-05T03:35:17Z

What a day!!

A few ups and downs but we got there in the end and sealed the championship for the 2nd year running, broke our own track record and claimed a new NZDRA record for CC/D.

The last round was at Taupo which is a circuit where we use the back straight. Its not a proper drag strip and at quite high altitude compared to the other tracks in NZ, its common for everyone to be 2-3 10ths slower than we'd usually be at say Meremere, which is at sea level.

We qualified quickest in Supercharged Outlaws against blown V8 front and rear engined dragsters and Altereds.

Supercharged Outlaws is run on DYO (dial your own) so we had to find a nice safe, reliable tune to give a chance against these experienced DYO old school racers.

We'd had severe tyre shake in qualifying and also found 2 broken chassis tubes towards the front of the chassis. This flex/vibration was giving us trigger errors on the ecu. Its really hard to put into words how violent the shake is, but lets put it this way - when it gets real bad, its not un-common to smash your teeth out! So much so, the top guys wear mouth guards.

We settled on a 7.35 dial in but due to being No1 qualifier, we got a bye in the first round. We decided to wind her up some more (still under 1.9 bar), got tyre shake again and ran an incredible 7.23 @ 178mph with trigger errors and a slight miss all the way and a complete cut out of the engine at 9400rpm just before the finish line. Once backed off and at a lower speed the motor returned to a smooth idle again, no damage done.

A 7.23 at Taupo is almost on for a 6 at Meremere and to do it with plenty of boost to spare, trigger errors all the way and an early shut down was awesome, we were very happy indeed.

We made it through to the final and were still getting trigger errors. We tried to fix it but the broken chassis, tyre shake vibration and sensor mount was obviously still allowing the sensor to flex/vibrate freaking it out. But I told the guy I was racing in the final, that all was well and we were going to give him a good run for his money.

I couldn't even do a burnout properly the trigger errors were so bad and coming up to the start line, I knew it wasn't going to run well and thought I was history.

The lights came down, he took off like a rocket, my motor just popped and banged and limped off the line with him dissapearing into the distance. I limped down the track and watched my competitor cross the finish line then go into a massive slide one way then the next. He went off the track and all I saw was dust and smoke and him up on his side. Its so lucky I wasn't right beside him, it could have been very nasty indeed.

I came past him slowly and saw he looked "ok" so coasted around to the chute packers area, gutted that we had lost that race.

My crew came roaring down and my disapointment turned to joy when they told me he had broken out (gone too fast for his dial in time). The pressure must have got to him, he didn't lift when he could have and we had in fact won the race!!!!

I went to make sure my competitor was OK. He was but his car was not so he has some body and chassis work to do and wheels to replace before the next meeting in 2 weeks.

We had to get weighed and fill out the paperwork to claim the NZDRA CC/D record and all went well. Everything passed and we were stll 227kg over minimum weight for the class so that's an area I'll have to look at working on.

I had 2 video cameras on my car all meeting so hopefully I'll have some good footage. I'll post links to videos when they are done.

Once again I need to thank Link Engine Management, RSS, Turbosmart, Jason from Infomotive (poor guy coped well under pressure but was seen pulling his already thinning hair out trying to sort out the trigger errors, lol), Spook, Brad, Dan, all the girls, Dodsons, Regal Automotive, Morbark, B.O.P Polishers, Ross Dampers, GSS, Nitto, Argo and all my other sponsers and supporters.

I'll sort out the broken chassis tubes and fix the sensor problems and next meeting is at Meremere in 2 weeks where we hope to seal up the IHRA championship series we currently lead.

Robbie

Final night of Western Springs season for Midget 91a

Stephanie Royds — 2012-03-05T02:30:09Z

After the apparent weather bomb had passed in the morning we headed through to a bright and sunny Springs Speedway and got ready for a nights racing. The track was packed very hard to keep the water off it in case it rained and this made the surface seal over and go very very slick.

We had grids 9 and 2 for our two heats placing 5th and 3rd in them which put us off grid 8 for the feature. We made a good start and in the first few laps getting past two cars and then lost one at the end to Shayne Alach, dropping us back to 7th where we finished. Shayne was relegated so this put us in a 6th finishing spot.

The track was very, very single lined and there was no where to go. Everyone else sort of did the same and we couldn’t move forward like we would have liked to. Even Pickens went from 4th to 3rd and couldn’t progress which made us feel a little better about our effort :)

We're off to Palmerston North soon and and re-run of the 40 Lapper at Huntly at some stage, plus some other meetings around the country so will see you out there! We have some new plans for next year maybe happening so will be sure to keep everyone informed as soon as I know what's going on.

Have attached some photos from the weekend to check out which are very awesome with one of them of us trying to fly after hitting a hole! Thanks to James at James Selwyn Photos for the Excellent shots which can all be purchased through him if you ever want to buy some wicked photos.

Take care until then.

Cheers
Shane O'Connor
Vernon and Vazey Truck Parts Midget 91a

Thanks to the following who are on board as part of the O’Connor Motorsport Sponsor’s team,

Terry and the team from Vernon and Vazey Truck Parts
Gary and the team from Waiuku Car Spares
Phil from GT International Logistics
Craig from Ortho at Ormiston
Dave & Jess from Waiheke Easy Store
Simon from Link ElectroSystems
Bryan from Carbon Fibre Designs
Angus from Garage 9 Performance
Tim and Chris from Motul Oils
Dave from Logick Print
Gary from GCP Performance
Chris from CSR Fabrications
Ryno from Ryno Designs
Troy from TWC Contracting

Condolences from Midget 91a

Stephanie Royds — 2012-02-27T22:35:34Z

Well there's not much of an update for this week. As most of you may know by now, a stockcar driver passed away after a nasty accident at Huntly Speedway on the weekend just gone and the meeting was called off after this. This is a part of racing unfortunately and the risk that everyone takes. It's very sad to see this happen and the Speedway community is all behind his family.

We did have one heat race, which we were leading until we were taken out of the running by the car following us and spun us mid straight while we both of us were a corner ahead of everyone else. We are back at Western Springs this Saturday for the Final round of the Springs Series which we are excited about. We'd love to go out with a good result as we did last year with a Second in the feature.

Upcoming Events:

March 3rd Springs Speedway Final Round

March 11th Ride Day Patetonga

March 24th Palmerston North Midget Invitational

March 25th Harrisville Speedway Outlaw Meeting

Until then take care!
Shane O’Connor
Midget 91a

Afterburner 2 breaks records again

Stephanie Royds — 2012-02-27T21:50:28Z

This season has been hugely successful for the Afterburner 2 dragbike team, with records broken at every meeting so far. It started with the second run at the first meeting. We ran a NZDRA record of 7.91@171mph, backed up with 7.95@169mph to claim both ends of the NZDRA AA/DB National record. We continued to improve at the secong meeting, rebreaking the MPH record with 175mph, backed up with 171mph to reset the record at 171mph. The track timing gear played up at this meeting so no elapsed time records were recorded.

We attended the 4 & Rotary Nationals, displaying the bike on Link Engine Management's stand for the show and shine on Saturday, picking up the best bike award. We intended to do some exhibition runs at Meremere on the Sunday, however upon discovering broken welds on the exhaust we pulled out and returned home to carry out repairs. The bike was stripped from front to back for a major service during this time, and completed in time to run an IHRA event at Taupo International Dragway, where we had already had 2 successful meetings this season.

Without making anything more than clutch and chassis setup changes the bike is now beginning to really fly. This meeting netted the best performance yet, with 3 runs over 177mph (284kmh), a 7.83 beating our previous national record, followed up with a startling 7.42 @176mph which awarded us a track record. (NZDRA records could not be claimed as this was not an NZDRA sanctioned meeting.)

We are preparing for the NZDRA Nationals and grand final to be held at Taupo International Dragway 3rd-4th March. With only 5 points separating us from the championship leader we are in a very strong position to take out the championship title and rebreak the records at this meeting.

More good news for the team is that Burkert Fluid Control Systems have also signed a sponsorship deal with us. Here is a statement from Bürkert New Zealand General Manager, Graeme Hover:

"Bürkert Fluid Control Systems supplies German manufactured fluid control products to New Zealand as well as manufacturing a comprehensive range of automation equipment and producing innovative products which can be integrated into process control solutions. Bürkert Fluid Control Systems are thrilled to be a sponsor of Afterburner II during the 2012 season. As a company heavily involved in technology, and using innovation to extract the best possible performance from their product, becoming involved in Afterburner II seemed a very good fit."

The Afterburner 2 team are proud to be associated with Burkert, along with Link Engine Management, Penrite Oil, Leading Edge Cylinder Heads, Dtech Motorsport, Kellow Engineering and multi Australian ANDRA Top Bike championship winning crew chief Roger Bloor of RBP and Nitro Voodoo Top Fuel Bike.

Ian Wilkins

Find out more information on the G4 Xtreme that controls Afterburner 2

Round 1 V8 SuperTourers grid walk video

Stephanie Royds — 2012-02-27T03:55:00Z

Video footage from walking around the grid on Saturday, Round 1 of the V8 SuperTourers series.