Steve Duncan

Hi. Steve here, from south east queensland, Australia. Not sure if this is too much dribble for an introduction, but this is where i'm at -

I'm a qualified motor mechanic and small business owner. I had a bad mountain bike accident around 10yrs ago, narrowly avoiding spending the rest of my life in a wheel chair. Its amazing how your perspective on life changes when something like this happens.

About 5yrs ago i decided to go do a sprint day at Queensland raceway in Ipswich with my ute (a 2003 5 litre V8 Ford Falcon ute). I have always been into motorsport, following F1, motoGP and the Australian V8 Supercars. So being 40+ and the fact that circuit racing has only in the last 10yrs become economically accessible in Australia, i thought it was time to have some fun. I couldn't get back to the track quick enough and soon realised that the ute was far from the vehicle i needed if i was going to be competitive and or fast.

I sold the ute and set about looking for a more competitive track car. I considered mazda, nissan, subaru, mitsubishi and many V8 powered cars. I came to the conclusion that an FC RX7 S5 was the best choice, being economical to purchase & fast.

My first full sprint season, I simply bolted on some semi slicks and a boost controller and had good success, finishing the year in 3rd place outright in a field of around 30 entrants of cars ranging from very expensive nissan 350z's to large V8 holden's and everything you can think of in between.

The following year I set about improving my FC. I striped out the interior, added a roll cage, race seat & harness, front mount intercooler, modified the throttle body, replaced the factory exhaust & made a custom dump pipe, modified the factory turbo waste gate, fitted a microtech LT10s & bosch coils, dyno tuned to 265rwhp, and bolted in a set of HSD coil overs. The result was a 4 second gain in lap time (at lakeside international raceway north brisbane) I managed a top 10 finish in the series even though I didn't enter every meet due to financial and physical restraints.

Year 3 I entered the Top Gear Race series (each meet was 3x 5 lap sprint races & a 7 lap reverse grid race at queensland raceway and lakeside international raceway). With a field of around 25 entrants of all kinds of race cars, I initially found myself midfield in 12th place. My now very well used semi slicks had lost their grip, so I found a set of 18x9 inch rims and purchased some used michellin slicks from a porsche cup race team, 270/65/18. It was a bit of job to make them fit, using 30mm wheel spacer and some handy panel work on the guards and raising the ride height by 30mm. I also bolted on a cheap rear wing. The result was worth my effort, finishing in 7th and 5th in the last two race meets of the year.

Year 4 Top Gear Race series again, as was with the previous year, I struggled to come to terms with the grip level on cold slick tyres, spinning out on the first lap of a few races, so I continued with modifications to the suspension and lost some more weight. I didn't enter every race meet of the season due to financial constraints and surgery, but I consistently finished in 5th or 6th place and took 5th place outright.

This year I decided to contest the Queensland Racing Drivers Championship, Sports and sedans category. 4x 10 or 12 Lap races spread over a weekend rather than a one day event (better for my physical condition).
Prior to the first race meet in February I knocked up a front splitter (using a piece of 20mm structural plywood and some bits and pieces lying around the shed) to try and stabilize the car on cold tyres and gain turn in under braking. Whilst this high tech design worked really well (2 x 7th place finishes), it ultimately lead to a DNF in the 3rd race of the meet. I hadn't put enough thought into the air flow across my oil cooler/radiator. Previous to this design, I had a scoop that dropped down from the standard plastic undertray that allowed air flow across the oil cooler and into the space between the front mount inter-cooler and radiator keeping my engine temperature down to a manageable 180 - 200 deg F. The splitter didn't accommodate for this and the result was engine temp up around 220+ deg F. The engine handled the higher temp fine until my (stock) clutch fried. Unable to select gears with a gearbox that now had no syncro's (from 4 years of track work) I managed to get 3rd gear and just continued to try and hold down my 6th position. The engine temp rose above 260 deg F and the result was the top tank on my stock radiator blew apart (from compression in the cooling system from blown water re-tension seal, as i discovered later). allthough I did fifnsh the race in 6th place, it put me out of contention for this season.
I was expecting to rebuild my 4+ year old 2nd hand stock engine this year and replace my clutch and gearbox, but not all at once! I've now managed to scrape up enough coin to tackle the rebuild and have just purchased an engine & gearbox assembly.
My plan is to rebuild and get back on track for the last race meet of the Queensland Racing Drivers Championship this year in November for a test and tune and be ready for a red hot crack at the championship next year !