What are the Nulon Nationals?
In 2014 Australian manufacturer Nulon commenced a new form of club racing – the Nulon Nationals. This series puts car against car, club against club, and owner against owner in a 4 round competition. Each owner collects points for their club in a range of disciplines including a skidpan motorkhana, a hillclimb, a airport drag race plus an all-out track sprint.
The winner of each round receives prizes and trophies as well as points towards their club. After 4 rounds the Nulon Nationals winning club will receive a major prize from Nulon Oils which will be available to each and every club member, as well as a cash donation to the club to support their local events (for example bar tab at a Christmas party).
This series is being put together by the motorsport team at Nulon and is designed to give something back to the clubs. It is designed to get car clubs together to share their love for Motorsport. Nulon has confirmed that the support of our members and the performance of our Club in all the series to date has qualified us as one of the car clubs invited to compete in this Series.
Nulon will be covering the costs to run this Series and all they ask is that we encourage all our members to support this Series by attending as many rounds as possible.
In order to be competitive, team members will be selected on the basis of being the fastest for each event, irrespective of the vehicle’s make. In an ideal world it would be great if we could field only HSV’s or HDT’s, but the clubs that we are competing against are entering extremely fast cars from wherever they can get them and we will need to do the same to even be in with a chance.
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2017 Series Points to date:
Place | Club | Points After 3 Rounds |
1 | BMW Drivers Club of NSW | 189 |
2 | HSV Owners Club | 184 |
3 | RTDC (Road & Track Drivers Club) | 183 |
4 | MX-5 Club of NSW | 177 |
5 | SAU (Skylines Australia (NSW)) | 175 |
6 | Impreza WRX Club | 170 |
7 | Evo OZ | 169 |
8 | Bathurst Light Car Club | 160 |
9 | Club Deutsche (Euro Hot Hatches) | 153 |
10 | Honda Owners | 144 |
11 | IPRA (Improved Production Racing NSW) | 136 |
12 | 86 & BRZ Club | 130 |
13 | Toymods | 104 |
14 | Supra NSW | 94 |
The four Rounds in this series are:
Round 1: Motorkhana
Sydney Motorsport Park Skid Pan on Sunday 8th January 2017.
HSVOC Team:
James Connell – 1992 Nissan Silvia S13, N/A, 6588cc LS2
Marty Miller – Holden VN Wagon, N/A, 5000cc Grass Wagon
Theo Poteris – Holden VE SSV, N/A, 6000cc
Karen Wilson – HSV VF Senator, N/A, 6200cc
Round 1 Report:
This Round that was held using tight Motorkhana tests on a wet skid pan surface didn’t suit our large more powerful cars, but the smaller, more nimble cars as the results demonstrate.
Karen did an outstanding job in her stock standard Senator, coming in 2nd place in the Class. James and Theo had trouble getting their power to the ground while Marty had a ball with some spectacular sideways driving in his “Grass” wagon, just as he does best!
This time last year, after Round 1 we were 18 points behind the leader and the year before when there were no classes we were 152 points behind!
Being only 8 points behind the leader this year we are positioned well now for a podium place at the end of the year.
The cars in front of us on the above table don’t have the power that our cars have and will be generally not as strong as us in the subsequent rounds, which favour more powerful cars.
Round 2: Hillclimb
Mount Panorama, Bathurst on Saturday & Sunday 13th & 14th May 2017.
HSVOC Team:
James Connell – 1992 Nissan Silvia S13, N/A, 6588cc LS2
Theo Poteris – Holden VE SSV, N/A, 6000cc
Phillip Ryan – 1982 Nissan 280 ZX, N/A, 6000cc
Liam O’Brien – 2015 HSV GTS, S/C, 6162cc
Spectator entry was free, however a ticket must be downloaded for access to the Nulon viewing area on the grass hill out the front of the Rydges Hotel on the Saturday. It was a great opportunity for your friends and family to come and get a front row seat. Discounted accommodation was also available at Rydges Hotel at Mt Panorma at $165.00 per night (normally $190.00).
Karen Wilson was originally double entered in Theo Cambouris’s car but had to be withdrawn when Nulon advised they were no longer accepting double entries. This meant that Liam O’Brien had to be called upon at the last minute. The main problem was that this Nulon Round was on the same weekend as the CAMS Supersprints Round 2 which was being held at Wakefield Park. This meant that a lot of our quick naturally aspirated cars were not available for this Nulon Round.
Liam was our second fastest car on the day but as he was in a “Forced Induction” Class he came in 11th place out of 25 competitors.
All our other competitors ran in the “Over 3.4 litre, Naturally Aspirated” Class, Phil Ryan being the fastest of our Team, winning this Class and coming in 8th place outright. Theo Poteris and James Connell ran neck and neck with each other with only half a second between them when the best times from both days were added together. Theo came in 6th in Class and James came in 8th. This great performance by our Team drivers saw us come in equal 2nd place for the Round, tied with the BMW Drivers Club and lifted us to 3rd place outright after 2 rounds.
Round 3: Time Attack
Sydney Motorsport Park Gardner (GP) circuit on Saturday 15th July 2017.
HSVOC Team:
Phillip Ryan – 1982 Nissan 280 ZX, N/A, 6000cc
Scott McKune – 1987 HSV VL Walkinshaw, N/A, 6000cc
Mathew Richardson – 2000 VT Holden Commodore N/A, 6700cc
Theo Cambouris – 2004 HSV VZ GTO Coupe N/A, 6000cc
The Team for this Round was selected from our quickest supersprinters and all cars were entered in the “Over 3.4 litre, Naturally Aspirated” Class.
Unfortunately the Nulon Calendar didn’t do us any favours again this year with Round 4 of the CAMS State Championships being held the following day and on the same circuit!
Phillip Ryan came in second in class with a time of 1:41.094, Scott McKune was 4th in class with a 1:44.794, Mat Richardson was 5th in class with a 1:46.070 and Theo Cambouris was 6th in class with a 1:46.613.
This terrific performance saw our Club win this very closely fought round, again tied with the BMW Drivers Club on 67 points, with Honda coming in third (66 points) and Skylines Australia fourth (65 points).
Round 4: Roll Racing
Sydney Motorsport Park, Friday evening 29th September 2017.
HSVOC Team:
James Connell – Nissan Silvia S13, N/A, 6588cc
Mathew Richardson – Holden VT Commodore, N/A, 6700cc
Ian Williams – HSV VXII ClubSport, N/A, 6866cc
Tony Botic – HSV VE ClubSport, N/A, 6000cc
This is the first time that the Nulon Nationals will be running Roll Racing for the final round. All previous final rounds have been airport sprints held at Cootamundra. The choice of this new format is to minimize the travel and accommodation cost for competitors and to add something different to the mix.
The concept is that two cars at a time race each other side by side from a rolling start of around 50km/h. They both set off from the marshalling point and in the first area before the lights and get up to around 50km/h. Once the lights turn from orange to green both cars race along the front straight to the finish line about 300m away, returning back to the marshalling area and to race someone else. Nulon will be modifying this format and is looking at using timing to make the scoring system fairer for competitors.
This Round is run in the evening and spectators are free so come along and support our Team! If we can gain 6 points over the BMW Club we have a great chance of being the 2017 Winners!
Scrutineering opens 4:00pm, Drivers Briefing 6:00pm, Racing starts 6:30pm to 10:30pm. Go to Nulon Nationals Facebook page to download free spectator tickets.
Competitor Information
Rules:
Cars will need to meet CAMS speed event requirements at each round. If the car is deemed to be unsafe at any point during the competition Nulon has the right to pull the car from the event.
Competitors must hold a CAMS L2S licence or greater and be a financial member of a CAMS Affiliated Car Club.
4 Cars from each Club Team in every round plus a “Workshop” Team which will not score points.
1 Reserve car allowed for each Club Team for Rounds 2, 3 & 4.
Tyres:
Round 1: tyre must be Australian Dot Approved, No full slick tyre, No Groved slick tyre (z214 etc)
Round 2: tyre must be Australian Dot Approved, No full slick tyre, No Groved slick tyre (z214 etc)
Round 3: tyre must be Australian Dot Approved, No full slick tyre, No Groved slick tyre (z214 etc)
Round 4: Tyre must be of Radial construction
Classes:
S1 4wd – All
S2 2wd – Forced induction
S3 2wd – under 3.4L
S4 2wd – Over 3.4L
Point Score:
Each competitor that places in the top 15 of each class will receive points for their club
The club who has accumulated the most points over all the Classes will be declared the winner.
1st place in each class gets 15 points, 2nd place 14 points and so on for the top 15 cars in each class.
Entries:
Nulon will be covering the cost of entry. Each Round is being run under a CAMS permit. The Motorsport Director will be selecting and managing our Club’s Team and its reserves and will keep competitors up to date with information as it comes to hand.
Nulon Nationals Video Library:
Nulon Nationals 2017 Videos
Nulon Nationals 2016 Videos
Nulon Nationals 2015 Videos
Nulon Nationals 2014 Videos