My Way, No Boost, Just Data by Mark Collingwood

World Time Attack Challenge 2018 - Under 2 ltrs and Naturally Aspirated – Why? Why? In 2011 an automatic 1992 Mariner Blue MX5 NA6 was purchased for my son as his first car, little did I realise that very soon I would be purchasing a red MX5 NA6 (manual) and giving this to my son as I decided to keep the mariner blue! This started a journey that culminated in the decision (early 2013) to build a road registered car that could be used on the track, whilst this is a ‘normal’ decision, keeping it naturally aspirated is not. The car’s current engine took its first breath on 23 October 2014, prior to this I was taking baby steps to become a better driver. Since its first start with the current engine small changes have been made, bespoke air box and E85 however the car has remained true to its build and a naturally aspirated road registered car that was used on the track. Since late 2014 and up until early 2017 it was not uncommon to be told or asked “why is the car going so slow” or “it should be quicker”. It had become obvious that whilst the car had potential it was being let down by my lack of skill as a driver. Hence when the car’s registration became due in 2017 it was not paid and the decision was made to turn the car more towards a track car, but remain naturally aspirated and within the World Time Attack Challenge (WTAC) clubsprint rules. By mid 2017 people were commenting on how fast the car was for being naturally aspirated, obviously a corner had been turned. At my local track (Queensland Raceway - Sprint) looking at lap times at about the same time each year they show: 2014. 1:05.4775 (888’s) (pre- current engine) 2015. 1:03.4367 (FZ-201’s) 2016. 1:01.3709 (AD 08R’s) 2017. 0:59.887 (Nankang AR-1’s) Running a naturally aspirated (NA) car at WTAC in Clubsprint is not the norm. Whilst Open class allows the use of N02 for NA cars, in clubsprint the only NA only rule