Stevens Motorsports Offseason Testing Sessions

[Sword Island]

This will be a summary of Stevens Motorsports testing sessions over the following weeks. All notes are public information to all NSSCRA race teams

Testing Sessions

Perth International Superspeedway
Fredericksburgh Fairgrounds Speedway
Raceway Sydney¹
Brisbane International Raceway- Oval Configuration
Canberra Speedway²





1: Rain tire test
2: 550 horsepower package test

[Sword Island]

Session Information

Track Lenght: 3 miles
Banking: 35 degrees through the turns, 18 through the tri-oval
Laps Completed: 50
Cars on Track: 8
Fastest Lap: Micheal Rush- 53.89 seconds
Average Session Speed'(including pit stops): 187 miles per hour
Horsepower: 850
Downforce( in pounds): 1450

---

Team Notes
Cars have much more speed than last year and are able to step out of line to pass someone( lack of aero dependability). Dirty air doesn't seem to be too big of a factor on the cars. Gordon and Shelby are working really well together( on a further note they clocked in at 209 on the timing board before they had to separate. The engine seems to be fine so far, the main concern is overheating issues. Drivers said that the noses on the car make it difficult to maintain tandem drafting( flatten out the nose of the car for hits squarely on the bumper of the car. Tire wear is somewhat above normal, but fuel mileage is up by around 1/10th a lap( .30) per gallon. More tests need to be done to see how the car handles in packs

[Sword Island]

Age: 27
Racing Experience: SICSC Truck Divison Champion( 2011, 2014), SISCS National Series Champion( 2018), SISCS Premier Series Rookie of the Year( 2020)
Short Tracks: A-
Speedways: C+
Superspeedways: A++
Road Courses: B-
Dirt Tracks: A+

Other Info: Girlfriend of Chris Gordon

Overall: A

Notes: Serviceable at any track, great at most. Has seen improvement in her mastery of intermediate tracks since her arrival in the SISCS Premier Series, but still struggles to put up consistent top 10's at cookie cutters. Is a phenomenal superspeedway racer and can almost see the draft moving around her. As far as short tracks go she is one of the best out there at finding ways to make multiple lines work. The same goes for dirt tracks. She is an above-average road course racer and is capable of stealing a win in the right equipment. Pairing her with Carson Zanby in the Everlong series should result in two championship-caliber drivers for us

---

[Sword Island]

Age: 17
Racing Experience: 5x Venom Dirt Tour event winner, Victory Performance Parts Pro Stock champion( 2022)
Short Tracks: B-
Speedways: C+
Superspeedways: N/A
Road Courses: D
Dirt Tracks: A-

Other Info: A hothead to the extreme, has the same kind of attitude as Chris Gordon when he first came into SISCS- get out my way or I'll move you out of my way. Can be a roadblock at times( see Trent Evanston)

Overall: C
Notes: Has the potential to become a great driver for us in the future- keyword there in the future. Doesn't have his NSSCRA or SISCS superspeedway license yet but should be cleared for Tundra Falls. Is a very raw prospect and has a limited understanding of road course racing- should improve greatly with time. Has a temper to reckoned with and takes his revenge in- erm- less than ideal circumstances. Has an ongoing rivalry with Ryan (Pearson) over an incident at Alice Springs a few months ago

[Sword Island]

AN OFFICAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE SWORD ISLAND CIRCUIT ORGANZATION

To all NSSCRA teams, a 2 to 3-hour test session will be held at Fredericksburgh Fairgrounds Speedway next Friday. The purpose of this test is to collect data on how the recent repaving of the track combined with the diamond ground top lane will affect racing and tires. Please respond with your intentions within the next 48 hours


Track Information
Track Lenght: 0.9 miles
Layout: Paperclip
Banking: 0 degrees on frontstretch and backstretch; 10-25 degree banking
Seating: 78,000
Track surface: Concrete bottom lanes; Asphalt top lane
Pit Lane Speed: 50 miles per hour
Pace Speed: 65 miles per hour
Racing Line: Top lane for the start of the run, then the line slowly moves down as tire wear becomes a factor
Horsepower Package for test session: 900 horsepower restrictor plate

[Sword Island]

Perth, Sword Island

For Chris Gordon, today would be wonderful. He was back on the track again, and now he was driving a Stevens Olympian NSSCRA Premier series car. Several things were new to him, at least in NSSCRA. For starters, the Everlong series cars didn't have a digital dash or telemetry, just oil and water temperature gauges, a tachometer, and nothing else. Now, he had more information than he ever thought he needed. His crew chief Eric Knaus had told him before the test that they needed to set up the dash to show the information that Gordon found most important. The dash could only show him around 9 or 10 pieces of information at one time. After they had gotten the dash set up, next came the actual car setup, to which Gordon and Knaus made little changes, just lowering the angle on the spoiler a few degrees. The car itself was unpainted except for the number on the side of the car. Gordon got car 3.


When it was finally time to get into the car and pull the belts tight, Gordon had a bit of a reflection on the last 10 months of his life. He had gone from the underdog in SISCS to now a serious championship contender in NSSCRA. He had also grown up in the car a bit. There had been some dark moments in his debut Everlong series season no doubt, like the 10 week skid he experienced after leading the points 3 races in. But at every turn, he felt like he had the whole organization, and during the latter part of the season all of Stevens behind him. But the person behind the most was Allison Maddox, who was busy getting ready to drive her own car. He had met Maddox when they were teenagers racing at the same dirt tracks and short tracks across Queensland, and the two bonded over their shared love of going fast. Fast forward several years and Gordon finally worked up the courage to ask her out. She said yes, and ever since then, the two had been dating. Now he was racing against her again, and while they may have been lovers off the track, on it they raced each other hard and door to door.

"Hey Gordon, the execs said not to scratch up the car too much, so keep it away from the wall", Knaus said as Gordon pressed the ignition. "How does it feel to be above the pit box in the biggest racing series in the multiverse?" Gordon asked. "Pretty damn good", Knaus responded. "We have the green light, keep it below 2400 exiting pit lane", Knaus said. Gordon put the car into first and watched the tachometer, waiting for it to reach 2500. Once it did he let the throttle out for a spilt second, feathering it down pit lane before coming to the access lane, slowly pushing the throttle down as he joined the track behind Ryan Pearson, who was at the bottom of the track. Gordon decided to go with him.

---

"3 is coming with us", Pearson's spotter said as he saw Chris Gordon join the bottom lane. Tap. Gordon was pushing the 7 of Ryan Pearson around the track it seemed. Or maybe he was planning a move. "3 is locked to your bumper Ryan", his spotter said. Pearson was never a fan of tandem drafting, even though he was so good at it. But it had led him to several superspeedway wins in SISCS and a championship 2 years ago. "Tell Chris that if he wants to he can be the lead car", Ryan said as he moved to the middle lane and let the throttle get a bit of give as he slowed down to let the 3 pass. Chris apparently did get the message and moved up to the middle lane to get in front of Pearson, relocking bumpers with the 7. As the tachometer crossed 7600, Pearson felt a noticeable loss in drag as the car rocketed around the track. Next season was going to be good. For the last 5 months, the engineers at SRD had been developing the car and now the fruits of that labor were being shown.

[Sword Island]

Age: 26
Racing Experience: x11 time SISCS Premier Divison winner, x44 Vemon Dirt Tour event winner, Fredericksburgh Fairgrounds Pro Stock track champion( 2009), SISCS Truck Divison Champion( 2012), SISCS National Series Champion( 2015), SISCS Premier Series Rookie of the Year( 2016), x2 NSSCRA Everlong Series Winner( 8th place points finish)
Short Tracks: A
Speedways: B+
Superspeedways: A-
Road Courses: A
Dirt Tracks: A-

Other Info: Is fast on another level. Took sub-20th equipment to the Round of 8 and should be an instant success in the big leagues

Notes: This is the best shot SRD has at winning races at the moment. Is a phenomenal road racer( especially in the wet) and uses his aggressive driving style to muscle to the front of the field, and qualifies well enough that he doesn't have to drive through 20 or 30 cars to get to the front. Has proven himself to be on par with Maddox at the big tracks and is capable of putting together top ten runs at the mile and a half tracks. This will also be his second season with Eric Knaus as his crew chief so look for them to improve on strategy calls late in the race. Is a crowd favorite( the backflip) and brings in solid sponsership

[Sword Island]

Exiting turn 4 Gordon puts the car to the bottom of the racetrack, preparing for the entry into one and two, which squeezes the bottom two lanes into just one, and everyone wants to be on the bottom now that their tires are shredded from running up in the top lane of ground up asphalt earlier in the run. A few drivers who don't have graining on their tires test it and drop ahead of the 05 and the bottom lane heading into turn 3. Now everyone is trying to get as high up on the track as possible for the game of 4 wide chicken that is about to commence. Gordon is on the top lane of ground up asphalt and is going to rim ride it like a dirt track. He gains 3 tenths and slides down the track to lead the middle lane down the front stretch

[Sword Island]

Session Information

Track Lenght: 0.9 miles
Banking: 25 degrees in turns 1 and 2, 11 in turns 3 and 4
Laps Completed: 150
Cars on Track: 9(Gordon, Rush, Collins, Zanby, Maddox, Pearson, Shelby, Evans, Taylor)
Fastest Lap: Chris Gordon- 25.1163 seconds
Average Session Speed(including pit stops): 109 miles per hour
Horsepower: 900
Downforce(in pounds): 1450 pounds


Team Notes
Top lane is king early in a tire run, no questions asked. The ground up asphalt is far quicker than the concrete when the track is green¹ but once the track gets rubber on it the two lanes just about even out. Pit stops are tricky- Rush, Gordon, Maddox, and Pearson all got caught speeding on entry. Tire pressures are very important at a track that tears up tires like it does here(you can get 70 to 75 laps on the tires before the tire falloff catches you). We added an air duct leading to the right front tire on Gordon's car and he was 5 tenths faster later in the run than Shelby

1: No rubber on the track. This leads to less grip than a rubbered in track

[Sword Island]

"My tires are shredded Adam", Micheal Rush complained to his crew chief. He had been running on the same set of tires for 78 laps and the tread was starting to fall apart. "Sorry I kept you out for so long, I just needed some data on how the car handles on worn tires", Reece explained, his notebook in his hand. Adam Reece was of the mindset that your worst enemy was being unprepared, so at each track he went to he carried a little blue notebook around, jotting down notes and putting to paper all the ideas that were floating around his head during the race. It had won him and Rush 8 titles in SISCS and he was hoping that it would lead the 05 team to the playoffs for the first time in Tier 1 NSSCRA competition. He also had to take on a mentor role this season as he would share the pit box with Eric Knaus on Sundays. Knaus, who crew chiefed the 05 Everlong series team to 2 wins and a spot in the Round of 8, was making the jump up to Tier 1 to co-crew chief the 05. But today Knaus was in the pit on the left of Reece, crew chiefing his own driver Chris Gordon. "Give Gordon the wave around, he sure needs it", Reece said, signaling Micheal Rush into pit road. "Back it down to 50 miles per hour driver". As Micheal Rush pulled off the banking and onto the apron exiting turn 2, the battle behind him heated up

---

As Rush came down pit road, Chris Gordon only had one thought in his mind: ride the cushion. Back in his dirt track days, he would search for the cushion every single lap, going higher and higher up the track as he tried to gain every hundredth of a second possible. Fredericksburg Fairgrounds was unique in for a paved oval in that it had a very noticeable cushion, the top lane. Gordon felt a slight tap on his back bumper, a signal from Allison Maddox to get going. Maddox had always been more of a traditional driver in how she ran Fredericksburg, diamond cutting the track. Further behind them was Carson Zanby, with who Gordon would be sharing an Everlong series ride in the next season. Zanby was a raw talent with a specialty of being a pain in the ass to drive around. Another tap from Maddox, then she dove to the inside of the track, pulling up even with Gordon. Chris had set up his car to dominate in the long run, with air ducts cooling off all 4 tires and higher air pressures contributing to the longevity of his tires. But now he was on equal tires with Maddox early on in a tire run, and the large lead he had built over her and Zanby was slipping. But the cushion was working, and Gordon had a huge run off corner exit and pulled down in front of Maddox to block her line. If she wanted to pass Gordon, she was going to have to make the outside work. Meanwhile, Carson Zanby was charging like a bat out of hell and was on Gordon's bumper now and wasn't being shy about it. "Who the hell is beating my back bumper off", Gordon asked Knaus. "Looks like it's your garage buddy Carson", Knaus reported back. "Oh for fucks sake tell him to piss off before he wrecks me", Gordon said, mildly annoyed that his co-driver in the 05 would be trying to move him up the racetrack. Tap-tap- then a door slam down the front stretch. At this point, he wanted to give Zanby a taste of his own medicine but decided to lead by example and try to pass him cleanly. Entering turn 1, he drove hard down to the bottom of the track. Zanby moved down to block the run the driver in the Coko-Cola car had, forcing Chris to get hard on the brakes to avoid wrecking Carson and himself. "That was a fucking joke. I have the run and he decides to go full Trent Evanston on me and brake check me", Gordon ranted to his crew chief about the behavior of the rookie. "Clearly he needs a talking to once we get done with this test session". Next season was going to fun, but this track brought out the worst in a driver, or rather the best if you talk to the fans. It forces you to get tough and move people out of your line, it brings out the aggressive side of drivers that would race you clean at any other track, and after the race, it spikes up the tempers of everyone on pit road. It's simply a Madhouse

[Sword Island]

When you think of great championship battles, what comes to mind? Is it the 2006 dogfight for the championship between Micheal Rush and Richard Irwin that resulted in the greatest statistical season ever, or is the memorable last-lap pass in 1990 by Charles Hawking to win the cup in his second full-time season? Well, I wager that you cannot find a better one than 2012. For starters, let's look at our grid for the 2012 playoffs.

Micheal Rush sitting in first with a monstrous 8 wins before the playoffs has had an up and down season up to this point, with an average finish of 16.9 and 10 DNF's, but he manages to jump up 8 spots on rollback to start the Chase. He's the defending series champion and looks to win his 6th title in 8 years, but he'll have his work cut out for him.

The next driver of note is Ryan Pearson, who in just his second full-time season with fledging team GasAndGo Racing put together an outstandingly consistent campaign, notching 10 top 5's, 19 top 10's, and 2 wins before the Chase. Another thing to note about him is that he also was a protege of Rush, adding extra motivation to the last 10 races of the season. Meanwhile sitting in 10th was Daniel Worthington, an owner-driver out of Alice Springs who had seemingly been pulling top 15 runs out of his hat week in and week out. However heading into the regular-season finale, Worthington was a staggering 55 points back of 10th place. Somehow, he managed to lead 200 of the 250 lap event and grab the W, collecting 136 out of a possible 146 points and making the Chase by the skin of his teeth.

Then in 2nd after rollback is the surprise of the grid, Hayley York. York who had been tapped to drive the CDF Motorsports 21 at the beginning of the 2005 season had always had the odds stacked against her. Coming from Albany, a part of the country know more for off-road racing than SISCS drivers, her shots at a potential ride in stock car racing were limited, to say the least. Somehow, she managed to find a ride at CDF but was a backmarker for most of the late 2000s, with her highest points finish being 15th in 2007. Still, there was talent there, as her 13 top 5's and 31 top 10's in that time period proved. And in 2010, with changing car bodies and a reshuffling of the deck, she finally got the chance. At first, it seemed like a one-off, with wins at Brisbane and Fredericksburg in 2010 and 2011. But then she just started winning, sweeping the races at Perth and winning again at Fredericksburg. Could a real championship run be in the cards for CDF?

[Sword Island]

Goal of System: Make up for horsepower deficit at longer tracks such as Tundra Falls while keeping aerodynamic integrity of the car

Integration: Drivers will manually engage push to pass by tabbing a switch on the dashboard that controls the rear and front ride heights and spoiler of the car. An actuator connected to the spoiler will lower the spoiler angle, while the rear right will drop around an inch and a half to get the spoiler out of air. Lowering the front ride height will allow the car to generate more frontal downforce and ground effect downforce via the air inlets in the side skirts of the car to compensate for the loss in rear downforce.

Parts List: Decklid actuator, adjustable ride height dampers

[Sword Island]

THE RACER'S DIGEST

Sydney, Sword Island
Stevens Automotive has unveiled their new car templates for the 2023 NSSCRA season, marking a seachange from their early first generation models. The goal, as head of Stevens' racing division Tracy Goldstein put it is to "create a car that looks like a Olympian you would find on the street and make it a viable racing product". So far Stevens has hit on at least one of those goals as the Olympian GT( Multiversal) and Olympian RT( Everlong) look more like their street counterparts than any car in the field arguably. Stevens driver Michael Rush, who was instrumental in the design and aerodynamic components of the car, said that the "end result is definitely something we are proud of". Both models will make their debuts in Tundra Falls.
Stevens has also opted to use Hartley tires in the Multiversal series this season, going away from the series' unofficial but largely popular tire provider Tropicorp. Stevens has expressed that this will give them more autonomy over the tire compound and allow them to retain a longtime partnership. Hartley, who were recently bought by Stevens, will join GoSwordIsland as a primary sponsor on the number 35 driven by Kassie Collins
http://imgur.com/gallery/2PateXi
http://imgur.com/gallery/rahz3mS