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Sydney Australia was the BEST!!

Wednesday Media Day

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The first event of the trip, right in downtown Sydney. But I am really sleepy today.

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I thought I’d just take a photo for my own website.

Thursday Practice Day

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The CyberEVO is good today, nice and fast.

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The cars speed is good.

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You can see me having a meeting with Mr. Ogikubo, our team manager from Carrosser (CUSCO).

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A serious problem occurred today, the camshaft broke!

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Mr. Nakajima from VOLTEX is working through the night, setting up the aerodynamics on both cars on his own! 

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The CyberEVO team is also working through the night on the car.

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Well the Sierra Sierra car is really fast.

Friday Session two

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Having a look at the Australian booths to see what is on offer here in Australia.

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We were able to improve the lap time after a few changes in the setup.

Friday Session three

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I made a few requests to the team to make adjustments to the diff, wing and engine to suit the course.

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There was a problem with the transmission.

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Lucky for us the Subaru Technical center at the track offered their help allowing us to use their facilities.

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Our crew member Jasni was full of jokes. 

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But I was a bit tired to enjoy them. 

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The first day was spent repairing the car with not even an outing on track, this was quite stressful.

Saturday Session one

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We were lucky to be able to receive another cylinder head from another local Australian team there. 

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 I hope our team can make it all work well with the other parts we’ve collected.

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VOLTEX added another Canard to the front bumper to help with additional down force.

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With the first chance to attack the course in this car this week, I was able to set a new record time.

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 The Sierra Sierra EVO looked like it had the best team and car for the event.

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Our team engine engineer Tomita-kun and our team manager Ogikubo-san talk about the engines potential, then further adjustments were made. 

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?~???!!

Ah the cars balance is much better!

Really good!!

Saturday Session two

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I tried to get a better time, however on the straight, the engine paused for about 3 seconds.

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 Still with this problem I was able to get the best time with this condition. This was when I got the fastest lap. 

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The engine was fixed, but the power was still only at 80% of its true potential.

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This is Mr. Takizawa, the owner of the CyberEVO who also happens to be the "total engineer" of the car.

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These two guys are Takizawa-san and Sato-kun, I thought they would be satisfied with my result, however when I returned to the pits they were discussing on how to improve the time more.

 

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The engine was setup better with a stronger anti-lag. However the new suspension was not suited for the stronger anti-lag setting. So I could not get a better time result.

 

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I really tried my best to improve time the lap time, however the handling and overall balance of the Impreza was not quite there. I was disappointed.

 

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Nakajima-san has been putting in a lot of effort for many nights with lots of hard work and very little sleep. Dedication!

Last Saturday morning session

 

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On the final attack we removed most parts that were unnecessary, but we couldn’t get a better result. 

 

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The CyberEVO was using this data logging software. Takizawa-san is very talented and is really good. Just from the data collected on the data logger, he can readjust the car's settings to get a better result.

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Kota Sasaki-san and I was talking about the course layout and driving at Eastern Creek, we shared tips and information about the track. 

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A Very Happy Tarzan Yamada!!. 

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I was really surprised at how crowded the driver signing event was.

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I never knew that I had so many fans in Australia. Thank you WTAC!

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The last session I was trying my best to break into the 1:29 barrier. I tried hard but could not make it this time.

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This feels great now, I’m sure I can make it in the 29’s.

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This is Takizawa-san style. He carefully listens for the cars condition when the car passes by. Just by listening with his own ears he can pickup some tips on the cars condition. This is crazy Japanese style. 

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At this moment, when the rear wing broke off, I had no idea what was going on. The car started to become really unstable for no reason, so I thought the suspension or something else broke. So I backed off the throttle before entering turn 1 and the Evo began to lose traction at the rear. I thought I was going to crash! I just did my best to correct the car several times to save it and regain control. 

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After I returned to the paddock, It was then I found out what happened. The rear wing was gone!!!

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I was really happy that I won the event!

 

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Many fans came to the paddock to get my autograph and photo. I was really busy but at the same time I was really happy.

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I was very happy with this event because I managed to win the race.

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This time I was able to do so because many people gave me a lot of support.

WTAC????????TOMEI?CUSCO??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

I want to say thank you to all those who supported me, the fans, WTAC, Yokohama Tire Australia, TOMEI POWERED, CUSCO, VOLTEX, Unlimited Works, CyberEVO, Hi Octane Racing and all the other sponsors and supporters that were involved. I want to especially say thank you to Speedhunters.com, Discovery Channel and all media personnel that were at the event and everyone that covered the event.

Sunday Departure

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I won’t forget the beautiful city of Sydney. I really appreciated this great country and its wonderful people. I hope I can visit Australia more often in the near future. 

If I can find a girlfriend in Australia then I’ll be even happier!! (LOL).

-Eiji "Tarzan" Yamada