Well another race season has come to a close. Congratulations to the various Championship and race winners.
For SMU Racing it was a year of vehicle change and in essence ‘testing the new bits’! We are very excited about the 2025 season knowing now that all of our changes have been successful.
2023/24 saw the addition of 37 inch Mickey Thompson tyres on Method 17 inch rims, bigger brake package and outboard hub package supplied by Racer Imports, a complete car rewire by Proloom with the assistance of Quickbitz and some further engine development by Shane Wilson Competition Engines to the Ford Ecoboost twin turbo V6. Albins have overhauled our transmission together with new ratios and a lot of work has gone into our torque converter set up.
All in all, a very different car to drive with not as many race kms as we would have liked but definitely a very competitive package when it came to the last race.
Pooncarie was the first race out for the new car. Brake bias issues saw us qualify 8th before a driveline issue 25km saw us out of the race.
Finke Desert Race saw us qualify 7th losing a boost hose with 3 corners of the prologue track to go. The main race was going well until the 60km mark where driver error clipped a tree which saw an end to our race. Things were going well up until then!
With two new rear arms we headed to Pines Enduro. We won prologue and with the main race on Sunday going well, we blew a torque converter line whilst leading in the last heat. Best part was we got just under 300kms of seat time in and the SMU Jimco is now ready for full competition in 2025. We are well under way with solving our torque converter issue and the car is stripped with everything getting freshened in readiness for a full 2025 campaign.
A big thank you to the SMU team for 2024 who have put a mountain of work into this car without getting the rewards (just yet!) Hopefully not too far away. To Ty Couche from Hustlin Off Road prepping the car and managing the race program, Shane Wilson from Shane Wilson Competition Engines for building the reliability and HP that we have, Cam Ritchie from Racer Imports whose knowledge and ability have allowed for us to take the next major steps with this car, Stix at Quickbitz for all of his help during the season who really goes above an beyond, Ryan Cawley from Proloom who has been a massive help in getting the wring in this car sorted and has made it reliable (!), Mark Rowlands for his input and work behind the scenes in between races getting this car to the track, Nigel Pendlebury for next level navigation and assistance in car prep and everything else and Tania Pendlebury for putting up with us all, looking after us at races and most important ace photos and videos. Special mention to Brock Pendlebury, Randall Gregory and Glenn Ridge for vital pits assistance at races during the year as well as car transport. THANK YOU all.
First race on the calendar is Portland in February which we can’t wait for.. Finally we seem to be on the front foot.
Last but not least our loyal band of sponsors who, without their support, we could not go racing
Dutton Garage
Dutton One
Shane Wilson Competition Engines
Mickey Thompson Tyres Australia
Racer Imports
Flexicut Engineering
Sellyourcarfast
Albins Off Road gear
HJC Helmets (KT Autosport Australia)
Quickbitz
Quality Metal Solutions
Method Racewheels Australia
Xtreme DI
Northern Workwear
Jimco
Have a safe and merry festive season and see you at the raetrack in 2025!
GO SMU
Photo Credits – Show’n’go Photography, Hero Dirt Photography and Randall Kilner