Behind the wheel of Toyota's 86 racer

Daylight savings is either an annual inconvenience or a godsend, depending on who you ask.

Farmers and industry will complain until they’re blue in the face that the Eastern states’ additional hour of daylight needlessly adds to their working day, while time-starved office staff and school kids look forward to the annual six-month clock-adjustment as much as Christmas.

Whatever your view, daylight savings is a revelation around the Sydney Motorsport Park at this time of year. It enables events such as the Whiteline Tarmac Rally Series, a volunteer-organised event that is run on five Thursday nights throughout the summer, to take place. And what an event it is.

was recently invited to the summer’s inaugural rally with Toyota, with an opportunity to complete five runs of the North Shore Sporting Car Club event aboard the Neal Bates-prepared Toyota 86 – identical to the racers seen in the Japanese brand’s popular one-make series.

Arriving at the Eastern Creek site, held on the Western Sydney Dragway side of the SMP complex, is truly a sight to behold. On show in the car park under the late afternoon Sydney sunshine is everything from VK Commodores and a more-than-mildly-fettled Suzuki Ignis through to high-end supercars including the Porsche 911 GT3 CS and a mean-looking example of the Mercedes-AMG GT S. All in all there are 80-plus cars ready to front the start line.

The vibe of the afternoon is extremely relaxed. Punters talk shop with recognisable racing royalty including Bates, Bruce Garland and Molly Taylor, trading stories and asking for tips on the 3.5 kilometre circuit, which winds around the access roads and track of the dragway.

The entire event is co-ordinated with the help of some 50 volunteers, and they do a fantastic job. Entry will cost you about $250, and you’ll need a CAMS L2S licence and a proof of CAMS club membership. There are no real limitations on vehicles, so long as they comply with scrutineering.

We’ll get to the finer details of the 3.5km track in a moment, but first the car. The same as that found in the national Toyota 86 Pro-Am series, the basic premise during development was to keep the racer as close in concept to the 86 production car blueprint as possible.

As such, engine modifications are kept to an absolute minimum, with no internal changes. Instead, a tuned set of extractors and modified exhaust combine with a MOTEC ECU to elicit a further 18kW over the standard 86’s 147kW.

Suspension comes in the form of bespoke MCA coil-over dampers, combining with oversized AP Racing discs and calipers (four-piston up front). Dunlop Direzzas are the control tyre. The suspension can be tuned depending on circuit, so I take comfort in Bates firming up the rear of the car for our tarmac rally hitout.

The same car had just survived Bathurst in the 86 Pro-Am at the hands of Kiwi driver Ash Blewett, who pushed it to a credible eighth-place despite never racing the circuit before. Neal points out to me that the only battle scar from that torture test was a small dent on the front right-hand guard. I take note…

It’s at this point that I meet the most important person in terms of my night running smoothly: co-driver Dale Moscatt. A rally veteran who has successfully co-piloted everything from Australian Rally Championship rounds through to the Dakar, Sydney-based Moscatt is widely regarded as one of the best in the business – internationally.

Dale also has the seemingly daunting task of explaining rally pace notes to someone who has no experience other than a few hitouts on the Playstation as a kid. But his artful and concise explanation of corner scaling (one being a sharp, slow corner, six being a flat-to-the floor job), course metreage and cautionary notes makes complete sense to me as we perform a slow-speed reccy of the circuit.

After a driver briefing, it’s now time to do the course for real.

Squeezing in through the 86’s solid roll cage is a mild exercise in contortion that becomes easier the more your body learns the curves of the solid white steel structure. Once you’re in, you’re in, too; the deeply bolstered bucket seat leaves little room to stretch your legs and with a helmet, radio communications cable and six-point racing harness at play, it’s a cosy environment.

The carpet and usual cabin trimmings have been largely deleted and the car feels stripped-back. The alcantara-wrapped steering wheel and Motec information display positioned neatly on the steering wheel column in front of the instrument cluster adds a sense of occasion, too.

That racecar sentiment is again stirred when I push the 86’s push button start. In doing so the 86’s 2.0-litre boxer engine erupts to a raucous, unhindered idle that builds the more revs you add. Depressing the heavy clutch and shifting the car into first gear using its nicely-weighted but mechanical-feeling manual stick, we warm up the AP brakes en route to the starting gate, where individual competitors are released onto the circuit every 30 seconds.

This is the part where Dale really earns his keep. Unawares to me at the time, we talk shop during the entire 15 minute queue to the start line: family, jobs, and housing – even a few obligatory racing stories. By the time we get to the starting box, it finally dawns on me that it’s nearly go-time. I couldn’t be more relaxed.

“Build your revs to about 6500rpm and then let her go,” is Bates’ final sage piece of advice through the driver’s window as I approach the start line. Seconds later, we’re away, Moscatt meticulously rattling off course notes while I juggle the tender responsibilities of learning the course, remembering the pace notes, picking up speed and – most importantly – keeping the car in one piece.

Despite the deep water nature of the exercise, the experience is an absolute blast. The course is a nice mixture of tight, twisting corners, opening radius bends and faster, flat-to-the-floor obstacles. The car squirms out of more than one corner as I start testing its dynamic adhesion and the brake pedal pulses on occasion as the AP brakes prodigiously wash off speed.

The highlight of the night is without doubt the car. The power is never neck-snapping but its inherent rear-drive balance, crisp and mechanical steering and deft body control create an enamouring driving experience. Extracting every inch of the engine’s potential is also strangely enjoyable too – a real like-for-like parallel with the road car.

As the shadows grow longer and flood lights begin to blanket the circuit, my confidence grows and before long, I’m attacking corners more aggressively and heel-and-toeing my way around. We whittle a good 10-plus seconds off our initial time, pushing the 86 as high as 35th in a 88-strong field stacked full of Mitsubishi Lancer Evolutions and Subaru WRXs.

Of course, my humble effort pales against those of Neal’s two sons Harry and Lewis, who easily extract a further five or seconds from an identical machines around the circa 2 minute 20 second course. I probably don’t even need to tell you about Neal’s exploits.

The event shines a light on the efficacy of the 86 – both in road car and race car forms – but more than that, shows how much fun grassroots circuit or tarmac rally racing really is.

That you can do all this after work on a Thursday, without interrupting valuable weekend time, is a major plus. And perhaps cause to push our clocks one hour forward for the entire year.