Dry Lakes Racers Australia

I know we have had this discussion before, but maybe its a good time to revisit it.
Also interested in peoples view of rain dates now and in the future.
Who could or would be able to rearrange their leave and family life for an alternate date?
Please dont use this as a place to vent your disappointment, were all pissed off, lets move forward.

PS you can have up to 3 choices for this poll.

Are any moon dates available vote 1 no moon

Lets stop arguing about the moon, it's a no-brainer. Ask the locals( roo-shooters won't go out onto salt lakes on a full moon, the station owner next to Lake Hart nth of Gairdner told me his dry water holes change color on a full moon), ask a geo-hydrologist( I have and have the email somewhere),ask the guys who've been going to Bonneville for 50 years(It's been discussed on landracing) apparently you can see a "tide" mark move across the lake during the day. The moon pulls the water up, the closer it is to the earth the worse it is.If there is rain water it won't settle in and the substrate will be softer if the water table is high.

jon

Good work Jon, but I was talking about whether we could race on the lake at any given day, that's not entirely related to the rainfall, wind and heat change the evap rate, a little bit of rain in June is like a heap in Feb I'd be thinkin.....

Agreed, not a lot of difference between rainfall Jan, Feb, March & April.

Jan, Feb & March are a fair bit in front for clear days.

The closest evaporation data is from Whyalla;


Add in evaporation and earlier in the year looks a bit better.

Will be a littles less comfortable though;


jon

The Mean/Average Rainfall Data is deceptive. If the Mean Rainfall is taken from 1981-2010 then March is no longer has the Lowest Mean/Average Rainfall.

Feb 11.3
April 13.0
Jan 16.9
Mar 17

March might have once had lowest Average Rainfall but this appears to have changed. So maybe it is time for a change.

I assume that the Lake need time to settle after rain so what sort of time frame are we talking about?

Is The Lake still be recovering from Last Years extreme rain?

I would strongly support having a Postponement Date set as part of the Planning if at all possible.

Also finding alternate Venues, even as Test and Tune Tallem style events, needs to be taken up in an organised way. I will have time to assist from July onwards.

Down but not out
Pete#866

I think the change to an earlier race date is to ESCAPE the March madness of the weather patterns around australia ? Not necessarily to try and pick the best time for our Lake .

I think we just need a rolling date. I think theses days most (maybe not all) racers would have the flexibility to manage a change of date say over a two month window.

Set a date that traditionally has the best weather history, then just drop it back week by week till it's a goer.

Given we don't have tv broadcast commitments we should be reasonably flexible?

I realise that there maybe some that don't have such flexibility, and some systems, setups, etc may require a rethink to cope with a window date set up.

Just my two bbs worth

The Rain Seasons vary across Oz. The wet season in Qld is summer while it is in winter in other parts.

I like the idea of trying to run when we can, and not just all or nothing.

It might be difficult but not as difficult as not being able to run for years.

Stay Cool
Pete
#866

Greg your pole gives limited choice,

I think late April is worth studying more and should be considered.

The rolling rain date while logical creates a nightmare for the few that volunteer to do the track inspection. 1 or 2 weeks after a wet lake the conditions are never perfect hard salt.

We need a backup date each year.

45 deg out there is not as bad as it sounds. The bugger all humidity is the saviour there.

Hot air is thinner = less HP. Hot air being thinner = easier to push the vehicle through. Hard to quantify which is better but don't discount the hotter months on this reason alone.

Chris

Early Feb BFJ

Better look at the am and pm wind speeds, no good going out to a hot dry lake with a week of high winds

Also why not include a month or so prior to the hottest months , even after a wet winter it only takes a month or so to dry things out around here, figure a desert lake will have better evaporation than Shep

The suggestion given by the current manager of Mount Ive (who has been in the area his entire life) when myself, Plucka, Cookey and Smurf were up there was the first week in December.

Just throwin' it out there.....

Look at the Salt reports at the christmas working bee seems to be good at that time