RX8 Cup Round 2 Enduro: Big Track Time at Sydney Motorsport Park

RaceAway Track Time was back at Sydney Motorsport Park for Round 2 of the RX8 Cup, held across Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 May, and as usual, RX8 Cup delivered exactly what drivers love: plenty of track time, close racing, and a proper opportunity to learn under pressure.

The weekend featured two sprint races and two 50-minute-plus endurance races, each with a compulsory pit stop and co-driver change. We had two RaceAway cars on the grid:

Car #53 – Jake Hextall and Bailey Howard
Car #81 – Ghassan Fatayerji and Andrew Chalouhi

Across the weekend, all four drivers had plenty thrown at them: qualifying sessions, sprint racing, traffic management, endurance stints, CPS execution, safety car restarts and the constant challenge of racing hard without overstressing the car.

Car #53: Jake Hextall and Bailey Howard

Jake Hextall came into the weekend as our most experienced driver and performed exactly as expected — on the money from the start.

The focus for Jake was refining specific sections of Sydney Motorsport Park, particularly Turn 2 and the Turn 4 into Turn 5 sequence.

Phil Alexander explained:

“We changed the entry and exit points to free up the car and allow it to flow better. Turn 2, being a dual apex corner, required an adjustment of technique. Turn 4 leading to Turn 5 was about establishing a slower point in Turn 4 to allow for a faster Turn 5.”

It was the kind of detail that makes a big difference in a one-make series like RX8 Cup, where small improvements in technique can translate into real gains across a lap.

Jake’s co-driver, Bailey Howard, joined us fresh on Saturday with no practice, but got onto the pace quickly. One of the key areas we worked on with Bailey was Turn 1 — particularly commitment to the turn-in and avoiding too much brake pressure.

Turn 1 at Sydney Motorsport Park can be intimidating. It is very easy to over-slow the car, especially when you are still building confidence in traffic and race conditions. Over the weekend, Bailey increased his speed through Turn 1 by around 9 km/h, which was a great result.

Car #81: Ghassan Fatayerji and Andrew Chalouhi

In the #81 car, Ghassan Fatayerji and Andrew Chalouhi shared driving duties, with both drivers taking turns starting races across the weekend.

Ghassan, or Gas, is still relatively new to RX8 Cup, having only completed one previous round. He has done a fair amount of work at Sydney Motorsport Park in his BMW 130 Turbo, and interestingly, both cars achieve similar speeds — but the RX8 requires a very different approach to get the most out of it.

One of Gas’s key concerns was traffic management, so throughout the weekend we focused heavily on communication, positioning and helping him make decisions in traffic with confidence.

Phil said:

“Gas was having a bit of a struggle in Turn 4 into Turn 5, which led to a slower speed at Turn 6. We were able to pull almost a second out of that sequence of corners without overstressing the car. It was all about putting the car in a better position.”

Andrew Chalouhi also had a huge weekend of progress.

He came into the event without a huge amount of competitive track time, but the endurance events he has previously done with us — including Deputy 4 Hour and Wakefield 300 — really came to the front. Andrew used the techniques and race experience he has built over those events to inform his driving, manage traffic and settle into the RX8 Cup format.

Over the weekend, Andrew dropped around four seconds from his lap times as his confidence grew.

By the second race, Phil said:

“He was on it from the get-go, picking up his times straight away after the driver change.”

That is exactly what we want to see from these events — drivers taking what they have learned from previous race meetings and applying it under pressure.

Traffic Management, Tow and Race Craft

Across both cars, one of the biggest focuses for the weekend was race craft.

With RX8 Cup delivering such close racing, traffic management becomes a major part of the job. We worked with all four drivers on positioning, reading the cars around them and using tow where possible to maximise straight-line speed.

In a field like this, being fast on your own is only part of the equation. You also need to be smart in traffic, decisive when the opportunity is there and patient when the move is not on.

A Safety Car Restart Teaching Moment

The second enduro gave us a great teaching moment with a safety car.

Rather than making a tactical call, we made the decision to keep the first drivers in the cars so they could gain experience managing a restart. Safety car restarts are a huge part of endurance racing, and they can be especially challenging when more experienced drivers are quicker to react and more aggressive on the restart.

For us, this was a valuable opportunity to give the drivers real experience in a race situation — learning how to manage the field, keep tyre and brake temperatures in mind, stay calm and get back up to speed cleanly.

Weekend Results

Qualifying 1

Car #53 – Jake Hextall
P18 – 1:51.4680

Car #81 – Ghassan Fatayerji
P21 – 1:52.5720

Qualifying 2

Car #81 – Andrew Chalouhi
P20 – 1:51.9460

Car #53 – Bailey Howard
P22 – 1:53.5550

Race 1

Car #53 – Jake Hextall
P19 – 9 laps – Best lap: 1:51.9180

Car #81 – Ghassan Fatayerji
P21 – 9 laps – Best lap: 1:53.2120

Race 2 – Enduro 1

Car #81 – Ghassan Fatayerji / Andrew Chalouhi
P13 – 26 laps – Best lap: 1:52.0610

Car #53 – Jake Hextall / Bailey Howard
P14 – 26 laps – Best lap: 1:51.9280

Race 3

Car #81 – Andrew Chalouhi
P19 – 9 laps – Best lap: 1:52.3740

Car #53 – Bailey Howard
P21 – 9 laps – Best lap: 1:53.2920

Race 4 – Enduro 2

Car #53 – Jake Hextall / Bailey Howard
P16 – 25 laps – Best lap: 1:51.8710

Car #81 – Ghassan Fatayerji / Andrew Chalouhi
P17 – 25 laps – Best lap: 1:52.0160

The final enduro was especially close between our two cars, with the #53 and #81 separated by just 0.290 seconds at the flag.

A Big Weekend for Seat Time

This is exactly why we love RX8 Cup.

The category continues to deliver an exceptional amount of track time, close racing and a great platform for driver development. Between qualifying, sprint races and endurance races, our drivers had the chance to work on speed, consistency, race starts, traffic, tow, pit stops, co-driver changes and restart management — all in one weekend.

For drivers looking to build race craft and maximise their time on track, RX8 Cup is hard to beat.

A huge thank you to Rod Tippett, Phil Alexander, Lachie Mineeff and the whole RaceAway Track Time crew for their work across the weekend.

Thanks also to the RX8 Cup organisers for continuing to deliver a fantastic race weekend, and to our sponsors and partners for their ongoing support.: On Pah Grading, Hextall Motorsport, RBT Motorsport, Frontier Fire Designs, MWM Racing, Chematek Australia, Eni Oils, Canobolas Motorsport Services, Shane Signs.

We are proud of the progress from all four drivers and excited to keep building from here.

Want to get on track for the RX8 Cup? Get in touch!

📞0472 535 354

📩info@raceawaytracktime.com.au

🌐www.raceawaytracktime.com.au