TOOL Racing

08/10/2026

How ridiculous does the archive footage look with the liveries all blurred out during this Bathurst telecast. I get the law is the law but jesus, like I could afford to go out and buy some Marlboro`s today. Never a fan during the day but how much better do old liveries look than most of the splatter that is over modern Supercarz.

05/10/2026

Yes, things have been a bit quiet here, but yes, we`ll be at Baskerville Historics... on a shoestring. I wont lie, the cost of living and doing this on wages has taken a huge toll on what we can afford to with motor racing now. It`s a sad reality that motorsport has just become a financial burden and there doesnt seem to be any appetite for easing pressures on competitors like me. Its not a whinge, its just the facts. Whilst I`m not going to stoop as low as doing a go-fund me, spending money on a luxury like motor racing at the moment, and maybe into the future, is unlikely. Ive gone from racing 4 or 5 times a year to once a year.
Still, we`ve done what we can with bits and pieces we have around the garage to present the best car we possibly can, made it easier to work on, and everything is checked and double checked. Thanks to Tim Craggs the fuel system is now configured better, battery and electrics are a lot better, and the car is thoroughly prepped and checked to make sure we can have 4 trouble free days of running and enjoy the event. Is it the last one? Possibly.

14/09/2026

There are already a couple of facebook groups doing a decent job of pulling Tasmanian events together. But Facebook is great at showing me things it thinks I want to buy not things I might want to go to.

So I built Motoring Tasmania. A Calendar where motoring, shows, hillclimbs, cars and coffee, swap meets, drives, etc can display events.

Put in your postcode, what you like, when you want to go, say how far you will drive, and it maps what is on with rough travel times so you know before you commit. Free, no sign up, no tracking, and free for clubs to list.

It`s still in beta but is pretty close to being finished. You cna now even install it on your home screen on your phone.

What I need is clubs. If you are on a committee, have a look and apply. Four minutes, I approve you once, then you post whatever you like. Keep posting in the groups as well, this just means it still turns up when someone goes looking in six weeks. Plenty of rough edges, tell me what you would like to see included. https://motoringtasmania.com.au/

13/09/2026

Race preparations on the M3 replica continue. With no performance upgrades this year we are focused on thorough prep, making the car easier to work on, and improving the way the car is put together. None of this will make it faster, but we know we can roll a (mechanically) beautifully prepared and rules compliant car off the trailer at the track.

29/08/2026

In breaking news, TOOL racing is preparing do the Racing part of TOOL...
The Darkness has been arisen from her slumber... and as always, started on the button. First time in 10 months. We`ll do a thorough service, spanner check, some new hubs and upgraded wheel studs, a few service tweaks to help at the track, deep clean, new fluids and wheel alignment and she`ll be ready for a brilliant 4 days at Baskerville Historics. Six years strong.

23/08/2026

https://www.my105.com/search/details/1994-bmw-3-series-e36/c4946ec1-0a84-4fdd-a25b-65edd4e608e3?source=SEARCH_RESULT

Logbook: Improved Production Racing Australia (IPRA) 2ltr. Up for sale is a freshly built, immaculate BMW E36 sedan setup and log booked for Improved Production. Needs final setup to be ready to race

22/08/2026

Thankyou to Club Motori Italia for allowing us to run a Pitcontrol trial at the Lufra Hillclimb today. It ran well, and gives us some more useful data as we move towards a full launch in 2027. Running at two very different events in August has shown how versatile the product will be.

06/08/2026

For those that competed last weekend your team managers have received a survey link and your teams Stat sheet. A sample of which is here. One of the powerful features in Pitcontrol is helping teams to improve their skills and get a really good picture of how their day went. Plus, who doesn't love a good chart.

04/08/2026

PitControl's first outing at the Autocraft Symmons Plains Six Hour is done, and for a trial, it went better than I hoped.

The good bits were very good. Live timing hooked straight into the circuit's Natsoft system and ran without complaint for six hours. The teams' phone app worked and the database handled it with ease, meaning we can cut the 3 second update down to 1. Importantly, feedback on it was better than I'd hoped. Several crews told me they had a clearer picture of their own race than they'd had before, which is the point. Tech should make life easier.

Then there was the bit that didn't work. Driver stint timing fell over an hour into the race. Driver stint clocks stuck, driver changes refused to save, and no amount of poking at it on the day made any difference.

The cause turned out to be gloriously boring. The admin server had quietly lost its login overnight. Not crashed, not frozen, nothing dramatic, just an expired token. I`d never had this failure in testing. So it just looked perfectly normal while working from hours-old information and being unable to save anything new. A bit like a marshal confidently waving flags for a race that finished last week.

Importantly, the paper system ran alongside it the whole time, exactly as planned, and remained the official record. No result was affected. And that was the entire reason for running a trial rather than going live.

We've since found the precise cause, designed the fix, and had it independently reviewed. Version 4 gets a proper rebuild of the timing layer, along with all the other changes, improvements and extra features planned for the official 2027 launch.

For a first run, I'll take it, the main core of the product worked, and we are well on track for a full launch in February. Wait till you see the new features :)

28/07/2026

So, you may have noticed things have gone quiet, but it didn't mean things weren't super busy. Moving from carbon fibre and E36 BMW`s to silicon.

Over the last few months we've developed PitControl. It's a real-time pit lane management system for club endurance and regularity events. Stint clocks, driver changes, fuel stops, penalties and live timing, all from the one app.

Officials get one live picture of the whole pit lane. Teams get their own car on a phone, live on the pit wall, it`s a handy tool to keep teams informed and on the right side of the event track rules.

It gets its first proper test drive this weekend at the Autocraft Symmons Plains Six Hour, running alongside the paper system on a trial, available to all teams. Like anything new on a race track, it might break, but that's how you develop a racecar and thats how we`ll develop Pitcontrol. No plan survives first contact with the enemy.

Pitcontrol is running on a trial basis and is free for competitors. Natsoft is still running, as are all the usual processes. https://pitcontrol.com.au/