Justin Clarke At The “Island”

A fabulous opportunity was offered by Kevin to be part of the Porsche Club Victoria sprints at Phillip island, this is a track that I have heard about for many years it has definitely been on my list of tracks to try at speed. As it turned out it was also the start of school holidays so we decided to make it a family holiday. We loaded the Cayman on the back of the truck hooked the caravan with 5 mountain bikes, my wife Sonja and 3 kids, Hugh, James and Emily. It was a bit of a drive from Toowoomba to Phillip Island so we left Wednesday night after dinner, camped the night a Narrabri the first night then onto Glenrowan for Thursday night, By Friday lunchtime we were setup at Phillip island and had the car ready for racing.

Saturday at the racetrack was an exciting time with over 50 cars getting ready. Everyone was very helpful and friendly, a really good mix of old and new cars all presented very well. The rain showers came and went all day and I believe the bike racers refer to this track as the “Gateway to Hypothermia”. Out of the 5 sessions we managed to get 4 dry runs. Kevin was kept busy changing from slicks to wets. The track is excellent and high quality in every way. Safe and with good runoffs; not that any of the Qld people used them!

Father and son

off road adventures

Fast and smooth flowing with really only one very heavy braking corner at turn 4. Turn 12 running onto the main straight is a banked corner so you can get on the power early for a fast run onto the straight. On the warm up and cool down laps the view over Bass straight and the surrounding country side is spectacular.

During the briefing they mentioned to watch out for the Cape Baron Geese that live at the track. They

weigh about 45kg, so if you came in contact it would not be a good outcome. They did mention that at 180C for 4 hours is the best way to cook them. They are the most relaxed race spectators standing right on the edge of the track watching cars go past at 200km/hr. From QLD we were well represented with Kevin Cup car, David Lees GT3, Stephen Cameron GT3, Steve and Cameron Cooper sharing the GT2 and myself in the Cayman. As a family, we stayed another 4 nights at Phillip

island doing all the touristy things including the go karting which is a scaled down version of the race track. Then went off to Wilsons Promontory for a few days followed by Bright for another 5 days of mountain biking and sightseeing. We left the Cayman off the truck for most of the VIC part of the trip so my Son James could get some hours up on his L’s under instruction from Sonja. We loaded the Cayman up and started a casual drive back to QLD visiting family in Canberra and Coffs.