Social Reflections

Welcome to Social Reflections. Wow, it’s already June, and the first half of the year has flown by too quickly. Maybe the busy social calendar has contributed to the interesting events that were hopefully enjoyed by all.

Since my March Reflections, the Social Committee has worked hard to organise eight events, including dinners, technical nights, club nights, and a defensive driving course.

Our first event in March was the Fine Food Wine Appreciation Night, held in a private dining room at the RACV City Club. The night celebrated Victoria through food and wine. An intimate group of 30 members enjoyed the evening, starting with canapés and sparkling wine, followed by three courses paired with fine wine. The survey responses from the attending members reflected that everyone had an enjoyable night.

The Club Night at Porsche Centre Doncaster focused on all things electric, with two highly experienced technicians from Porsche Cars Australia and Porsche Centre Doncaster providing our members with great insights into Taycans. Porsche Centre Doncaster generously offered a door prize—a Taycan for the weekend. The recipient was so excited that I thought she might have mistaken it for a permanent gift instead of a weekend experience.

The Grand Tour was, as always, a success. Alison Belot, Allan, and Kerry Hines did a marvelous job organising the event. Unfortunately, on the last day, COVID-19 affected a number of attendees, preventing some from joining the celebratory final dinner. However, the survey responses from the attendees once again expressed gratitude for a fantastic trip and eager anticipation for the next one.

I’m eagerly looking forward to our Club Night at Porsche Centre Brighton. Our guest presenter, Chris Lennon, is a two-time Pikes Peak International Hill Climb class winner and author of the book “The Peak of Racing.” With Chris, along with good food, wine, a great venue, and the company of our fellow members, the night promises to be memorable.

In my search for new venues to use for Club events, I discovered Young Timers Garage in Keysborough.

I’ve decided to put a twist on the next Club Night in August and change it to a Club Morning! The Club Morning, which is currently in the planning stage, will take place on August 27 and will focus on socializing. The morning will start at 8:30 or 9 am, and members will be served breakfast, coffee, tea, and juice. We encourage all members to bring out their best Porsche from the garage and showcase their pride and joy to fellow members. The display will be informal, rather than formal, because of parking restrictions at dealerships. Fortunately, the venue can accommodate over 200 cars with ample parking space.

We will use Young Timers Garage as the venue. The owner has four factories next to each other, two of which are showrooms. One factory houses racing simulators, which will be available for members to race against each other on the Phillip Island or Bathurst circuit. The last factory stores Carrera Cup Cars, which will be open for viewing. The parking area is located in front of the factories, and there is a massive wall facing the showroom adorned with a mural depicting current F1 drivers.

I have included a couple of photos of the venue and the available cars for sale to pique your interest.

Feel free to explore and search for Young Timers Garage on Google. While there are some excellent cars for sale, please note that the showroom is only open by appointment.

On the morning of the event, Rusty French will be bringing a couple of his treasures from his collection.

As always, I encourage members to reach out to me and share their thoughts on the social events we have organised or suggest events for the Social Committee to explore. All your ideas are welcome.

Clyde White Social Director

Hi everyone and thanks for taking the time to read this overview of the Competition season so far.

Since the last Porsche Parade issue, the Competition group have been extremely busy with their track calendar and have had 4 events.

Let’s take a quick overview as there are individual reports with details and results further on in this edition.

Firstly, back in early March an intrepid group ventured down to Gippsland to the iconic little hillclimb circuit called Haunted Hills, located just outside Moe. The venue can be configured into 3 separate tracks with each competitor given 3 runs on each configuration. The best time on each of the tracks is then used and combined for an overall individual result. Adam Stafford had his car dialled in and was quickest on the day. The weather Gods were on our side and it was a fine and warm day for all competitors, which is not always the case at Haunted Hills. For all results and photos please see the full report.

With just a two week turnaround from Haunted Hills, our next event was the prestigious PCV Sandown 360 Regularity. This event is open to members of all car clubs in Victoria and beyond. In fact the winners over the last 2 years have been from Bathurst in NSW. This team event is where each driver nominates a lap time, and then points are issued for each lap where the driver is either too fast or too slow against their nominated time. At the end of the day, the team with the LEAST amount of points is the winner. Whilst numbers were slightly down this year, primarily due to the fact that the MG Car Club quite late in the piece decided to hold a club event on the same day, thus taking around 6 teams out of our day. The day itself was a cool and overcast day, but the rain held off. All in all it was another successful event and full credit must go to Andrew Bonwick who almost single handedly organises and runs this event.