From Pit Lane

After a much needed break for Easter, our next event was 2 ½ hours up the Hume Highway to Winton Motor Raceway. Unfortunately I had a miscommunication with the bloke organising the weather and consequently heavy overnight rain had left the track quite wet on our arrival. All the Cup cars were seen up on their jacks putting on the wet tyres and they were certainly required. With showers occurring on and off during the day it was almost wet all day. However there was a slight reprieve over the lunch break where the clouds parted and some rays of the golden stuff bathed the track, just enough for those Cup Car drivers to again switch tyres for their slicks and those in group 1 to essentially get the only dry run of the day. Just as they finished, the heavens opened again and it was back to wet weather racing. Credit must go to all drivers, as there were only a few recoveries for the day which, considering the conditions was exceptional. Andy Hall on his slick tyres in that 1 dry session clocked the fastest time of the day with a quick 1:25.947, a couple of seconds ahead of Stefan in his 991 GT3RS.

Our next event in late May was back at the beautiful little track at Broadford. This time I had my communications with the powers that be in place and the weather was perfect, cool but dry. As per our event earlier in the year the witches hats were out to stops us from venturing too far off the track and a few penalties were handed out to those who got a little bit too corner greedy. We were almost at our capacity at Broadford which shows how much our members like coming here. Daniel Reynolds lost a headlight on his warm up lap which caused a red flag whilst it was retrieved and Bill Toohey had a little excursion which is explained in a bit more detail in the event report. Daniel Reynolds and Stefan were the only 2 drivers to break the magical minute barrier with a 58 and a 59 respectively.

And so I’ve saved the best ‘til last……………..

For our most recent event, for the first time in a long time, we ventured interstate for a full competition event for full competition points…………… 46 fully paid up members

(although there were a couple of late withdrawals) headed west, over the border into South Australia to what has to now be the most iconic permanent race track in Australia. The Bend Motorsport Park situated just a few k’s east of Tailem Bend, I think has now become, well according to all of the Survey Monkey reviews, a new favourite for our members. Not only is the 18 turn, 4.95k International track a sublime piece of raceway, combine that with a 5 star Rydges Hotel situated right above the pit lane garages on the main straight, this facility has everything a club racer could ever hope for.

Our weekend was a culmination of a lot of work with the MSCA car club especially Bruce and Petrina Astbury, who shared the weekend with us, thus making this a financially viable way to make this happen.

After most of our members arrived on the Friday night, Saturday dawned with a fine and mild day, which was a bit strange to be walking around in a t-shirt on the first weekend of Winter. After a quick briefing we were up and going on the track by 8.35am, as there are no noise restrictions there! As mentioned above we were sharing the day with MSCA so we had 2 groups (2 & 4) and they had 3 (1, 3 and 5). This worked really well as there was time for our members who were sharing cars to do the quick change-over (well done to Pete and Nat Jordan). I won’t go into too much detail here, I’ll leave that for those esteemed members who so kindly “volunteered” to write the article. But what I will say, is that I have already had numerous members who entered this year contact me and ask when we are scheduling the event again for 2024.

Just a little teaser………………….. It’s already in the pipeline!!!!!!!!!!!

I look forward to seeing you at our next event at Sandown on July 9.

Until then, that’s all From Pit Lane

Andrew Smith Competion Director