President’s Day Social

Andrew Hall

With the end of the competition season put to bed and all the major trophies awarded to the winners, President’s Day is the ideal opportunity to relax and enjoy taking friends and family out for a few laps around the Sandown circuit.

The day began under gloomy skies after a dumping of overnight rain, but with a stiff southerly breeze and the sun trying to poke its face through the clouds, it wasn’t going to be too long before the track started to dry out.

64 entered cars and drivers were on hand and after the briefing all of us formed a guard of honour to pay our respects to our dear colleague Linley Baxter who recently passed away. Linley’s wife Helen and his son Simon drove their red 991 through the applauding crowd and took Linley’s car on one last lap of the circuit. A fitting tribute to a great clubman.

The first passenger session was a little sketchy, with water running over the track at a couple of points, but with the skill of our drivers, everything seemed to stay ontrack for most of the morning sessions.

Over the lunch break, the club was able to support Porsche Cars Australia in organising the largest gathering of Taycans assembled in Australia. After the photo opportunity was complete, they all headed off on a “parade lap” behind Will Darvall’s 550 Spyder pacecar.

We were also able to offer a couple of parade laps for our social members again behind a pacecar. Please refer to their full story later in the magazine.

During the lunch break a short downpour had the Clerk of Course declare a “wet track” which sent all of those group 1 slick tyre cars scurrying off to grab their wets. However, after the rain the sun re-appeared which changed the mind of the Clerk of Course and he in his wisdom changed the track to “dry” (well semi dry anyway) which again had all the group 1 cars changing back to the slicks!!!

As the afternoon progressed, we were lucky with the weather and no further rain effected us. In fact the track dried up quite quickly and the passengers had a great experience of how our cars can perform on a dry track (at 80% of course!!!)

The weather Gods smiled on us and we were able to complete the afternoon before another front dumped a tonne of rain on us just as we were all cleaning out the garages and getting cars on trailers. A quick refreshment and a bite to eat rounded out the day with our friends and families.

Another successful President’s Day.

Special thanks to our marshals and flaggies for again standing out in some pretty ordinary weather, but the biggest thanks of the day must go to the President’s wife for the time and effort it took to man the sign on desk ALL DAY. With over 380 passengers rides given over the day, Caroline often had a queue of people waiting to sign in and get their wristband. Oh the joys of being the President’s wife!!!

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone on the Competition Committee for their assistance this year, especially our President Mark, Andrew Bonwick for his wisdom and insight, Andy Hall and Phil Treloar for looking after Entrée class, Pete Harrison and Tony Carolan as ex Competition Directors and last, but by no means least, Richard Catchlove, the Competition Secretary with the best legs in the club (not bad in a short skirt either!!) who I have enjoyed working closely with this year.

Our first event is scheduled and locked in for Phillip Island on Saturday January 21st. Unfortunately, our preferred date in Feb was taken from us so there weren’t a lot of alternatives. Next years calendar is still not finalised as some dates we thought had secured are now hanging due to major track works occurring at Phillip Island to bring the track up to new FIA standards (mainly for Moto GP), major works at Caulfield horse racing track, which means more horse racing at Sandown, and an International event now scheduled for the long weekend in June at The Bend where we were pencilled in. Once we can obtain firm dates we will advise by email and on the club website.

I wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

For 2022, that’s all From Pit Lane.

Juris Briedis

Ken Eve Peter Harrison

Jesse Bryan

Jeremy Fredersdorff

Peter Fitzgerald Jesse Bryan Stephen Sluga

Belucci Murelli Michael Minshall Simon Baxter

President’s Day - Sandown Experience

Sunday 20th November 2022 Story: Russell Sturzaker Photos by: Ron Widdison, Neville Sampson, Porsche Cars Australia & SD Pics

Well Sunday 20th November arrived and we didn’t know quite what to expect from the man upstairs ….. the lead up to our day had been all over the place with brilliant sunshine one day, and torrential rain the next.

However Sunday dawned as basically a fine day with a few threatening clouds providing an occasional rain shower but not enough to dampen our day. Following on from last year’s very successful President’s Day – Sandown Experience we decided to run this event again, but this year we added a little twist.

With the assistance of Porsche Cars Australia, and our three Melbourne Porsche Dealerships we decided to invite every Melbourne Porsche Taycan Purchaser to join us at President’s Day to show them what the Porsche Club of Victoria is all about, and to provide them the opportunity to feel and experience what it’s like to participate in a Club Track Day.

On seeing the number of RSVP’s being accepted it soon became obvious that we were going to have a record on our hands as over 40 x Taycans attended our day, with some already having joined the club to be part of our growing EV Register.

Situated at Sandown International Motor Raceway our day included …

• New Porsche Vehicle Display provided by Porsche Centre Melbourne, Porsche Centre Brighton and Porsche Centre Doncaster. • Viewing the Largest Single Display of Porsche Taycans in the Southern Hemisphere. • Gourmet BBQ Lunch with unlimited drinks package (provided by Fabulous Catering) • Marquee with tables, seating and market umbrellas provided. • Music provided during the lunch break • Escorted Pit Walks • Parade Laps on the magnificent Sandown circuit (speed limited behind a pace car) • Participation in Passenger Laps around Sandown with a Competition Member • Joining fellow club members, and generally having fun at our final social event for 2022. Our Day commenced around 10.00am with well over 200 Members and invited Taycan Attendees arriving at the circuit, and after grabbing a coffee from the food van at the circuit, most visited the viewing areas to watch the morning passenger lap session taking place on the circuit.