The MSCA 2001 Winton 6 Hour got off to a promising start this year. First of all there was a packed grid of 38 teams and even a team or two in reserve hoping for a spot - such has been the resurgence in popularity of this event. Secondly practice and qualifying on the Saturday commenced in sunshine and managed to stay that way all day. In 2000 it managed to rain most of Saturday, leaving Team Managers pondering the question, will it be wet, dry or intermediate for the event. Whilst the circumstances had changed this year, the question of weather still dominated discussion at 5.00 pm on Saturday afternoon when Team Managers were due to nominate times for their teams.

For TEAM MASERATI our weekend got off to a flying start on Friday night with a team dinner at Georginas Restaurant in Benalla. It proved a good opportunity for team drivers and officials to get together to sort out some of the necessary details before the event got underway the following day. It also served to underline the fact that the Winton 6 Hour is very much a TEAM event which utilises the skills and abilities of both drivers and officials.

Team Composition

This years event saw the club enter four teams for the first time, a further reflection of interest in the event. With the increased interest, securing a place for the fourth team was not without some difficulty and in fact the final team only managed to secure its place a week or so prior to the event. The teams for this years event were:

The determination of team composition of course took place well prior to the event. In prior years the club has been successful in gaining podium places as well as class awards and it was hoped that we would be successful again this year and perhaps take the next step and win the event. Accordingly, teams were selected with a view to maximising the teams overall performance by selecting a team that was eligible for the pre-1970' award, one for the under 2 litre award, three that were eligible for the post-1970' award and two that were eligible for the over 2 litre award, whilst seeking to ensure that each team would be competitive in handicap terms for the overall team award.

As those who are familiar with this event will know the key to a competitive team is not so much outright speed, but the ability to drive closely to a nominated time. The team that manages to drive the closest to its nominated time, irrespective of speed, is usually the winner of the event. If overall speed can be combined with a team that can drive closely to its nominated times, then this is a real bonus and will put that team in a winning position. The four teams we had selected were never going to be the quickest, but each had a combination of one or two quick cars with one or two highly consistent, albeit slower cars, so as to achieve four competitive combinations.

Dry, Intermediate or Wet? The big question

The big question on Saturday afternoon was, what would the weather do? Ojars Balodis (who pilots a plane when not in his Porsche) managed to obtain a forecast from the local airport of the likely local weather conditions in the area for the Sunday. The result was a forecast for persistent rain. The question was how heavy would the rain be? Would it be a real deluge, or would it be a drizzle that would permit the emergence of a dry-line and therefore enable quick times to be achieved.

By 5.00 pm when nominated times were due to be lodged for each team, the Team Managers had developed both wet and dry nominated times for each team. Following team discussions it was decided that drizzle was more likely and therefore dry times should be submitted. It was a decision that we would have the opportunity to review however, following the Drivers Briefing the following morning.

Discussion of likely weather conditions for the Winton area continued over the Team Dinner that night. The 40 members of TEAM MASERATI swapped yarns and weather forecasts for most of the evening at the Hideout Restaurant at the Executive Hideaway. The Hideout Restaurant proved to be a good choice and provided not only a good meal, but a great environment for the whole team to get together and discuss the day to come.

Race Day

Sunday morning was overcast but dry. The forecast we had received just before leaving the Hideout Restaurant suggest that it would start the rain at about 10.00 am, which just happened to be the start of the race. Following drivers briefing at about 9.15 am the team managers met and determined to leave the dry nominated times stand. It proved to be a fateful decision.

We learned about 30 minutes later as we were about to grid up for the event that the four Porsche teams and quite a few others had done a late switch and were going to run on wet times, which meant if they were right about the weather conditions there teams would run closer to their nominated times than ours. For us, it was too late.

Sitting on the starting grid just prior to the warm-up laps, we began to get a sprinkle of rain. By the time we had completed the warm-up and the red lights went out, signifying the start of the event, the heavens opened up and it started to rain. Those in the team who had been concerned about brake or excessive tyre wear problems on a dry track were now floundering around in the lake that the circuit had become. With the rain cycling between steady to heavy for the first four hours of the event, our selection of dry times emerged as the worst possible decision we had taken at the event.

By 2.00 pm, four hours into the event, the rain had started to ease. By 3.00 pm it had stopped and within 10 minutes there was a dry-line emerging right around the circuit. For the four Maserati teams the emergence of the dry-line emerged as a bit of a saviour as each team happened to have its quickest driver on the circuit and each of the teams managed to make up some ground. Alas however the damage had been done earlier in the day.

Nonetheless, given the circumstances, each team performed creditably. Next year we might pay a bit more attention to the forecast rather than attempting to second-guess the forecaster. The end result for this year was that we failed to get on the podium and failed to win a class award. We have been most fortunate to achieved both in each year we have entered the event previously. I guess theres always next year.

Congratulations are of course in order to the Porsche Club of Victoria who managed to take out 1^st, 3^rd, 4^th and 6^th places. TEAM MASERATIs performance in finishing 9^th , 10^th, 13^th and 24^th in a highly competitive field of 38 teams, was in the circumstances a solid performance.

Thanks are due to the drivers who participated in the event, particularly those such as Glenn Read and Steve Coad who travelled big distances to get there. This years team was well prepared and apart from a few more than anxious moments on Saturday all vehicles got to take part in the event, save for Jack Klaver who was a late withdrawal - reducing TEAM MASERATI BLUE to just three cars.

Special thanks to Carol Williams for organising the team regalia and to Carol and Sarah OBrien for not only providing some outstanding trackside catering, but for also helping out with the teams.