Grand Prix Track Day
Sandown International Motor Raceway
Sunday, April 2, 2000

• Leading Times by Club members
• Detailed Summary for Drivers, sorted alphabetically

If the club had been in the position of organising the weather for a track day at Sandown it could not possibly have done any better than the weather and track conditions presented on Sunday, April 2 for the club's annual Grand Prix Track Day. Whilst the track was a bit cool and slippery early, as the day warmed up so did the track and the resulting conditions were perfect. With 24 degree, clear blue skies and not even a gentle breeze it one of those legendry Melbourne Autumn days.

Despite the delay in the issue of the March newsletter until after the event, the lack of a reminder that the event was on, did not hinder the 77 who made entries for the day. As it transpired two entries were forced to withdraw in the week prior to the event, a few others had were forced to miss with car problems and some elected to only run in the morning session. The bottom line? There was plenty of track time!

With a Ferrari Club track day to be held at Winton on the following weekend, the Ferrari count was down this year, but the Jaguar, Nissan, Porsche and Subaru contingent was once again in force. As usual there was a very wide range of marques represented - including Andrew Gregory in his Maserati Ghibli Cup.

Whilst there was no shortage of cars, there were a number of familiar faces missing from Pit Lane, most of whom have been busy over the past month with race commitments or getting cars finished for some of the major events to come our way. It was also great to welcome some new faces making their first appearance at a club event.

As to times on the day. Well it proved to be an interesting event. With Vin Macaro and Michael Palmer sharing the same Nissan GTR, the day ended with both sharing near identical times as well. The final result was Vin Macaro with 1:21.58, just 0.19 seconds ahead of Michael Palmer (1:21.77). In fact on two of the four timed laps each made in the GTR they were separated by only 0.1 seconds and on the fourth lap by 1.00 seconds (in Vin Macaro's favour). Whatever the difference is between these two drivers, it certainly is very small.

Making a return to Sandown in the Porsche 968 CS Turbo, Ojars Balodis put in a 1:22.72 for the third fastest time, which was only fractionally behind the time (1:22.22) he recorded at this event in 1998 the last time he used that car.

Simon Gischus in the Nissan 200 SX-R of Rally Tasmania fame (see report in this issue) was right on the heels of Ojars recording a 1:22.73 on 0.01 of a second behind. Simon in fact recorded a quicker time in the morning (1:22.21). This was certainly the quickest a Nissan 200SX has gone round Sandown at a club event. The previous best (1:24.35) was Jeff Beable in his Nissan 200SX at the Grand Prix Track Day in 1998 and that car was certainly not as highly developed as Simon's.

Jeff Beable in fact was only 0.5 of a second back from Ojars Balodis and Simon Gishcus in his Nissan GTR Vspec (1:23.25) which of course has just returned from Rally Tasmania and is presently set up for Targa Tasmania. It was a drive that certainly captured Brett Dunstone's attention: "I think that the drive by Jeff was the best on the day, when you consider how the car was set up!" One thing is for sure, it is certainly just on 2.5 seconds quicker than last year and following his great drive in Rally Tasmania, he looks as if he will have a good event at Targa Tasmania in six weeks time.

Francis Placentino showed that he continues to improve, by bettering his previous best time at a club track day to record a 1:27.04, which is getting very close to the fast Ferrari time recorded by Scott Shearman (1:26.15) in the Ferrari Testarossa at the 1998 Grand Prix Track Day.

There were  other great performances on the day. Alan Pettett is getting closer to getting under 1:30.00 in his PRB Clubman. Paul Zazryn (1;32.64) continues to get quicker in his Jaguar XJ Sprinter and Andrew Ogg finally got under 1:40.00 convincingly with out destroying the motor and recording a 1:38.10 in the Ford Escort Twin Cam.

Fresh from a second in 1999 Classic Adelaide and a win in the 2000 Lactos Heritage Rally, Peter Kyriakidis has been blessed with reasonably reliability from the Ford Escort RS 1600 - well that is until Sunday. Cruising round in the morning with a 1:30.36 Peter's day stopped early as the gremlins crept back into the car and forced him to withdraw from the afternoon session.

There were some good drives in Porsches too. Apart from Ojars, Sven Westphal again demonstrated his talent with a quick 1:25.92 in his late model Porsche 911 RS and Brett Bedggood put in a solid performance in the early Porsche 911 2.7 recording a creditable time of 1:32.54.

Steve Chiodo missed almost everything last year due to business commitments. On returning from the 1999 Lactos he parked the standard Lotus Elise only resurrecting it the night before the event. He put a new battery in and came out to Sandown to enjoy the day. As usual, Steve was right on his old pace and recorded a 1:33.93 in his usual display of consistency.

Peter Strauss who debuted his Iso Grifo at the Phillip Island Historic meeting prior to the Grand Prix brought it and John Harvey along for some testing on the day. The car which is running the engine and gearbox from Chris Stephen's super successful Iso Rivolta was achieved some pretty quick times in the morning (1:26.97) with Peter at the helm, but continued problems with handling slowed the car for much of the day. No doubt it will be in great shape for the next historic event at Winton in May.

For me one of the best performances of the day was that of Susan High in the Audi A3. In her first appearance in the car and the first ever on a race circuit she started off tentatively. In the practice session she managed to record a 2:01.26. By the time she got round to the start of the Timed sessions she managed to get under the 2 minute barrier and on her very last lap of the day put in a very creditable 1: 51.81. Congratulations Susan!

In a similar performance Simon Templer's son Andrew came along for the day complete with his new club membership card and recently acquired CAMS licence. In his first outing in the Torana A9X he started off slowly with times just under two minutes (1:57.45) but by the end of the session he put in a 1:34.49. Another great performance.

In general terms it could be said that the times at this year's event were certainly in general better than those recorded at the two Sandown events in 1999. Obviously everyone is getting better.

Whilst there were a few retirements during the day due to mechanical problems, the event was free from incident. Special thanks to those who volunteered their services as flag marshalls and the many others who volunteered their services on the day. Without the assistance of such volunteers we could not run the event.