Annual Spring Track Day
Sandown International Motor Raceway
Sunday, October 29,  2000

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

Although the forecast was uncertain, Sunday, October 29, 2000 turned out to be another fine day.  Whilst we were not blessed with sunshine for the entire day, it was certainly ‘out and about’ from 11.00 am through to at least 2.00 pm resulting in a track that got up to temperature reasonably quickly in the day and managed to hold it fairly well.  Although still held in October, the day was a little later than usual and for the first time in many years followed the historic meeting.  The later date was due to the impact of the Olympics and a heavily rescheduled motorsport program at Sandown, relative to previous years. 

In fact Sandown was a pretty busy place in October with a round of the State Series on Sunday, October 1, V8 Supercars on the 8^th , a horserace on the 15^th, the VHRR Historics on the 22^nd and of course the Maserati Club on the 29^th.   There were some club members attempting to do the lot - didn’t go to the horserace, so I am not sure about that one! 

The highlight of the day was no doubt Mike Roddy’s return to Sandown in the black XJS - mind you they had both seen a bit of the circuit throughout October.  The car however was well set up, a few kilograms lighter and the driver keen to set a good time.  Mike wasn’t disappointed and managed to get in a 1:18.55 to take out FTD and incidentally the quickest time recorded at a Club track day at this venue.  Well done Mike! 

There were of course a lot of good times recorded on the day.  At the pointy end of the field was Simon Froude who was in the 1:19's in the morning.  Simon courtesy of the club got a few laps by himself and a potential sponsor - the club was pleased to have the opportunity to do this as a means of congratulating Simon for his performance in winning the Australian Porsche Cup Series this year.  Well done Simon!

Sam Markov put in some impressive times in his Nissan GT-R and was just pipped by Romano Piva in his Porsche GT2 getting higher up the finishing ladder in terms of the day’s quickest times.  With Simon Gishcus and his powerful Nissan 200SX-R, Michael Palmer and Jeff Beable with their GT-R’s not present on the day, we didn’t get a repeat of the very closely matched times of this group as we had earlier in the year at the Grand Prix Track Day.

Of particular interest was Brett Dunstone in his Jaguar XJS which despite some overheating problems posted a very respectable 1:24.27.  Gary Tierney usually associated with his Mustang or DAX Cobra showed up in a Porsche GT3 with a 1:24.37 just a second ahead of the redoubtable Brian Power in his Porsche RSCS. 

There were a lot of interesting cars present on the day as well.  Glenn Miles in his Chrysler Charger (1:30.08) reminded us of what a quick car the Charger was in its day.  John Rundell who had run into some problems at Targa with his XJS showed that the car was back on track with a sub 1:30 performance.  Similarly Geoff Taylor who managed to
spin the Porsche Carrera in mid-air at Targa earlier in the year (without touching the roof and landing on all four wheels) had the Kodak-yellow car there demonstrating that both he and the car had totally recovered.  Alan Pettett arrived in the only Porsche Boxster and posted the quickest time we have seen a Boxster do at Sandown - only a shade off his times in the PRB Clubman.  Colin Stark came along in his beautiful Alpine Renault A610 accompanied by John Hardy in his ‘daily driver’ a Renault Alpine GTA V6 Turbo. Deano Brandi gave the Porsche a rest and came along in his Bolwell Mk IV which at 1600 cc compared to the Porsche Turbo must have felt like travelling in a bus.  

Paul Zazryn continued to demonstrate the continued performance improvement in the XJ Sprinters and we got him at 1:33.27.  It wasn’t so long ago that most thought the Sprinters would never get under 1:35.  On this particular Sunday there were four under this time. 

Many others on the day were chasing personal targets.  Andrew Ogg for instance was trying to get under 1:40.00 consistently without blowing the engine of his Ford Escort Twin Cam - he is after all on his third engine since the 1998 event!   Well, Andrew managed to get into the 1:30's pretty consistently recording a best of 1:37.83 before the gear box let go!   Fragile things those Escorts. 

Dee Stephen was back again as well.  Having struggled to beat 2.00.00 a year ago, Dee had a breakthrough at the Grand Prix Track Day and not only got under 2 minutes in the Mercedes, but achieved a further breakthrough and got it down to just under 1:50.00.   In what was no doubt an inspired session Dee put in a number of times under the 1:45.00 mark with a best of 1:43.04.  No doubt the next target is 1:40.00.  Well done Dee! 

Alan Michael many will remember in his Lister Jag or Ferrari 308QV or more recently his silver Ferrari 355 at various track days.  For this event Alan brought along his magnificent, delivery mileage only, Ferrari 550 Maranello.  Driving prudently, nonetheless Alan was no doubt surprised that he was travelling a second or so faster than in the 355.  Well done Alan! 

Although there were no incidents on the day, there were however a number of cars (apart from Andrew Ogg) forced to make an early withdrawal from the event.   Some of the mechanical problems were worse than others.  We trust each of the affected cars makes a speedy and hopefully an economical recovery.  There is no doubt that the Annual Spring Track Day was once again a successful event for most (if not all) those who attended.  Thanks are of course due to the team of club officials who made the event possible.  We will look forward to seeing everyone again in 2001!