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Annual Spring Track Day |
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| Usually held on the first Sunday
in October each year, this year the club=s Annual Spring Track Day at Sandown was held a couple of weeks
later. This gave those who were so inclined the opportunity to participate in the HRA
Spring Tour (reported last issue), trek down to Phillip Island and watch Mick Doohan win
his first FIM 500GP at that venue and secure his fifth world title in the process, or to
camp in front of TV and watch the Supertourers and support races. Despite the more >favourable= timing, the event was scheduled one week prior to the Sandown Historics, it still managed to conflict with the Porsche picnic and the Ferrari rally in WA. Such is the crowded club and motorsport calendar these days!Nothwithstanding the absence of a few >regulars= more than 90 entries were lodged for the event. Despite the usual few withdrawals on the day, due to the perennial mechanical problem, a final field of 84 assembled to participate in what turned out to be a great day.To watch the proceedings, the club was delighted to have some official guests for the day from the CAMS State Executive. Present were Trevor Fry (State Manager), Bill Bennett (State President) and Peter Nelson (State Councillor). Whilst a few of our quicker regulars were unable to attend (eg Rusty French, Simon Froude, Ojars Balodis, Jeff Beable) there were plenty of others to take their places. The day got off to a good start with bright sunny weather. The forecast rain managed to hold off until the finish of the event. Track conditions were at their optimum however in the >morning= practice sessions when track temperature reached its optimum. Cloud cover in the afternoon and a slight breeze managed to cool the track down a little resulting in a pleasant afternoon if not optimum conditions for really quick times.Luke Warwick driving the Porsche RSCS that he and (father) Max took to third place in the Oamps Insurance Classic for GT-P only a few weeks before took advantage of the optimum >morning= conditions and posted a 1:20:32, but did not manage to get close to that time in the official >timed session= later in the day.Whilst the pointy end of the field missed a few well known faces and Porsche representation was down, this was made up for by a strong contingent of Jaguars and in particular the XJ Sprinters which are becoming increasingly popular. Also well represented on the day were Audi and Subaru WRX =s, the latter rapidly becoming the >car of choice= for many who want to run a car in club rally events and club track days.In keeping with the many quick times recorded in this day each year was the fine 1:22:88 of Mike Roddy in his heavily campaigned Jaguar XJS. Mike recorded fastest time of day. Congratulations! Not far behind was Max Warwick in the Porsche RSCS (1:23:16) and Sven Westphal (1:24:67) in his newly acquired Porsche 911 RS. A summary of the fastest times recorded by drivers in the >Practice= and >Timed= sessions is shown at the end of this article. To put those times into perspective, we have prepared in the table below a listing of the quickest times recorded by the more populous vehicle marques and by capacity groupings represented on the day.
With Scott Shearman forsaking the Ferrari Testarossa for his 1960 Aston Martin DB4 (1:33:15), his previous quickest Ferrari time (1:26:15 [ a 1:23:21 in practice] at the 1998 GP Track Day) was under threat. It didn =t work out that way however. Kieran Patel driving his Ferrari 355 did post the quickest time for a Ferrari on the day (1:28:91) and the third fastest time recorded by a Ferrari 355 at a club event at Sandown (Joe Vodopic Ferrari 355 Challenge [1:26.63] and Francis Placentino Ferrari 355 [1:27:03] at the 1998 GP Track Day.The Iso Rivolta of Chris Stephen got a solid work-out on the day. Apart from Chris, both son Mark and Rian Nott also give the car >heaps=. In fact Mark must have really put the wind up Chris because his time of 1:33:25 in his first real session in the car was quicker than the best Chris had driven to that point. Somewhat perturbed it seems, this encouraged Chris to post a lap of 1:28:09 which was more than 3 seconds under the SB Sports & Racing lap record (1:31:56) for this historic category at Sandown. It was a time he managed to repeat a week later at Historic Sandown and formally capture the lap record for this category.Amongst more than a dozen >XJ Sprint= Jaguar XJ6's, Brian Wheeler put in the quickest time (1:36:60) just 6 one-hundredths of a second ahead of Paul Zazryn.To prove the point of the day, indeed the stated purpose, there were some significant improvements in times recorded across the day. The greatest improvement of more than 11 seconds was achieved by Bill Nurdag in his Audi 90 Quattro. Other Audi drivers showing significant improvement were Lucas Lozo (8 secs), Robert Pettet (4 secs) and Jay Palmer (3 secs). Amongst the XJ Sprinters significant improvements were also recorded by Bob How (6 secs) and Haydn Grigor (4 secs). Michael Farinaccio driving his Chevrolet Corvette, despite difficulties with brakes, managed to improve his times more than 6 seconds. As has almost become the custom, the Annual Spring Track Day at Sandown once again proved to be a great day. We were delighted to see such a wide range of marques represented on the day and particularly the many drivers who put their cars on the circuit for the first time. Good track days of course do not occur by accident, they are the result of the inspired contribution of officials on the day. Special thanks to David Floyd for his role as Deputy Clerk of Course, Mario Lombardi and his crew of Scrutineers, John Aust and his flag marshalls, Carol Williams for catering, Jonneke Lombardi for her assistance in Administration, Robert Dibbs and his colleagues from Victorian Fire & Rescue and of course St John =s Ambulance.
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