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The Grand Prix Track Day |
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| It was a week to the day that the
Australian Grand Prix had been run so successfully (again) at Albert Park. It was a bright
sunny morning and there were 83 entrants for the club=s Grand Prix Track Day. Something was obviously in the air. For the first time in my experience just about everyone cam early. Despite the rush we managed to get everything in the administrative area pretty much under control and it was time to hold the Drivers= Briefing. Well that=s what we thought. Unfortunately our ambulance courtesy of St John Ambulance decided to break down. Even more unfortunately it took the best part of an hour and a half to rectify the problem and get an ambulance in attendance. My thanks to Greg Aimers and Michelle Reummler of St John Ambulance for their support. Sitting in the sunshine on a perfect morning with your car ready to go, yet not being permitted on the track, must have added up to a huge frustration to most if not all. Nonetheless the mishap was taken in good cheer and it had a positive result. Those driving on the day had the time to have some chit-chat and renew old acquaintances and develop some new ones. Indeed it all seemed to successful that may be we should plan this type of disruption on a regular basis! (Only kidding) When the day did get underway, the familiarisation period of the morning and some of the Practice period was necessarily abbreviated. With the assistance of Alan Lovett of the VATC we agreed to extend the day to 5.30 pm so that we could maximise the number of timed runs drivers would get. As it transpired we did well, racking up to the order of 850 timed laps versus the usual 1200 or thereabouts. Thankyou for your patience. We have been lucky with the weather at Sandown. In fact it is quite some time since we have had an event disrupted by rain. The conditions on March 14 were as close as possible to perfect and some good times were recorded as a result. A summary of the fastest times recorded by drivers in the >Practice= and >Timed= sessions is shown on this page. To put those times into perspective we have prepared in the table a listing of the quickest times recorded by the more populous marques and by capacity groupings represented on the day.
As the times suggest it was an interesting day. Mike Roddy whilst missing fastest time of the day by about half a second, managed to improve on his best performance recorded at the Annual Spring Track Day in October last year (1:22.88) Another feature of the day was the continued strong presence of the Nissan 200SX and whilst no one has got close to the very quick time put up by Jeff Beable at this event last year (1:24.35), Martin Rogerson's near three second improvement over the day for a 1:29.62 was most impressive. At this event there were more than the customary number of Nissan GTR's. Jeff Beable who is was still developing his car for this years Targa Tasmania was the quickest, but at 1:25.57) was still more than a second behind his time last year in his Nissan 200SX. Obviously the Nissan GTR VspecN has a lot more left in it! Also showing an impressive turn of speed (as usual) was Peter Kyriakidis in his Subaru WRX STIR, a car he has imported himself. Peter got more than four seconds improvement out of the car before it was forced to retire with a serious engine problem (see elsewhere). Chris Stephen in his Subaru WRX STI seems so far to have none of the problems hounding quite a few other STI's and he circulated happily all day without any problems. A feature of the day was the growing number of WRXs in the event. It would appear that the WRX is becoming the successor to the Nissan 200SX. Of particular interest is the continuing improvement in times being recorded by the Jaguar XJ Sprinters. It's not just a matter of increased experience with the circuit either. The cars as a group seem to be getting quicker, reflecting the development these enthusiastic drivers are putting into their vehicles. Paul Zazryn, a regular at our club track days managed to coax a 1:34.80 out of his car only 15/100's ahead of Murray Scoble. These are really excellent performances in cars of this type, particularly when one considers they run an automatic transmission. On balance then, despite the initial setback with the ambulance, the Grand Prix Track day again proved to be a most popular event. There was as usual a good crowd at the Aprés Track BBQ enjoying the refreshments. If you haven't been to a club track day then mark June 27 in your diary for the Winter Track Day at Winton. My thanks for the efforts of all of those who were officials on the day. Whilst I recognise I thank you in each of the track day reports, I can not emphasise enough just how important your efforts are in making our track days a safe environment for all concerned. I certainly appreciate your efforts, as I know the drivers do!
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