Unlike the Austin 7 Clubs Historic Winton meeting usually held in the last week of May each year, the club has been fortunate with the timing of its Winter Track Day held one month later. For the last few years we have been blessed with fine weather, even sunshine and warm conditions. Not so Historic Winton which appears to be destined to suffer the worst of conditions each year - rain, hail, sleet etc. This year proved no exception.

For most of us city-dwellers the Winton trip involves some 3 hours travel by car just to get to the circuit. Thats one reason why its a good idea to go up the night before and enjoy a good meal in pleasant company before the event on the following day (see report elsewhere).

We had quite a few at the Saturday night dinner this year, thats why it was no surprise to see a queue at Scrutineering at 8.00 am on the Sunday morning. What was surprising was the queue was largely occupied by those who didnt go to the dinner, but had journeyed to Winton that morning. So much for staying overnight!

Despite an early morning overcast which cleared to periods of sunshine the Winter Track Day was held in good conditions again this year. Apart from an initial logjam in Scrutineering and the sweeping of the track by the Race Safe Motorsport Safety Team the event got underway pretty much on time. The Clerk of Course who had enjoyed the best of wine on Saturday night however was somewhat slow in his delivery of the Drivers Briefing but managed to make sufficient sense in the end for the event to start. With the change in the clubs regulations this year, we ran with a slightly higher track density and in the Morning practice sessions we gave drivers 7 full laps before reverting to sessions of 5 timed laps later in the day.

Whilst the field did not reach the epic proportions of last year when some 60 drivers showed up, the field was nonetheless large enough with some 50 entries and 46 in attendance. With the Ferrari Club track day held on the previous day some members took advantage of the circumstance and ran in both events.

Conditions in the late morning were excellent and with the track temperature up some quick times were recorded in the latter stages of the Morning Practice session. Max Warwick in the Porsche 911 GT3 who only drove the morning session for example, posted a time of 1:30.58, which if he had hung around and posted it again in the Official Timed Session would have been good enough for FTD. Similarly, Tom Warwick put in a !:41.37 in the Ferrari 360 Modena Challenge and it would have been interesting to see whether he could repeat the sub 1:40 time he had put in the previous day. Others who had planned a complete day were less fortunate.

Peter Kyriakidis had the Escort going well before he encountered clutch problems, so his 1:41.87 in the morning session was a disappointment as he was denied the opportunities to repeat the 1:39 he ran in the car at this circuit last year. Similarly Brett Dunstone had posted a quick 1:37.82 in the morning and co-driver Neville Dickinson also got under 1:40 with a a1:39.64. Unfortunately, early into the Official Timed session in the afternoon, a mechanical failure leading to a spectacular spin left the car sidelined for the rest of the day. Youve got to admire Bretts persistence with that car though!

So whilst the Official Timed Session was minus one or two, there was a closely fought competition for FTD, with the honour going to Luke Warwick in the Porsche 911 GT3. Congratulations Luke!

Following close behind Luke Warwick was local Sam Markov (1:33.56) in the very quick Nissan GT-R who was only 0.5 sec behind. Less than a second further back in third place was Gary Tierney (1:34.28) in his Porsche 911 GT3 who managed to put a bit over a second on Francis Placentino (1:35.51) in his Ferrari 355GTS.

There were in fact seven cars under 1:40 and the next three cars were closely matched. Graeme Hitchell (1:36.23) in the Subaru WRX STI showed that he is always quick no matter what he is in. Brett Bedggood (1:36.26) who is currently running in the VMRC series showed the benefits of competition by posting times that were 6 seconds faster than he was doing at this time last year on this circuit. And Laurie Weston (1:36.43) in that interesting Mitsubishi Lancer LA Coupe was a model of consistency with his times.

Not far away and close to getting under 1:40 were Tim Hendy (1:40.16) in the Nissan Skyline GT-R and Steve Canny (1:40.31) was showing Brian (1:42.20) that his Porsche 968CS would go a couple of seconds faster!

There were some interesting cars and performances on the day. New member Steve Schuler made an appearance in the ex Don Thallon Corvette. Given that the car is RHD and it was Steves first appearance on an Australian circuit in an unfamiliar car his 1:48.83 was impressive. Equally impressive were the XJ Sprinters of Timothy Vibert (1:42.51) and Bob How (1:43.95). It was good to see the Morris Cooper S of Neil McLeod, the Falcon XR GT of Jim Stephen and some more contemporary Falcons in attendance. Barry Bedggood continues to improve in the Nissan Pulsar GtiR.

A summary of times recorded in both sessions is shown in the table.

We were a bit short-staffed for this years event. Special thanks therefore to Greg Aimers for his efforts in Timing, Peter Eames on the Start/Finish line and to Jack Klaver for his assistance in Event Administration. Getting the event started would have been a battle without the assistance of Peter Jacobs, Ben McKee, Philip Meiklejohn, Sam Visvader and Doug Willersdorf-Greene.

Jason Hendy took a number of photographs of cars in action during the course of the day and you can find these photographs on the club website