This year=s Winter Track Day worked out to be the best conducted by the club since we started the concept in 1997. In that year we ran the event at Phillip Island and nearby Bass Strait turned on a typical winter=s day. Last year, in search of better weather, we went to Winton and we were greeted with a deluge. This year however, apart from the early morning chill which is par for the course at this time of year, we had an absolutely perfect day.

Conducting the event at Winton provides an opportunity for those who want to run in the Six Hour to get some extra laps in. Because of its proximity to Melbourne the field size at this event is always well below what we have become accustomed to at Sandown. Nonetheless, with a number of the Ballarat Light Car Club members present we exceed our expectations of 30 or so cars and a total of 42 paid entries were registered for the day.  A summary of leading times by Maserati Club members is provided on this page, and a summary of the best time achieved by each driver in the Morning and Timed Sessions is provided.  Detailed laps times by Drivers may be downloaded from the Download section.

As usual at Winton, because of the size of the field, there was plenty of track time. It was an interesting day and some very good times were recorded. For a few the morning practice session proved to be the only session they got to run. Guy Edmonds had a minor, yet terminal problem with his turbo and Jeff Beable after posting a very creditable 1:41:00 experienced some problems with the ABS resulting in four flat-spotted tyres. The two fronts were in fact down to the canvas!

Ted Fregon with some opposition from Stephen Harper who was sharing the car and Kerry Bruty from the BLCC managed to achieve the fastest time for a Porsche on the day. His other singularly great achievment was to take some photographs, some of which appear in this section.

We had a few members from AROCA along on the day, all of whom put in some pretty good times. The prettiest car (?), well the brightest anyway, was the Alfa Romeo 105GTV driven by Bruno Colauatti and Joe Querico.  .
Bruno got the car down to a 1:44.85 a four second improvement over his morning time.

Andrew Ogg brought wife Kath along ... in part I think to convince her that what he was doing when he was off on one of these days or in Tasmania at Targa or Lactos was really hard work. Kath appeared quite nonplussed and armed with her newly acquired CAMS licence got in the car and produced a creditable time in the morning session.

New members Kevin and Wendy De Haan appeared to have a good day ... no doubt shattered to some extent when Graeme Hitchell arrived in the STI and showed everyone just how quick these cars could be. No matter, Wendy De Haan achieved a personal milestone and chopped five seconds off her morning time and broke the magic two minute mark. Well done Wendy!On balance it was a good weekend. The Saturday night dinner at the Kim Wah for the 16 or so souls who ventured
up the night before was great ... but we missed that special flair of Winston Kim.
Special thanks go to the small, but energetic crew who made the day possible: David Floyd (Clerk of Course) John Aust (Start/Finish line), Greg & Simon Aimers (Timekeeping) and Norman May & Alison Rose. Special thanks to the drivers who pitched in and gave a hand: Jeff & Nerida Beable, Kerry Bruty, Robert Case, Alan Michael, Steve Smith.

Our thanks also to the members of BLCC and AROCA who came along and helped make it an interesting day.

We will look forward to seeing you all again at Sandown on Sunday, October 17, 1999.