2019 Round One Hill Climb – From Go to Whoa!
28 June 2019 / Story by Andrew Digney, Photos by David Gazzard
It all starts around six weeks prior. Decide on the track layout or layouts. I decided this time around on two courses to get two times for each competitor and add some more flavour to the day. Set the Supplementary Regulations (you know, the one nobody reads) and get Ian to organise a CAMS permit for the event. Let's do a Single Club permit to keep the costs down in anticipation of lower attendance. Then the most tortuous part of the planning, open the event on CAMS Event Entry and hope the issues that seem to plague this system don't torture me into an early grave. No surprise, there were issues, but I survived.
After the entries close, scrutineering sheets, drivers sign on sheets, officials/volunteer sign on sheets and print a few other CAMS reports just in case something untoward happens. Thankfully there were no reportable incidents on the day, closest we came was a driver had a long slide into the wet grassy basin at the bottom of the downhill finishing straight after an overly exuberant approach to the finish line.
So how was the day you ask? Enjoyable and cold with 22 drivers and 13 officials/volunteers. There were a mix of chapters that attended with special mentions to Steven Davis, Rochelle Prattley and Jon Millard travelling from Canberra to participate. All drivers were members of the MX-5 Club of NSW, and even with a small field of cars we still managed to have a few interesting cars attend – a supercharged ND MX-5, a Formula Vee, a Renault Megane.
Worthy points of interest.
1. Fastest car of the day – Paul Bower in his modified NC on R-specs set a blistering pace.
2. Jake Murphy and Daniel McKay sticking around till the end of the day and getting 18 runs each.
3. Rod Berwick – Slide of the day.
4. Running drivers in three groups and each group doing three runs each to help add some flavour. This gave everyone an opportunity to get a little heat in their tyres and was even looked at favourably by the MG Car Club members that were present.
5. There were quite a few spectators and visitors during the day for such a small event.
6. Thanks to all the volunteers that assisted – Andrew Digney, David Wilson, Jean Cook, Josh Allen, David & Elaine Gazzard, Christine Cameron, Robert Pimm, David Ho and Michael DeMaio. Special mention to Jason and Darrell Gregory of the MG Car Club who have Flag Marshalled at every MX-5 Club Hill Climb I have attended. Their dedication is greatly appreciated. Also, Michael Hall of the MG Car Club for his operation of the timing system.
And finally, after the gates are closed and locked, go home, do all the CAMS reporting, tally and collate the results, send off the driver and volunteer details for club points and start thinking about the next Hill Climb.
Click here for the full results
Click here for David's complete photo album
