Club Track Day - 7th December 2014
13 February 2015 / Words by Mike Hicks, photos by Greg Unger and Ann Alexander
Our last Club Track Day for 2014 was shaping up to be a fantastic event. An invitation for the Toyota 86 Club to join us had resulted in nine of their members entering. This added to our normal strong entry for our December round, and resulted in a record field of 93 cars being accepted.
Those of us that drove down to Goulburn on Saturday afternoon wondered if the following day was going to be as expected. For about two hours the heavens opened up dropping 50mm of rain on Goulburn and its surrounds including Wakefield Park. The rain continued on well into Saturday night and reports of further rain coming up from the coast were not encouraging.
Fortunately we were greeted by a foggy Sunday morning; hopefully once the fog lifted we would enjoy a clear day. However conditions at the track were not good. A lot of soil had been washed across the track the previous afternoon. Wakefield Park's Sam was working furiously to get the track into a reasonable condition. A lot of sweeping was required however it was not possible to remove the dirt completely; hopefully the cars would do that in the first runs. A considerable amount of water was removed from "Lake Feutrill" just after the fish hook and there was a little seepage on the exit of turn 10 onto the main straight. The first few laps of the first run were run under "yellows" as a precaution.
Jean Cook and Craig Durrant acted jointly as Clerk of the Course; Joe Kovacic once again had the dummy grid under control with assistance from Chris Roberts on the PA. Dad, Phil Roberts and Robert Kai acted as the Circuit Entry Marshal and Flag Marshal at the Control Tower. Zan, Narelle & Steph looked after timing whilst Cobie & Marilyn handled Registration and then looked after the lights with assistance from Louise and Sandra. Thank you also to all the members who pitched in at Scrutineering.
With a large entry and in order to ensure competitors were provided with sufficient runs some of the groups had 14 cars which is the maximum allowable circuit density for a CAMS Supersprint at Wakefield Park. This allowed us to run seven groups with the last one being for "first timers". Amongst the entries were a few interesting ones. Russ Maxwell fronted with his "pretty" yellow NB Coupe, one of only two in Australia with less than 300 ever being manufactured. We had two scribes from the Sydney Press, Peter Barnwell who has become a regular and Consolidated Press’ Joshua Dowling peddling a very quick yet standard Ford Fiesta ST. The Herrings from the Mid North Coast arrived with their "Green Machine" for Todd, a second "Green Machine" for Timmy, a Cobra for Richard and an NB for Kristy. Chris Gough entered an "Exocet" - a clubbie with MX-5 running gear - not a missile just yet. The modified road registered NBs in class 6 had the strongest entry with 14 cars. Eight ladies were amongst the entrants, including long time club stalwart Matilda Mravicic making a welcome return driving husband Nick's SP Turbo race car.
As a mark of respect for Canberra Member and Track Day Competitor Russell Battisson, a minute of noise was observed at lunch time. We hope you enjoyed it Russell. Russell passed away approximately two weeks earlier following a severe asthma attack, 37 years of age is far too young to die. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to the Battissons - we’ll all miss Russell’s cheeky grin.
Fortunately the weather held off all day and the track "cleaned up" allowing competitors the opportunity to complete six timed runs of six minutes each. Well done to Jean and Craig and all the officials in achieving this. Fastest Time of the Day went to Matilda with a time of 1:05.57, Todd Herring recorded a best time of 1:07.03 followed by Richard in the Cobra with a 1:07.77, there is nothing like the sound of a throaty V8. Newcomer Chris White recorded a 1:08.30 and Mark Hellmund did a 1:08.64 before retiring early with a cracked brake rotor. Fastest of the 86s was Simon Smith who recorded a 1:11.17.
More photos from Greg Under here, and from Ann Alexander here.
