3 Marc h 2013
As always with this particular sport, unless you think you have webbed feet you keep an eye on the weather forecast in the days leading up to race day, and again unfortunately the forecasters were correct, we had enough water on the track to make me wish anyway that we had put the wets on rather than the intermediates for practice. Ironically if practice had  started when the organisers were ready we would have run in the dry but we had to wait for the ambulance to turn up. Some smarter drivers decided not to practise at all while others went out for 1 or 2 laps and then returned to the pits. It was really really slippery.

Race one was led away by Ross Golding followed by Tony Galbraith, and then Ron Findlay giving the 260Z an outing with the Muscle and Classic Japanese. We would have had Rowan Tonkin with us for this meeting as well but someone had unfortunately parked a car and locked it in front of his race car which meant Rowan was a non starter for the day. The race itself was run in wet conditions but not as bad as practice judging by the times, or else the pit crews had put something in the coffee of the drivers. The race went without any dramatic incidents. Paul Burnet spun the pink Torana but managed to regain the circuit after a grass mowing excursion, the big horsepower cars managed to get to the front with the winner being Tony Galbraith, followed by Tony Gordon and then Ross Golding.

Race 2 was our first handicap race but by now the track had dried and while drivers were asked to nominate their times it was a lottery, with 5 cars starting from pit lane but not necessarily the right five. However that’s how it goes sometimes. Andrew Turner had made a great effort to ready his other car for this event but the car decided it was going to be difficult and stopped with some electrical problem on lap 4. Most drivers’ lap times had now returned to just about normal and the race was won by Steve Swann, then the Southern Man Duane Ingley followed by another Northern Man Tony Gordon.

Race 3 was again our Tony Gordon Panelbeaters prize money race over 8 laps which again finished without incident. This race seemed to favour the Fords with Tony van Tiel in the big black Falcon XA coupe winning by half a second from Paul Burnet in the pink Torana followed by Duane in the Mustang.
The last event of the day was the after-match function sponsored by Nautech Electonics, again hosted by the very convivial Scary O’Leary in his apartment at Hampton Downs, where we were lucky enough to see the Gis win the second half of the Adelaide 500, well done SVG.

                                                                            Paul Burnet