For the first race of the season the weather was surprising good, with cool but dry conditions. We had a great turnout of 17 cars: 15 were club members with a couple of invited Datsun 240Zs.
We had 3 new members on the grid with us, Ross Christensen in the SLR 5000 Torana, Ross Graham in the SS Torana hatchback and Stuart Rowling in the Walkinshaw Commodore. It was also great to see Justin Butcher back in the green XE Falcon, Cam Crawford in the yellow XA Falcon coupe along with Calvin Andrew with the ex Trans Am Light Commodores . Paul Burnet’s pink XU-1 was missing from this event as it is having a new gearbox fitted.
Ross Christensen’s practice was slightly shattered when on the first lap on the tack in his new car the windscreen decided it had had enough and showered Ross with glass.
Race 1 had a somewhat eventful first lap with pole sitter Dean Perkins getting a puncture and having to return to the pits for a replacement. Dean did manage to get back on the track helped by the Safety car that was needed to recover Anthony Baker’s very fast 240Z which had lost oil pressure. Ross Christensen in typical motor racing spirit had broken out the remainder of the front screen, removed the rear one and had a good result coming home in a draughty 7th place. Calvin Andrew’s Commodore was retired for the day after a gearbox caused an off-track excursion. The results for race one were:
Class A: Tony Galbraith, Justin Butcher, Andrew Turner.
Class B: Veen Smith, Cam Crawford , Michael Crawley.
Invitation: Mike Dias, Ron Findlay, Ross Graham
Race 2 was the first handicap race that had an unusual twist with Dean Perkins somehow being recorded with a lap time in race 1 of 1:05 which may not have been correct, hence his handicap was quite large. Tony Galbraith, who should have started in front of Dean, was late to his car, missed the warm up lap and then had to start behind Dean. The race itself was a good, incident-free event with the handicapping suiting the Class B cars, in particular the windscreen-less Ross Christensen. The final overall results being:
Ross Christensen, Michael Crawley, Graham Cargill.
Race 3 as usual was the race that the prize money from Tony Gordon Panel Beaters is raced for. Stu Rowling led the field away with Dean and Tony Galbraith correctly handicapped at the rear. Graham Cargill did not make the start for this race as his engine had gone off song, later diagnosed as a broken camshaft. The race was a great one from a spectator point of view with different groups battling away with each other and the fast cars coming through from the rear.
The Money winners were:
Dean Perkins, Mike Dias and Andrew Turner
Overall a very successful first race meeting of the year with more new members to come as well as the appearance of cars that for one reason or other could not make the first round.