Club Track Day - 8th February 2015

13 February 2015 / Words by Mike Hicks, photos by Gail Palmer

Our first Wakefield Park Track Day for 2015 attracted a strong field of 76 entrants, unfortunately a few experienced car problems just prior to the event resulting in 70 starters, 66 club members including six ladies and four visitors. It was great to see Bob Pimm back at Wakefield Park along with two generations of Team Battisson although car issues restricted the number of laps they were able to complete.

Being February one would only expect warm weather at Wakefield Park and the day didn’t disappoint in that regard with temperatures reaching 34°C. Thanks to all the officials for their efforts particularly Grid Marshals Phil Roberts, Lindsay Burke and Blake Hotz who spent most of the day in the sun and Rod Menzel our Clerk of Course.

Ten first timers were amongst the entrants, a couple of double enters forcing us to split them into two groups for the purpose of training. It soon became evident that the turbo cars were not enjoying the hot weather. The morning ran smoothly with few spins or incidents, however after lunch in about a one hour period one car put a rod through the block spectacularly on the main straight resulting in the need to clean up the resulting oil spill followed by two cars that experienced various hose problems in the one run.

Fastest Time of the Day was recorded by Patrick Bramston with a lap of 1:08.21, second was Phil Ashton now taking advantage of his 2.5 litres recording a best of 1:09.47, with Craig Gartlacher third on 1:10.30. Fastest Lady was our editor Mel Keller in 1:15.58 with Kim Jacobs, this time in a Renault Meganne and Tammy Hotz both in the 1:18s keeping Mel honest. All entrants had the opportunity to complete six timed runs each of six minutes.

Next Track Day is on Sunday 12th April at the South Circuit, Sydney Motorsport Park. As it will be conducted under a CAMS Permit, this event will require competitors to hold a minimum of a CAMS L2S Licence. A minimum five flag points will require flag marshalls and we will be looking for assistance from our members with that task.

More photos of the track day by Gail Palmer are available here.

Even more photos by Neil Tribe here.