Club Track Day at Wakefield Park - Round 5

20 February 2019 / Words by Joe Kovacic, Photos by Rob Wilkins

A warm and sunny summer morning greeted an enthusiastic field of 78 motorsport competitors for our fifth round of 2018/19 Club Trackdays at Wakefield Park on Sunday 17 February 2019. The weather conditions were forecast for a hot and sunny day of 32°C maximum. We were off to a late start of 9:30am due to a huge drivers briefing. We had 5 groups of 14 cars and 1 group of first-timers competing in eight minute sessions.

We got off to a bad start with group one being red-flagged due to Peter Barnwell's newly built turbo NC catching fire after only a couple laps. Quick thinking by Peter Barnwell with help from Russell Maxwell in using their fire extinguishers before help arrived, saved the car from being properly toasted. Then in group 2 the cars were let out only for the session to be immediately red flagged due to the fire and rescue team not being quite ready at their post. The track officials were not impressed with four drivers who ignored the red flag and continued circulating for another lap or two. A red flag means immediately return to the pits, no matter what.

Finally we got going properly with no other incidents during the morning. As the conditions heated up after the first run, the officials decided to shorten the sessions to six minute runs in the best interests of cars and drivers. In the first session after lunch, David Johnson literally drove the wheels of his race car with his right rear wheel coming loose and rolling away. This caused another red flag delay and deployment of rescue vehicles.

On a lighter note, Glenn Thomas managed to lock his keys in his NC while it was idling on the dummy grid. A call for help to the NRMA and three hours later, Glenn finally managed to get his first laps in. It always pays to take a spare key to the track!

After that slow start, we managed to get all drivers five sessions and some reasonable track time. We called it a day at 3:30pm as there was insufficient time to get through all 6 run groups - no complaints as it was stinking hot.

Thank you to all my fellow track officials on a very hot and trying trackday. Welcome back to Lou Iezzi in his NC and his first trackday after sustaining a broken leg in a major crash last year in an MX-5 Cup race.

A competitive battle is happening in Classes 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11 with drivers separated by hundredths of a second. Congratulations Luke Kovacic on the fastest lap of the day in a time of 1:06.71 in his newly acquired SE.

Congratulations to our two fastest MX-5 ladies Gaynor Lawler and Varvara Efremova. Special mention to Aimee Kovacic who was only a second behind Gaynor in her Kia Proceed GT. Aimee also beat Gaynor's time with 1:13.638 driving Luke's SE - however her time didn't count as she was entered in Class 11.

Congratulations to Jie Ren and Jamie Martin for setting new class records - a remarkable effort considering the difficult conditions. Well done to all the other drivers on their results as follows.

Class	1st Place	Time	2nd Place	Time
1	Michael DeMaio	1:14.646	Keith Monaghan	1:17.173
2	Bryan Shedden	1:12.852	Mark Janus	1:17.327
3	Jie Ren	1:10.455
4	Jamie Martin	1:14.776	Chris Veitch	1:18.284
5	Matthew Tarrant	1:14.809	Gerardo Martin	1:14.853
6	Gustavo Elias	1:12.108	Rodney Esdaile	1:12.570
7	Peter Feutrill	1:12.295	Andrew Digney	1:12.347
8	Kevin Newman	1:11.319	Christopher Lowry	1:15.556
9	David Johnson	1:08.580	Philip Ashton	1:10.196
10	Luke Kovacic	1:06.710	Curran Brennan	1:07.140
11	Keith Bridgement	1:11.878	Stewart Grigg	1:11.933
Ladies MX-5	Gaynor Lawler	1:14.583	Varvara Efremova	1:17.913

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