Awesome day today, clutch dramas early with a clutch line failure. Thanks to JP for bringing me out a new braided line and oil to get me going again, Great service. Started in a couple of full on grid races today, started midfield in the first one with the first corner getting real messy with all the V8's trying to squeeze through and having to fight for every inch of track. Started on the second row for the next one and won the drag to the first corner even if we were four wide, led for three laps before a couple of the quicker ones squeezed through, finishing third. Improved my lap time by half a second to a 1.25.41, so happy with that, Ports had his share of dramas too, with a blow out destroying a tyre and cracking a rim, luckily on one of the slower corners, still scary though, Sorry to see OP go at the end of the year, real drivers track and will be sorely missed. no piccies, had to take the batteries out of my camera to use in my lap timer, see if i can find some on some of the other forums. ports had the vid camera going so might be able to post something.
Sounds like a bit of an up and down day, still, seems like more ups than downs so that's good. Shame it's closing, do you thing there is enough interest in club motorsport there that it will be worth someone's while to set up a new track somewhere up there? What sort of licence do you need for grid start races?
Clutch line Had come adrift and was laying against the dump pipe getting cooked. No replacement tracks in the pipeline Built a new driver training one at Berrima, havent been yet but looks to be all 2nd gear stuff. Is talk about another to be built at Gosford, can only hope so, Only options now are Wakefield, 2.5 hours south or Eastern Creek where they want an arm and a leg. Need a full cams licence for door to door racing, part of getting your licence involves being observed in racing conditions. Couple of drivers getting theirs yesterday, so they make up a field and put them at the back and observe how they handle comming through the traffic, all good fun, just have to be careful as they are in full on race cars and don't mind a bit of panel rubbing.
By full license you mean level 3? Do you have one? I gathered they were rather expense and something of a hassle to get. Hopefully something will open up, if there are lots of people wanting to race and not many places to do it left hopefully it will be worth someone's investment to set something up. I guess we are rather spoilt down here with Sandown in the middle of town, Caulder (though that is getting rather costly now too) as well and PI and Winton both less than 4 hours drive. Plus the little bonuses like Haunted Hills and Rob Roy I guess. No pictures yet?
Awesome, Im so jealous! Sounded like lots of fun! Wish I had driven Oran park. Never had the opportunity and never will. That clutch line failure is a good warning for the rest of us who have them. I better make sure mines secured well! I will be heading down to wakefield to watch the NSCC trackday on the 8th Nov if anyone else is interested to watch as well. Mike
Only a L2S Pete, as you say full licence is expensive, few hundered dollars annualy, not needed unless your competeing in a series or such. used to be plenty of tracks up here. Last two tracks have been taken over by suburbia, houses now where Amaroo park once stood, Oran park fast heading the same way, Last meeting at OP you could see the excavators working down the end of the straight, this time your looking at the framework of houses. Raced at phillip Island, awesome, arm could be twisted to head south to do some of the tracks, keep us informed. haven't seen any pics anywhere yet.
Not competeing This time Michael?, you went ok last time. JP is having a run and his right hand man Tim is running his 180 there.
I have a project underway for my car atm. Good aussie dollar and being unemployed has given me the time to work on my car full time. Will be off the road for a few months.
Sandown has the horse racing track too so they should be safe(ish), the rest of the tracks here are probably far enough out in the sticks they are safe too. Someone found coal under the old Morwell hillclimb track but that funded the new Haunted Hills track so that's all good. They are putting in some incredible facilities there too it seems. Winton is the closest track down here for you guys, I really like Winton and Benalla is a really nice place to stay so getting a group of people there could be good. I've never been to PI either so that's always an option. I'll keep you posted if anything is coming up.
Sad days indeed.......RIP Oran Park raceway. Couldn't have picked a better day to do it though, with the Wiz and a couple of SAU nutters. Some very quick machines doing laps with a Radical at the head with sub 70 second times. Wiz managed a PB of a mid 1.25 in a mock race for CAMS lic test, a top effort amongst all the traffic. My times were down on my best with a 1.28 and a fist full of 1.29's, but still a real hoot!! Some pics too hot to handle a real peeler warp speed Mr Wizard Thats all sorry. I have some incar and other footage, so I'll edit it and post soon.
Vid off you tube Glimpse of the zed down the straight at 1.46 in the first race. all i can find, waiting on ports vid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciRG2AyQPCk
