Despite early rain and miserable conditions an excellent field of 24 including 7 youth competitors came out to play in the mud, and it was mud after 48 runs on each course. Unlike normal days the times actually got slower as time went by as the water came to the surface and muddied up. Ken McAllister got a good fast early time and despite being challenged by grandson Mitch managed to hold him off. One event closer to being beaten Ken. We had great competition in the MGB class with Roger Plumridge going to an early lead and Barry Coad and David Hoskins bit by bit catching up. Phil (I'm having trouble remembering the courses because of the surgery) Whitla stuffed up course 2 with a couple of WD's to snuff his challenge out. Great consideration for his condition was shown by interested spectator John Roker who reminded Phil that the scar appeared to be on his chest and not his head. Great to see you having a go and looking good Phil. Chris Freeman, Brian Kelly and Nick Lefranc continued the F challenge with Chris winning out this time. Brians car sounds better though. (Nearly like an MG) We had good competition in the non marque also with Ross Hutton in the clubby hotly challenged by Andrew Stotz in the 180sx Nissan and Gay Bradshaw in the MX5. Gay was the first car to get bogged on course (sort of) and had to back up to find traction. Peter Cronk had trouble putting the power down and Ted Heriot didn't. He had the TC flying on course 3 for fastest time. Youth We had 7 competitors in our two classes including first timer Jackson Deahl. In Youth 1 Mitch McAllister was very fast and except for a couple of flags would have challenged Ken for outright points. In Youth 2 Pat Crisp continued his good driving to win from a rapidly improving Kate Gaylard, closely followed by Sam Morrow, Nick Brandimarti and Jarrod McKinnis. Now that the youth are all fully integrated into the adult classes the improvement is rapid. I noticed how well they were getting of the line, how clean the lines and how few flags were hit. Not many WD's either Phil. It was great to see the EMR contingent arrive and prepare a BBQ to share with us. Apparently they aren't as silly as us, as we outnumbered them, a rare occurrence. Thanks to Cooks, Peter Valentine and Rob Gow and helpers. We've identified some time wasting aspects of our set-up, caused by the rapid growth in competitors. We half fixed the issue by running 2 courses together much as is done at MGCC Vic and at Natmeets, but we will fix up the time lost getting entries in when most people all arrive together close to start time. Fix one is already in place with entry forms available on our club website, so they can be downloaded, filled in and brought along on the day or emailed back to me to be signed on the day. We will also set up the marquee next to the first course and have a large table so multiple entries can be done together. We will also allow a little longer for entry and Scrutineering.
Results: (Full details on notice board)
Ken McAllister 160.64 1st outright
Terry Malloch 185.76
Graeme Ruby 163.02
Andrew Stotz 186.05
Chris Freeman 163.90 1st MGF
John Gaylard 189.36
Mitch McAllister 167.34 1st Youth 1
Phil Whitla 196.24
Roger Plumridge 168.52 1st
MGB Gay Bradshaw 196.76
Barry Coad 171.83
Jackson Deahl 201.50
Graeme Deahl 172.13
Kate Gaylard 206.90
Brian Kelly 173.92
Sam Morrow 211.55
Nick Le Franc 175.00
Nick Brandimarti 217.43
Ross Hutton 175.78
Jarrod McKinnis 239.18
David Hoskins 178.49
Ted Heriot 179.82 1st
T series Patrick Crisp 180.08 1st Youth 2
Peter Cronk 181.75 1st Spridget
We had a record number of competitors for this event, 15 and a great result with 5 top 20 finishes. Great to see Rob Woodfull helping as an official all day, Phil Whitla as official sledger and John Roker official photographer. The courses had been changed from last year, with the first 2 being the full outside course run forward and backwards with 2 runs at each. They had two cars on course at the time for a pretty efficient run considering the 75 entrants. We managed to get one run at the top short course late, finishing at 5.30. Brian Kelly started fast in the GT with a best Geelong group time for his first run, closely followed by Chris Freeman in the F and Peter Cronk finally able to exercise his revs. Experienced competitor, but new competitor in our club, Bill Cowper had his Toyota Sprinter flying also. Close behind this group was rapidly improving Mitch Freeman. Mitch McAllister on his first tarmac event, in fact first time changing gears ran very well and very clean, in fact I didn't see smoke pouring off the tyres, unlike several others Ken. The one small straight had the sharpest corner at the end which caught out many including me. Barry Arthur managed to get the B out of mothballs for an event between holidays. Peter Valentine improved through the day, but his arduous training program is slowing his progress. (One event per year ) Roger Plumridge had the standard B firing, one photo shows an unbelievable amount of body roll. I Guess he was trying. MGCC Vic stalwart, Don Woods (205.1)showed the way beating all cars except a racing Sprite (203.09) from the Sprite Club. Some other interesting cars were an Elfin MS8 (229.2) a small Clubman powered by a 5.7 Litre Chev, a supercharged MX5 (207.11) which was very quick, a Commodore R8 (228.19), a Golf GTI (247.12) and a couple of Nissan 200SX's (216.79)
Results:
Graeme Ruby MGBGTV8 216.88 1st
Bill Cowper Sprinter 224.08 1st
Non Marque Brian Kelly MGB Mod 226.33 1st MGB
Mod Chris Freeman MGF 227.75 1st MGF
Peter Cronk Bugeye 228.36 1st
Spridget Nick LeFranc MGF 230.92
Mitch Freeman MGF 237.51 1st Youth 1
Peter Valentine MGB 239.29 1st MGB
Ken McAllister MGB Mod 239.41
Roger Plumridge MGB 242.80
Terry Malloch MGB 251.62
Barry Arthur MGB 251.84
Barry Coad MGB 265.52
Mitch McAllister MGB Mod 265.88
Gay Bradshaw MX5 276.50