State Race meeting, Oran park, July 29-31

[msmola2002]

Anyone here attending oran park this weekend?

State race meeting is on, F2, IPRA, sports sedans, the usual shebang.

I will be pit crewing for Greg Hunter, car 72 in the Formula 2, a 91 Reynard 913, silver and red.

Hope to see some PFers there,
Michael.

[FatBoy]

Yeah, i'll be out there all weekend, crewing for # 27 and # 90 in the Over 2 ltr Improved Production class...

I.P is looking good for this weekend, here's the fields...

Improved Production Over 2 ltr :

No Driver Vehicle

7 Richard Mork Falcon EA
8 Kees Delhaas Commodore VS
11 Stephen Thompson Mazda RX-7
12 Alan Smith Mazda RX7
13 Simon O'Dell-Fontana Mazda 808
14 Scott Bucton Commodore VX
19 Les Taylor LX Torana
22 Peter Hennessy BMW M3
25 Robert Green Laser TX-3 Turbo
26 Ross Street Lancer Turbo
27 Pete Harmston Mazda RX7
29 Phil Page Datsun 1600 Turbo
31 Peter Foote Mazda RX7
32 Gareth Stokes Triumph
35 Jeff Shipway Supra Turbo
39 John McKenzie Commodore VK
40 David Skillender Mazda RX7
41 Paul White Mazda RX-7
42 Leanne Tander Mazda RX7
46 Brad Palmer LX Torana
50 Dave Loftus R32 Nissan GTR
51 Darren Gillis Commodore VR
56 Matt Watson Mazda 808
58 Scott Fleming Mazda RX-7
64 Ian MacRae Mazda 808
67 Jeff Church Commodore VN
69 Graeme Shea Mazda Capella
71 Troy Harrison Commodore VB
72 Michael Hogg Mazda 808
80 David LaMaitre Corolla Turbo
83 Peter Bellett Audi Quattro
84 Matt Skinner Mazda RX4
87 Luke Smith Mazda RX-7
88 Greg Selby Torana LJ
89 Cristy Stevens Mazda 808
90 Jason Priestley Mazda RX7
91 Graeme Wilkinson Escort
97 Ben Vicary Commodore VH
140 Greg Ormerod Mazda RX3

Improved Production Under 2 ltr :

No Driver Vehicle

4 Bob Jowett Escort
7 Sam Maio Suzuki Gti
9 Paul Deller Mini Clubman
11 Greg Peters Gemini
12 Scott Hunter Toyota Corolla
14 David Noble Toyota Corolla
15 Tobia Kipper Suzuki Swift Gti
24 Neville Simmons Toyota Corolla
25 Paul Zyfert Datsun Sunny
34 George Bunyan Triumph Dolomite Sprint
41 Ryan Jagger KE 25 Corolla
42 Philip Larmour Dolomite Sprint
43 Mark Larmour Dolomite Sprint
44 Justin McClintock Toyota Sprinter
45 Richard Clarkson Datsun 1600
55 David Nolan Honda Civic
66 Adam Tipping Mitsubishi Lancer
76 Graham Bergan Austin Mini Saloon
77 Phillip Cash Holden Gemini
81 Peter Street Nissan Pulsar
83 Craig Smith Toyota Sprinter
91 Gavin Wilkinson Escort
99 David Crighton Datsun 1600
111 Graeme Cox Escort
114 Peter Conroy Honda Integra Type R
5 Richard Gartner Mitsubishi Mirage
16 Paul Freestone Mitsubishi Mirage
22 Tony Alford Mitsubishi Mirage
28 Peter Leemhuis Mitsubishi Mirage
30 Graham Bohm Mitsubishi Mirage

[rowdytoot]

If I wasn't in canberra I'd pop out for a look.. I had a good day last time!

[Zac]

wow, since when were 808s so popular in club racing?

[rowdytoot]

Since you could wack a 13B bridge, PP or 13BT into them and not have to worry about finding an RX-3 nose cone or tail lights when you get biffed! :)

Rowds

(I'm assuming that's the reason)

[Nafe]

Will try and get out there on Sunday to take some snaps.....

[Datman]

I'll be out there Sunday....Maybe saturday for some time also.....Crewing on the McClintock U2L IPRA Sprinter.

[willsy01]

Nafe, are there any decent spots to take pics if you're not adorned with a media pass? :D

[Nafe]

OP is actually pretty good for taking pics. If you don't mind the walk, you can basically walk all the way around the circuit starting from the start of pitlane, back down to the last corner, all the way around to the dogleg and the esses. If you're keen you can get right down to the first right hander after they go under the bridge.

[willsy01]

Hmmm, might have to take a bit of a road trip on Sunday me thinks.

[fro]

Willsy, When Rowds and I went to OP for the last IPRA round, there was plenty of good vantage points for photos. The only real difficulty seemed to be getting the right lighting for the shots.

Rowds, maybe I should come up there this weekend? Although, I don't think that's what Naomi had planned...

[rowdytoot]

froski... I think coming to your joint is the better option given our S/O's discussions, as much as I like OP and all ... ;)

oh and make sure you can come up for the S/Sprint on the 28th of August.. I'm sending my entry tomorrow! :)

Rowds

[Nafe]

Almost sounds like a PF meetup on Sunday is in order....?

[fro]

Love to Nafe, but Rowds and I will be up/down in Canberra.

Woud be good for a PF Meet-Up at the OP Supersprint on 28th August, though!

[rowdytoot]

yeah baby bring it on.. (the 28th that is!). Perhaps dinner on the 27th as well?? make sure you hassle Bede to come up- we have room if he likes couches.

maybe you should come up this weekend.. we can attack the balljoints on saturday! ;)... nah, too much like hard work !

[Nafe]

LOL, I'm supersprinting on the 21st at EC (if I get the car ready in time).

[fro]

Sounds great to me, Nafe... supersprint on the 21st, in readiness for Supersprinting on the 28th. And if you can't make it in the car (for supersprinting action) you can come take some photies!

[Datman]

Nafe ...your doing the EC Supersprint on 21st August? I'm looking at running that event too....need to do a run atthe Creek prior to the September Race meeting.

[Nafe]

I haven't sent the entry in yet. Need to find the entry fee, and the time to get the car ready..... oil change, brake fluid change, check the tyres over.... try and find the damned leak which is letting water into the car and under the carpet :eek:

But I am reasonably confident I will be there. Which club are you a member of Datman?

[Datman]

Member of IPRA......Will I be able to enter? If So, how much I am looking at for entry fee. I too will need to find the entry fee$$$$, not somethinbg I had originally budgeted for. My Main goal is the state round at EC in September.

[FatBoy]

My Main goal is the state round at EC in September.

So is mine Mark - we should be out there struggling with new set-ups together... :p

Although i got an interesting phone call on Tuesday night - an "offer i can't refuse" you might say... I just don't know if i can part with it, so the discussions at the track will be interesting to say the least... :)

[Nafe]

Member of IPRA......Will I be able to enter? If So, how much I am looking at for entry fee. I too will need to find the entry fee$$$$, not somethinbg I had originally budgeted for. My Main goal is the state round at EC in September.

21st August is part of the Interclubs series. Only HDT/HSV, Alfa, WRX, Southern Sporting and Nissan Sports Car Club members are invited to enter..... so you'd have to be a member of one of them. Brenton_S15 is with SSCC, and baggins is with WRX (well, used to be at least), IMOA might be there as an interested spectator or flaggie (??)

[Datman]

Thanks for the info Nafe.

Hey Paul, See you at the track on Sunday?

[FatBoy]

Yeah, i'll be there Mark... :)

We're taking the Queenslanders out for dinner on Saturday night though so i might be feeling a bit second hand... :D

[msmola2002]

Spoke to Greg today, he missed out on both a garage and a carport so we will be out in the open, prolly over near the kiosk. Gonna be a long walk up to the the dummy grid dragging the battery along!

[Datman]

See you there Paul.....I wont be there Saturday, but will make an appearance on Sunday.

[FatBoy]

Yep, seeya then. I'll be with Scotty Fleming and 90210 - Harmo is out, he broke his gearbox in practice today, and finding parts for a Holinger / Getrag hybrid on a Friday afternoon just isn't as easy as it should be... :(

[Datman]

Spewin.......Justin Told me that Wilko Broke a crank in the escort, so they are out too.

[FatBoy]

Carnage this afternoon, it was an awesome day spoiled by a bad startline accident in the Under 2 ltr race though... Poor old Justin bogged off the start and stalled and got rear ended by Paul Zyfert who was probably doing 80-100km/h when he collected him... :(

Both cars are farked, luckily (and more importantly !!) both drivers are fine.
Mark, if Justin doesn't come out for a look tomorrow (i wouldn't want to go if i were him) let him know the Chaparral boys are thinking of him mate... ;)

Leanne once again took the points in the Overs with Bob Jowett winning the Unders... Tomorrow should be another great days racing, hopefully all the boys will get through unscathed...

[Datman]

Will Do Paul, I had a look at the car last night - it's pretty screwed. Justin has a few options he is looking at, but he won't be back this year.

[HoonBoy]

I saw two cars leaving Oran Park today, an Rx3 with smallish front damage and serious rear damage as well as a 1600 that had been hit in the side!

Seems like there was a lot of "rubbing is racing" over the weekend.

[msmola2002]

Hoonboy, looks like you missed seeing the VR/vs commodore which was sandwiched, and the torana with bad front damage too.

Interesting weekend for me, the car qualified, when he came back to the pits and we went to read the tyre temps was running like a pile of crap. Pointed the pyrometer at the exhaust, one was running cool, figured ok, pull it off, borrow a welder and fix it. We took a while to get the header off, (just the one we needed, they come apart) apparently it is easier if you take the floor off, impossoble where we were, and it became apparent what the problem was.

There was a square shaped hole, about an inch and a half long/wide in the pipe. a few people looked at it, and someone had a suggestion, so mawer engineering was called, so we all jumped into the fourbie and drove out to orangeville. BTW, if you get to silverdale road, you have overshot by about 5km :p

so he cleaned off the ceramic (apparently dave mawer reckons this causes them to crack) cut up a mandrel bend and put it a patch. Beautiful work and forty bucks later we are done. btw, some nice cars in the garage, including a 1973 BRM f1 in pieces, and an old f2/3 being restored. So we get back, it is just before 1pm, when the first race is starting. We got the pipe on just in time for greg to jump in and line up on the dummy grid. Was REAL close!!!1 came 4th in that race damn killa racing aussie racer POS laps 2-3 secs a lap slower, but is near impossible to pass.

Day two, the car stalled on the grid, (thought it was jsust a mistake, starting in third). Got past all the f2s, to finish 4th (1 f2 was black flagged though)

race three, starteed in third again, couldn't get car into first, so a problem with the selection fork possibly.

Unfortunately didn't see mcuh actual racing, but was an ok weekend.

Did see a freak of weather, not much wind where we were, but 200m or so away, it was gusting and two awning/canopy things were picked up in a big way, like blown 20 feeet into the air, some kind of willy-willy thing, could see sheets of paper floating upwards for quite a while, they wnet up to quite an altitude...

bummer to hear about the accidents, saw quite a few cars on the back of the tilt tray...

[FatBoy]

There was more damage to the Improved Production ranks over the weekend than what there has been combined in the last 3 seasons that i have raced...

In the Unders on Saturday Justins Sprinter and Paul's Stanza (ex Championship winning car) were written off in the startline accident.

Then on Sunday morning Pagey's Datto 1600 got crunched (i'd say that the car HoonBoy saw on the trailer) by Matt Skinners RX-4 after Pagey got out of shape and went around him. Les Taylor's Torana almost T-boned Churchy's VN at the last turn on the last lap, luckily Churchy heard the brake lock up and stayed wide and let Taylor slide across in front of him...

Sunday arvo and at Turn 3 we again had carnage. I'm not sure what started it, but it appears one bloke gave Matt Watsons 808 enough of a nudge to spin him, and Ian Macrae (blue RX-3) had nowhere to go and t-boned him. Darren Gillis' VR Commodore then slammed into the rear of the RX-3 at full noise, Kees Delhaas in a VS Commodore rammed the VR, then Greg Selby's Torana nailed Kees' car, and to finish it off Jeff Shipway in the Supra Turbo couldn't quite pull up in time and rear ended the Torana. Somehow Jason Priestley and Pagey missed it (the in-car from Jason's RX-7 is frightening)...

The worst part is seeing shit like that happen when you are in the crowd (i'm sure Mark will back me on that one) - knowing it's the guys you race with and you'd have been amongst them somewhere is a worry !!

[Jim]

Spoke to Steve Shipway last night actully, he was telling me about it.

Incidentally Geoff Shipway has the Grumpe-Launch with the red RX3 on video.

[Nafe]

Holy crap. Hope everyone's okay.

So when does the Fat-mobile hit the track again? It sounds like they need the numbers for the next round! :(

[FatBoy]

It may well be in the hands of a new owner when it does Nafe...

After watching what happened on the weekend i am really starting to question whether it's all worthwhile. I love my racing but if i was one of the guys with a written off race car in my garage today i'd be fucked... I've poured most of my cash into real estate over the last few years, and if i bin the car i simply can't afford to replace it at the moment. And if you can't afford to replace it, you can't afford to race it...

I'm really 50/50 whether i sell it or not. There's a young guy in our class who is showing some real potential, and i reckon with the new suspension and brake set up in my car he would go really well. He's keen to buy it and his old man helps him pay the bills, so i'm tempted to let it go and wait until i own my house and can afford to pour cash into racing before i do it again...

Jim, Pete's crash was on our website for a while, PM me your email address and i'll send it across to you if you like... ;)

[HoonBoy]

Being that I only saw two cars and they were both damaged, I knew it was an interesting meeting (pity I was stuck digging up the backyard... ) That is the main reason that I am not building a car for actual races, just circuit sprints, hill climbs etc. I know that if there is any major damage to the car it will take me a while to get it fixed and I can handle that. If someone else was repsonsible for the damage, that would piss me off no end!

FatBoy, take the money, buy a kart and scare yourself silly :D

[FatBoy]

Thanks mate, that's sort of the plan... :)

I just think a kart is a backward step, but racing isn't as much fun as it used to be. I think the enjoyment factor started going downhill as soon as i decided i wanted to run as close as possible to the frontrunners...

The idea of 6 mates tearing around in Rotax karts on a Sunday once a month at Picton then going for beers and bbq afterwards sounds like more fun... And then i can buy a Series 6 RX-7 as my everyday driver... :)

[Datman]

It certainly was a bad day for carnage...... the thing is, there really wasn't any Silly incidents. Most of the damage was from racing incidents'. I hear what your saying Paul about not being able to afford to build a replacement....I am in the same boat. At the end of the day though, that's the risk I think most of us take when we go racing.

I'll be out there for Eastern Creek, debuting the Sunny.....I doubt we will be quick enough to get into too much trouble.

Hope to see you out there....behind the wheel.

[itsnotagsr]

There was good racing on Sunday! I was out helping my mate in the Production Sports mainly. We were coming 3rd at one stage, but coped three hits from Pearson and Pye when they tried to pass us at the bridge.

On a separate note, I did my c3 yesterday on the Grand Prix circuit and have even more respect for those racing on it each weekend!

[FatBoy]

Thanks Mark, mate i feel like i'm standing on the top of a narrow fence and i have to make a choice which side to jump off...

My head tells me sell it (i got a very good offer) and put the money to good use. And i'd just get a Rotax powered kart so i'll still have something fast enough to have fun with. (Pagey and Mick Posa have already bought them, and Harmo is considering buying one)

My heart tells me it's a keeper - Hang on, save a few dollars and get out and enjoy racing. It's got me fucked, i'm actually loosing sleep trying to decide what to do !!


Chris - i keep telling you, it's the best fun you can have with your pants on !! If i can get out there and race, anyone can... ;)

[Datman]

Congrats Chris on the Licence....will we see you racing soon?

I hear you Paul......I look at from the point of view that life is too short. My Brother in law died at 32 last year which was real wakeup call to me...... you never know when your numbers going to be up...may as well enjoy life to the max while you can..... That's why I'm going racing.

[itsnotagsr]

Thanks. Considering my options. Talking to Paul a couple of months ago and seeing the carnage on the weekend has kind of put me off a little cost wise. However all this talk of carts seems to makes sense. ie cheap motorsport thrills and close racing.

Paul - have you looked at the costs? Might be worth starting up a specific thread!

[FatBoy]

Don't let it worry you Chris - I worry about the damage sometimes but when the light goes out i honestly don't give a fuck - the adrenaline kicks in and you are there to race. If you are worried about scratching your car you may as well build something for AutoSalon instead... :)

I don't think i can part with my car full stop. I've been tossing it over for almost a week now and still can't make up my mind. Nothing can replace the buzz of being on the grid with 30 or 40 other maniacs all intent on the same thing - leading into the first corner !! :D

I'll probably just sit out for a little bit longer until the bank balance recovers. Getting a Rotax kart is a definite priority, simply because my mates are getting into them and they sharpen your reflexes to the point where it has to help your racecraft. It's also as cheap as chips to turn some laps and from my limited experience with them they are damn cheap to run !! :)

[itsnotagsr]

Thanks Paul. I'm coming round to your thinking. Would be good to catch up and compare notes.