The 2009 Victorian State Circuit Racing season commenced with Round 1 at Phillip Island over the weekend of 25th / 26th April, with our local member Tom Hutchinson (TR8) once again doing his best against modern technology competition including latest model Porsche, Lamborghini, Aston Martin etc. Tom did well for the weekend, qualifying in 7th position, and finishing with two 4th placings. Race 3 was abandoned due to the icy weather that had caused the flag marshals to freeze – the officials and competitors took pity on them and decided to abandon the last few races on the Sunday.

Tom reported that he had both dry and wet races where his best dry time was a 1:41.94 and 260 kph down the straight, and a 2:04.95 in the wet, with a speed of 250 kph down the straight. That sort of speed in wet conditions is just insane. Tom is now also invited (as are other Triumph and Austin Healey racers) to race with the MG’s in what has been to date, an all MG affair. Naturally, Tom is able to run at the front of this field and probably win most races, but clearly, that is not the intention. In fact there is a 130% rule that would exclude some of the slower MG’s if Tom just went out as fast as he can go. So he has had to slow it down a bit – he still recorded one win and two seconds whilst having a bit of fun.

Neil Martin took part in the Regularity events at the Austin 7 Club meeting at Mallala on 26th April and enjoyed a trouble free day circulating in the 1:32’s and gaining one second place for the day.

Which brings us to the MSCA 6-Hour Regularity event held on Sunday, 17th May at Mallala. TSOA again fielded a team, with drivers Andy Ansell (TR7), Neil Martin (TR7V8), Rod Carey (GT6) Robin George (TR7V8), Colin Gaetjens (Mitsubishi Evo TR6) and Jon Fechner (German Mini Cooper S). We were all looking to have a fun day, and perhaps finish with a good result as we did last year when we placed third. However, that was not to be . . . . although we did succeed in having fun.

Our day got off to a disappointing start during the practice session before the event, when Robin George downshifted from 5th to 4th but slipped into 2nd instead. The engine didn’t like it at all, producing some rather nasty noises internally, and Robin was forced to retire from the event. That left us with five drivers – enough to comfortably complete the event and still do well . . . . . which we could have done with a bit more discipline.

Unfortunately, our team incurred too many laps where the driver broke his nominated time. This meant that not only did the lap not count, but we also suffered a deduction of a penalty lap from our score. We did gain 47 bonus laps when drivers did a time within one second of their nominated time without breaking it, but with 24 broken times where the lap does not count plus incurring a lap penalty meant that we broke even on the bonus / penalty score. Not good enough!

Consequently, we finished mid field with an official 8th place (this was advised initially as 6th, but a check of the scoring over the following days saw this corrected down to 8th). Still, we had fun, so no complaints.

A few acknowledgements – thanks to John Tuohy, Arrand Ellery, Bill Berlemon, Frank Llewell, Jon Williams and Stephanie George for their willing assistance at the pit wall and with sash changeovers. Our team could not run without you – thank you.

Also thanks to TSOA for the sponsorship that allows us to hire pit garages and provide lunch and drinks for all team members – this is very much appreciated as well.

And finally, my thanks to the queen of trackside catering, Cherri. The muffins were excellent, and lunch was just great.

Upcoming events can be found on the Competition Calendar on this website.

That’s enough from me . . . see you trackside!

Roger