Three new Queensland Champions were crowned today at Logan after the running of the 2006 Queensland EP On-road Championships.
Johnny Hyde (540), Keith Mackrill (Stock) and Andy Cooke (Mod) were the winners after two hard fought days of racing.  Along with the stories of the winners, we thought it worth taking a few moments to tell some of the other stories of the weekend.
In 540 the clear favourite Hyde took the win over a mixture of young up and coming, and more experienced drivers. Hyde had pace to burn and was only threatened by a few uncharacteristic mistakes. 540 remains a strange class that should in my view be the preserve of the young and the novice. We can only hope that the more experienced drivers make the move on to the competitive stock ranks.
In stock, Keith Mackrill was awesome and left his opponents grasping at thin air. Pace, consistent mistake free driving, determined attitude. Keith nailed it all weekend and his leg two pursuit of Damien Barnier was extremely impressive. Behind him, some tough luck stories – like Andrew Shapland who was fast all day saturday only to run into horrific radio glitching on Sunday and finally ran in the finals with a borrowed radio.  Good stories further back  too – like defending champion Bob Vardy coming from nowhere Saturday, to make the A final and get the chance to defend his title, or Aaron Fryer – a great A final appearance at his first major event. Watch for him in the future.
Mod had it all this weekend. Incredible horsepower, stunning driving, and some fabulous racing. In the end Andy Cooke stood on the podium after a topsy-turvy finals series – picking up the wins in Leg 1 and 2 after first Atack, then Abbot suffered thermal shutdowns.  Abbot finished second, with Anthony third and another visitor from Victoria Simon Fiegl a strong fourth (damn those Victorians!).
A couple of great efforts from Drew Crawley and Charlie Jones to put their cars into the A final today. Both are rapidly improving and were impressive all weekend. I suspect we might be seeing these two battling it out a few more times as they proceed toward the front of the grid.  Tough luck story of the weekend undoubtedly was John Perkins. JP finished 1 or 2 qualifiers and no finals after a rotten run of bad luck. Brushless motors, thermalling, brushed motors throwing winds, it all happened.  Special mention to for Big Mac who was easily on pace to qualify mid-field in the A final today before one small mistake with big consequences put paid to a dream run.
Otherwise the weekend was interesting for various other reasons.  The track layout proved a hit, although the speed of the mod-cars is revealing more and more bumps (including one that is almost a jump on the start-finish line) that the Logan club will have to think about soon.  There was some entertainment on Saturday after a series of petty protests were lodged that held up proceedings for nearly an hour. Luckily the forecast storm didn’t eventuate after  thorough waste of time.
Perhaps most interesting (from my point of view) was the first appearance of the Novak Velociti 3.5 motors at a major Australian race meeting.  More than half the field were equipped with 3.5’s but the results were mixed.  Saturday was a scorcher with temps reaching an unseasonal 35 degrees and track temps topping 50. The result bordered on farcical at times with sometimes just 2 or 3 cars finishing a mod-race as brushless motors thermalled, brushed motors failed and solder joints melted under the pressure.  Meanwhile others were enjoying the 3.5 motors and the enormous horsepower they provided and had no thermalling issues.  Some switched from brushless, to brushed and back again.  Some couldn’t buy a race finish – including the normally reliable Andrew Abbot who two or three times had motors shut down within sight (literally) of the finish line.  Having said all that, the motors still finished 1st, 3rd and 5th, with 2nd and 4th opting for the 4.5.  It was a Novak shutout, with the first brushed motor finishing about 7th.
My own weekend was up and down. I had some good qualifiers and felt the car was excellent – and certainly capable of a lot more than I delivered.  In the end the finals just got away from me. Some poor driving, and a couple of wrong setup choices meant that I finished 5th and not really able to take it to the 4 in front of me.  More lessons learned!
Attention now turns to the Nats – just 7 weeks away.  Despite all the rubbish from some quarters about traction compound, this promises to be an excellent event. The first Aus Nats under control tyres, the first with brushless motors, the first on such a big track as brendale, and the first in Brisbane.  We have a lot to look forward to.  Club races at Brendale on oct 15th and Nov 12th will be packouts, and an interclub at the excellent sunshine coast track on 28/29 Oct will serve up some exciting racing over the next couple of months.  Bring it on!