On the second attempt, the Sunshine Coast club finally completed Round 3 of the 2007 Interclub Series for on-road clubs of South-East Queensland. After more rain the track surrounds were wet, and the moisture in the ground occasionally appeared – but the club did a fantastic job to get the track in race-shape and keep it that way.
I wasn’t at the event on Saturday, so don’t have details, but do know that Johnny Hyde picked up the 540 win, Peter Giblin in Gas Tourer, while 19T went to Anthony Atack, from Drew Crawley and John Perkins (not sure of order) with Tim Weier fourth.
On Sunday 59 entries over three classes made for a great day of exciting racing.
Gas Tourer: Jason Dorn always looked like getting this one, and so the final proved to be his for the winning. Peter Giblin played the strategy card to run longer fuel-stints, but ultimately Jasonw as just too quick.
Rebuildable Stock: Big and competitive field today with some new faces, some old, and continued improvements from quite a few drivers. The Qld Championship in this class (just 4 weeks away) will be intense. Tim Weier took his first big win in what was a popular result. Tim has worked hard to improve, and today’s win was well deserved. Johnny Hyde backed up from his 540 win to place second in what was likewise a result on the back of lots of hard work. Karl Yeung was third after battling through qualifying while the old stager Bob Vardy finished fourth.
Modified: For a long time today, mod looked like being a very close run thing between 5 or 6 drivers. In the end it came down to a race in two, with Anthony Atack winning from a very rapid Andrew Shapland. Drew Crawley broke through for a big result to finish third from myself. Great to see the return of some long lost names in this class – in particular Keith Mackrill settling in to the Losi JRXS-R. Good first effort also from Aaron Fryer who will certainly have learned a lot today.
Interclub: Logan won from Sunshine Coast, Brendale, Bayside and Chargers. I’ll have full points updated later in the week once the full resutls become available from the club.
My Race: I enjoyed my day out today. I loved the track, and rate it as close to the best on-road track I’ve ever raced on. Certainly it will make a great venue for the Queensland Champs in just a few weeks. Today I ran the Schumacher Mi3, playing with different settings all day and looking to learn more about the car, get it going fast, and dial in my own driving. I was very happy with the car’s performance – it was definitely better than me (as evidenced by Shaps finishing in second place also in an Mi3). I also ran 5-cell packs today, with Novak 3.5 & a set of Big Mac’s Ultra Plus cells providing me with good horsepower. I picked up the track reasonably quickly, but after a good first qualifier, managed to not really improve for the rest of the day!
I definitely have some work to do before we arrive at SCRCCC for the Queensland Champs in early October, but so far, I’m happy with progress…
So that’s my story – feel free to leave your own race story below.