Well, as I write this, I would say the dust has probably now settled at HSC, after what one would have to suggest by the racing action and quantity of people/racers and the all round great vibe, was another Fantastic weekend of racing at HSC's regular 'Australia Day Classic' event.
After a bit of a layoff since last year, it was certainly great to get back to some really good racing again.
A perhaps slightly diminished group of Retro runners for this event, as some of the regular runners like Cody and Troy, were busily engaged in the many other classes of racing being held over the weekend.
Dale was strangely absent but we were joined this time by Charles Rickards and Geoff Little which was great and meant we had a Full Field of Retro racers.
So, Only 8 starters, but all great racers and as one could imagine, it proved to be a Very fast and clean race, with Most of the various places changing throughout the race. With Only enough Retro starters for a Final, we were obviously a bit Short on marshalls, so a Very Great Thanks to the 'Wing 12' racers who volunteered to marshal for us, along with the other regular attendees who invariably hang around and provide us with their usual great marshalling. Once again,..Thanks Guys, it IS very Much appreciated and the marshalling was Excellent !!!
Qualifying;
For a change, it was Not Mark Fox or Cody who TQ'd, but James Colfax, who set a very good Quick time of 5.078, followed Very closely by Charles Rickards who also turned a Very quick 5.083, with Mark Fox turning a 5.128, which was perhaps some indication of how the evenings racing might turnout.
Final;
Having qualified 4th, I chose to start on Blue, to try and get a good lap total and then get Purple and Black out of the way, to allow me to have a hopefully good fast Run to the flag.
Initially, this plan seemed to be working, as I Made a Blinder of a start and after entering turn one first, I started to make a clean getaway,...well,..for a few laps anyway. Sadly, my driving then let me down,..sigh and I made just a few too many completely unforced silly driving errors and de-slotted way too many times for my liking, finishing the first bracket in a somewhat disappointing 4th place.
Chuckie mind you, had been the car I could 'see' that was shadowing my initial get-away and in fact it was he who held first place after the 1st bracket, with Jacco, driving well, managing to take 2nd ahead of Mark Fox, who it has to be said, was driving completely within himself and setting a very consistent, smooth and relatively fast pace, as he managed to move into 1st at the end of the second bracket.
It was not just all smooth sailing for Mark though, as James, Charles and Jacco were definitely 'on the pace' tonight and all driving extremely well. The first 4 places being constantly swapped between them for the first 4 brackets.
After my somewhat 'lousy' start to the event on Blue and then not really being happy with my lap total on Purple, I knew I was really going to have to put a serious charge on to even get back to 'at best', a podium place. Black was OK, although Not my best, but I was being perhaps cautious after a shaky start and had dropped to 5th.
By the 5th bracket, I had managed to get back into 4th (with the help of James who had lost a wheel in the 5th bracket, but still managed to turn 26 on Black despite that) and was now within sight (lap wise) to the other runners, although both Mark and Charles were slowly moving away from the rest of us.
I must admit I am unsure what was happening with John W and Jake, both of whom are usually very competitive, mind you, it's not like they weren't turning good laps, but along with Geoff, (who doesn't get to run on this track that much being from Victoria), they were just Off the Cracking pace being set by the rest of us.
Jakes' car seemed a bit slower than usual and I'd venture Geoff could have benefitted from a New motor as I'm assuming his car has probably done quite a bit of running already around the kingleman, perhaps the same with John W's, who knows.
It is hard though, especially when you have the guys at the front turning 34's and 35's on occasion and rarely doing less than 31's even on the outside lanes,..as I said,..it was a 'Cracking Pace' tonight !!
By the start of the 6th bracket, I had managed to get to about 1 lap behind Jacco as he went on to Purple and Black and with a couple of reasonable runs on White and Red, I managed to move into 3rd by the end of the 7th bracket.
Mark by this stage had managed to Just get ahead of Charles at the end of the 6th bracket and proceeded to stamp his authority on the race with some fine driving for the last three brackets, managing to put a few extra laps on Charles.
Having got past Jacco, I was actually closing on Charles and amazingly, even thought perhaps 2nd was a possibility.
I'd have to say that Everyone drove an Excellent last bracket, the Worst lap total being a 30, with Charles, Mark, Jacco, John W and myself all turning 33's !! and so it ended, with mark taking a fine and well deserved 1st, Charles also driving extremely well and consistently to take a fine 2nd place with I thought myself managing to crawl back up to what I felt was a well deserved 3rd,...BUT,..not bothering to even glance at the Lap counters at the end,..it wasn't until I was about to take the photos of the Winning cars and the Trophies were being handed out, that I discovered that James had managed to Just Grab 3rd place from me, by 7/10ths of a second, by managing to turn a fantastic last bracket total of 35 laps !!
I was Shocked, as last time I looked, he was 2 laps behind !! Well done James, great driving and a damn close finish overall really,..as I said, it was a Great race !!,..lol
Final outcome;
1st Mark 258 laps
2nd Charles 255 laps
3rd James 254 laps
4th Stoo 254 laps
5th Jacco 251 laps
6th John 242 laps
7th Geoff 239 laps
8th Jake 229 laps
With results like that and the fact that the first 5 or 6 places were constantly being swapped, it goes without saying that we all had a pretty damn good time tonight,..as is pretty usual these days at HSC.
Thanks to James again for 'Hosting' the Retro event as part of the ADC and for the Great Trophies and to Wayne for running the race and once again to the Volunteer Marshalls who helped us have such a damn fine fast and clean race and a Whole Heap of Fun and a Great start to racing in 2011 at HSC !!
Thanks Guys !!
