Winton – 8/9 July 2000

WHAT A BLAST!!

Well the time has arrived and the opportunity to have a blast around a track has occurred.

The place - Winton about 200km north of the Melbourne CBD in the middle of nowhere. Perfect place for a car track.

The planning was driven by Nige (the guy with the V8 Ute on this link) and we (umm probably Nige actually J) decided to share the car for a driver training day.

The arrangements included such necessities as joining an amateur car club (Lotus Car Club of Victoria – 60bucks), getting a basic Cams license (filling in a form and paying 50bucks), and then getting the car ready. This included:

Getting a spare set of wheels (in case we crunched/punctured one of the Yokos) As I wanted a street set of tyres I bought a set of mundane Bridgestone RE92s to get me through rego. They are small as well (185*65).
Fitting a second throttle return spring
Fitting a fire extinguisher [to use when Brett sets fire to the car 3 days before the race, N]
Putting 40Psi in the tyres
Checking all the nuts for tightness [forgot the loose nut behind the wheel]
Filling up a couple of jerry cans with petrol (Shell Optimax high octane – very useful for getting the Ute home from Winton)
Remove the second muffler (sounds better)
Change Oil and Filter
New plug leads (useful for increasing stress levels – see below!)
Purchasing a Helmet

And of course every tool we could fit in the Ute.

Driving up Friday evening was uneventful except for:

needing to make a one hour detour in the opposite direction to get the CAMS licenses and club membership;

b) Brett missing the turn for Yea and taking us out to Healesville [approx. a 1 hour detour!?!].

c) The New Plug leads would not stay on the dizzy! We stopped (at least) 4 times. The problem was fixed by putting the old plug leads back on! [this was very helpful in finding Brett. Having lost him at the Yea turnoff, he was last seen disappearing in a blaze of (small) taillights in the direction of Healesville. Several mobile phone calls remained unanswered – due to Brett’s taste for Shania Twain played at 320w – and it was only the electrics committing hari-kari in sympathy with the stereo causing the car to break down, which allowed me to catch up, N]

An embarrassment was the stop when I blew a fuse. The fuse for the ignition module and the stereo are on the same circuit. Both are low consumption purposes – or so I thought. The 320W amplifier that I was playing at 320W popped the fuse and disabled the ignition module [again due to Shania Twain, N]. We had a bit of a job (in the dark) trying to work out why we were getting no spark out of the coil! Thankfully boy scout Nige remembered the fuses!

After a final detour for about 5 kms (headed the wrong way at Alexandria!) we eventually got to our motel in Benalla approximately 4 hours later than expected (and two hours after the permit to drive the car expired!)

I was driving the car on an unregistered vehicle permit (in a dodgey manner probably) 2 hours outside the permit curfew so I was lucky not to get pulled up (or have an accident!) This luck was highlighted when we headed down the street in the Ute for a meal and struck a random breathalyser unit 500 metres further down the road! – Talk about lucky!

Race Day

Anyway the day of the race day dawned and we set off to the racetrack again the wrong direction.

Here we are in ‘pit lane’

Awaiting scrutineering.
Had a minor problem with scrutineering as they latched on to the battery and pulled it away from its mounts. A few quick minutes with a hammer and we were in action again, and passed the first hurdle.

Brake testing; The brake testing was designed to give us a feel of the brakes – and to know what the car will do when you jump on the anchors. The ‘Westie’ appeared to brake very well with no deviation to the right or left when jumping on the brakes. The right hand two piccys are Nige preparing to flat spot my tyres.

First Time out on the Track
Heading out for my first drive on the racetrack. I anxiously waited for the 10 minutes or so on the dummy grid with a smile a mile wide!
Peter Rebbechi jumped n the car with me to provide the insight into the driving lines and so forth – very useful (essential) to the uninitiated.: Had my inaugural fan club meeting on the dummy grid, with Evan and Amanta (7 month preggy – congrats) providing last minute advise and encouragement.

First time out on my own – First time off on my own!
: Finally I get out solo and WHAT A BLAST!
: Had an absolutely fantastic time and I’m hooked. So its definitely a long term hobby from now on.
: The photos above represent a series of events leading up to my first off. Top left - have been overtaken by a Bolwell Mk IV (The Bolwell is disappearing off the right hand side of the photo.)
: Deciding to give chase and hold on to the Bolwell I enter the esses with him, and come out of the esses at the beginning of the start finish straight still with him. Hey I think I have the hang of this! This is testosterone and adrenaline at its best. I am jolted back to reality 10 seconds later as I come over a slight rise at the end of the start finish straight and realise I CANNOT POSSIBLY make the corner, so out with the anchors and hope it stops. Well it did and no damage resulted. Crushed pride and one smiling Bolwell driver later I realise that I was watching the back of the car in front and not thinking about driving the car on the track.

In the next session Nige drove and I watched on from a flag marshalling point. Nige drove safely only spinning TWICE! and took good care of the ‘Westie’.
Unfortunately due to our exuberance we did end up with a gearbox full of loose gears. So I didn’t get an opportunity to drive on day 2. But I wasn’t too disappointed and spent the day on flag marshall points around the track.
: I was extremely fortunate as Dave Packham gave me a loan of his little blue ‘Westfield’ so I could drive home and he put my car on his trailer for the three-hour drive back. Thanks a million Dave.


Here is a picture of Dave on day 2.
Anyway so Ill fix my gearbox and be back for Phillip Island – August 19 2000.