What can I say, great weather, great racing and great friends. Sunday morning started early with an 8 am start for qualifying. Ipswich at 8 am in mid winter is no fun, but we struggled thru. We had 4 HA/GR cars there, Barry, John, Pete(Spanners) and myself. Unfortunately we were so busy talking we missed the first round of qualifying, but you know what they say, yes it happens. The second round was much more fun, the green Flattie beast ran a 13.75 against Barry's 13.4 a really good race. Next round was a bit more eventfull, my oil pressure sender unit blew out and dumped oil on the startline. Not too much luckily, and no damaged to the car bar oil everywhere. Thanks to Barry's team for coming up with a plug to fit the hole, we're back in action. Then we were into the next round, my time was 13.8 so all was good. Racing started after a lunch break. We had it planned so we wouldn't race each other, but for some reason the officials waived another car around Pete so we had to race each other. Well done Spanners, we had a great close race with no more than a wheel length in it at the stripe. Next round I drew a 34 sedan and won on a red light. You gotta take it when you can. Last round I drew what I thought was an easy one only to red light, so pedal to the metal and ran a 13.71 at 97 mph my personal best. A big thanks to Spanners for making the 11 hour drive to race us. Always good to see you mate. See you all next time, November 22/23 for the Warwick Nostalgias.
Sounds like a fun day of racing Nigel. You are getting some nice numbers with that well oiled machine.
Yes, it was a good weekend of racing. It was great to catch up with the Northeners again. Organization- wise Willowbank raceway needs some work but the word is it's on borrowed time anyway due to either encroaching suburbia or coal reserves underneath. The 11 hour drive solo was without drama, the trip home not so. I clobbered a bit of road kill in the Ute, which is a bit low slung, and managed to drag it under the trailer for 20 miles or so, including down the main street of Glen Innes. When I pulled up for breakfast some locals pointed it out. Grabbed a pie and coffee and bolted out of town. After finishing brekky it was time to drag Skippy (kangaroo) out from under the trailer and get going. Anyhow, back to the racing. First qualifying run was against John in the Slanty powered beast. He got the jump on me after I nearly stalled on take-off. The night before I did some runs at the test 'n' tune and was getting no traction at all. Overnight the track crew prepped with sticky shit that worked. I reeled him in and took the win. That's the first video. Second run was against Nigel but when I got to the other end he was nowhere to be seen. I figured he decided he couldn't win so went back to the pits. Just kidding. First shootout run was against Nigel again due to the officials playing silly buggers, and as Nigel said it was a close one. Unfortunately I didn't film this run because to turn the camera on I have to stick my hand outside the cage and that would've earned me an automatic disqualification. Second run was against an A model which red lit so I took the win. Third run was against a Bucket with a 202 cu.in Holden Red motor as opposed to my 138cu.in Holden Grey motor. Once again I took the win after he red lit. Nothing like rattling the opposition into making mistakes. After not having lost a race all weekend I still didn't end up in the final because my wins weren't close enough to my dial-ins. Good racing but. Thanks to Benny and Mathew for their help with staging and mechanical knowledge. That's all till this Saturday for round 6 of the Sydney championship. I'm exhausted from all this typing.
Great video, nice clean passes, cars look great. If someone did not know where you were, they mite think they were at Pacific Raceway, Kent, WA with driver looking into the sun like it was on that one pass. thanks for posting the runs
The Jalopy Journal
