2010
Baskerville Historic Races
15-17
October 2010, Baskerville, Tasmania
Saturday morning the track
was fining up, but news was coming through of snow on nearby mountains.
Fortunately, this did not arrive. Fine weather ensued for most of
the day with only light sprinkles of rain hitting cars and the track
in various sessions.
In recent years historic motor
sport in Tasmania has been on a downhill slope, until some new ideas
and fresh enthusiasm from members of the MGCC formed a committee that
has ignited the flame for the sport in the apple isle in the past
two years.
The history goes back much
further than that with the Baskerville circuit first opened in 1959
after being completed in 1958. Although housing is now starting to
approach the circuit remains, and we understand that neighbouring
properties wishing to build have guidelines imposed stopping them
from building too close to the track.
The 2km circuit is short, but
has all the ingredients of a challenging race track. For the spectator
the hill as you enter the property provides an ideal vantage point
of the entire circuit. The entry list is small, but quality with 120
entrants across 7 fields.
The depth of regularity in
Tasmania provided most of these entries, but it is hoped that many
of these car owners will get a real taste and promote themselves to
racing grids in the near future.
I was put in regularity group
3, along with fellow BGT owner from Newcastle, Bob Blayden who like
many others from the mainland had travelled to the event. Being marketed
as an MG event the majority of competitors from the mainland were
Victorians.
In previous outings with Blayden
his GT has being much faster than mine, having had the engine re-build
and modified. It wasn’t so at Baskerville as Blayden had continual
fuel pressure problems when under hard acceleration, both up the hill
after the esses and along the back straight.
In our ten lap practise/qualifying
session i found myself held up by a Ford Cortina after making it passed
Blayden early on. Another Cortina, driven by Greg Ellis passed me
as he was being held up too, but quickly I got back in front, but
having to apply the brakes two or three times whilst in a corner I
still could not get past as the Cortina had slightly more power along
the straight. On the last lap I managed to get alongside on the back
straight, but to my astonishment the Cortina started moving across
on me, pushing me toward the left of the track. Suffice to say my
fastest lap was the last at a 1:21.
With this hold up in mind I
took a gamble and decided that i should be 2 seconds quicker than
this, so I nominated a 1:19, a time which I managed to maintain and
better – finishing in second place on the nominated time results.
My first top three ever!
The second run Saturday afternoon
saw me knock a further few seconds off the lap time, posting a string
of 1:16 and 1:15.
More from Sunday to follow
shortly...
