2007
Eastern Creek Historic's, 15-16
September
Perfect
spring weather all weekend prevailed over Eastern Creek for this year’s
spring HSRCA meeting – this was after stormy conditions on Friday
night.
The meeting paid tribute to the late John Dawson-Damer, and was supported
by 5 Lotus’ from his collection. Daughter Adelica raced the
Lotus Elite, while the 16, 39, 49 and 79 Formula One cars wre on display.
The 49 was the 2006 winner driven by John Smith. The 2007 running
of the Memorial Trophy race was full of surprises as Les Wright made
an uncharacteristic jump off the start line and was penalised with
a 1 minute penalty, but nevertheless provided a superb display of
motor racing history having a great early dice with Richard Carter
in the Elfin 600B (who shortly after pulled off with mechanical problems),
then having a race long duel with Paul Hamilton.
Paul eventually won the race from the Brabham of Tim Kutchel and the
Elfin Afla of Ross Hodgson. It was good to see Max Lane out in his
newly acquired Brabham BT18, and finished seventh overall.
The feature race for Group S Production sports cars saw a great battle
between Brian Taylor and Terry Lawler (both in Porsche 911) nose to
tail for several laps before Lawler’s car began smoking –
initially small puffs, but later intensifying. This happened around
the same time that Bill Pye made his way past Lawler and began to
hunt down Taylor to soon after claim the race victory after coming
from rear of field. Undoubtably the race battle went to Spud Spruyt
and Brett Morse, who swapped places on numerous occasions, but unfortunately
were swamped on the finish line by Phil Verwoert in his 2.7 RS Carrera
– the MGB duo finishing o.02 seconds apart!
The feastest cars of the meeting was the grid of P, Q & R group
cars, of which some 30 cars entered. The race was on in the feature
12 lap scratch race between a brace of RALT RT4’s and Guido
Belgoirno-Nettis, driving the ex. Alberto Ferrari 156GP. Sean Whelan
stormed away with the race lead early on keeping the far superior
Ferrari at bay. Chris Farrell meanwhile was making his way through
from starting from rear of grid to after a few laps make it past a
number of similar cars, including those of Holland, Calvert, Burness
and King & the Matich of Aaron Lewis and the March of Andrew Makin.
Guido, on the second last lap, began to attack Sean Whelan getting
closer and closer with every corner till a split-second of memory
fade spun the car one and a half time coming on to the main straight,
stalling the car in the process. Fortunately, he was able to move
it away from the racing line. The finish was an all RALT podium. Dice
of the race went to Andrew Making in the March 73B who pipped Vince
Holland in the RALT RT4 on the finish line by 0.018 seconds.
Sunny conditions prevailed flautlessly throughout both competition
days with Greg Watson making it three wins from three starts in the
Formula Ford events – taking home the John Leffler Shield.
John Virgo made the trip from South Australia with his Riley Special
to win the final two events, but the dice of the final feature race
went to Greg Prunster and Max Pegram who swapped positions throughout
the event – Prunster eventually pipping Pegram on the finish
line.
Max Brunninghausen made a terrific start in the Chevron B8 leaping
to 4th briefly before the front powerplants got into gear. Bob Tweedie
launched the mighty Elfin MS7 into the lead, managing to hold off
Jamie Larner in the RALT RT2 sports car for the first two laps before
Larner made it past to an eventual race winning gap of 14.6 seconds.
Good news for Tweedie was posting his fastest lap on the final lap
of 1:37.89
Russell Kempdich drove his newly acquired Porsche 956 seeting good
pass for the first few laps getting up into 3rd before retiring with
mechanical problems.
Battle of the weekend went to the Brunninghausen versus Tim Berryman
(Matich SR3) duel, which went on in all three races always swapping
positions at least twice each lap before Berryman won the battle across
the line by 0.0080 seconds!
Final event for the weekend was for Group N Production touring cars.
Bill Trengrove started from pole in the 64 Mustang bogged down on
the start with plenty of wheelspin – Wayne Rogerson made the
excellent start in the Mazda RX2 pulling away to an early lead to
Trengrove gathered his thoughts and position coming back and unleashing
the power of the 289 Mustang down the main straight, but the lead
continued to swap with Rogerson and the second Mustang of Greg Teofer.
Meanwhile the quick Queenslander, Ethan Lind stormed through from
rear of grid to fight his way into this dice for the lead.
The
eventual result was a hair-raising finish to this year's Eastern Creek
Historic's as Trengrove pulled out along the straight, lapped a fellow
competitor at the same time as passing Rogerson to be the first to
greet the chequered flag. And by the narrowist of margins - Trengrove
won by 0:0.0080 second
(Anti-climax
came soon later with the roar of the Trengrove Mustang as he obviously
didn't see the flag in the concerntration of the finish.
Eastern
Creek Photo Gallery - Click here
