2007
Oran Park Historics
Perfect weather
in New South Wales on 2 & 3 June for the HSRCA winter historic
race meeting at Oran Park. For the first time since 2003 the South
Circuit was used. A small, but quality field of 180 cars entered,
which included PRB Clubman cars “in the spirit of historic racing”.
The meetings draw card was touring
cars, focusing on Group N and the more modern Group C & A.
Group N
Group N provided two outstanding
races on Saturday for the spectators, including a new initiative for
the HSRCA, a 25 lap relay race. The relay race was quite an interesting
spectacle, particularly with some of the “drawn out of the hat”
driver/car pairings, including that of the fastest and slowest competing
cars of the Group N category for the weekend – Cameron Tilley’s
ex Bob Asher Valiant Racer paired with Geoff Rose’s Na Simca.
Tilley started first opening up
a substantial lead on his closest rivals. At the end of his stint
the gap was over 30 seconds. Things soon changed when Rose hit the
track in the Simca. After a couple of laps of freedom with the large
gap, Rose started to slip back into the clutches of the hard charging
Lotus Cortina of Scott Fleming. Within a short space of time the Simca
fell back to sixth place, and continued. Fleming and teammate Ullrich
eventually won this epic race from Alan Reid and Lynn Brown in second,
and rounding out the podium places was the horsepower pairing of Chris
Strode and Michael Kennedy (competing in Kennedy’s XY Falcon).
Group C & A
A field of 11 Group C & A
Touring cars. Always an exciting race to watch, remembering memories
of these cars competing around the Mountain and other Australian race
track from the mid-1970’s to 1992.Race one was a battle between
the Army Reserve ZD Falcon of Frank Binding (Group C) against the
Group A Gibson Motorsport Nissan Skyline of Rod Markland. But the
drive of the race went to David Towe (John Player Special BMW M3)
who came from the rear of grid to finish in third ahead of Justin
Matthews’ Escort and the John Player Special BMW 323i of Michael
Spies. The Volvo 246T of Richard Prince smoked off the start line,
but competed well throughout the race till the turbocharger expired
in pit lane on the way back to the pits at the end of the race.
Race two saw the battle continue
between Binding and Markland right to the line as Markland in the
ex. Mark Skaife Nissan Skyline made a last lap lunge under brakes
into CC corner, but couldn’t hold off the skillful Binding who
narrowly increased the gap to an exciting win.
Formula Ford
Formula Ford provided a decent
field of some 14 cars for the weekend’s races. Saturday’s
first event was a clear victory to Tom Tweedie in Elwin 002. Into
race two and things looked unlikely to change with Tweedie opening
up a 300m gap on the first flying lap, and continuing to extend his
lead over the minor placing cars. His reign ended on lap three though,
as he pulled into pit lane to retire from the race.
The attention then passed to the
battle of the race between Doug Matley (Reynard) and Don Holland with
Damon Hancock in close pursuit in Peter Addison’s Van Dieman.
The lead changed countless times between Matley and Holland with Matley
taking home the victory in race two.
Group L Sports &
Racing and invited car Handicap Race
An action packed handicap event
saw the invited Group Na Simca of Geoff Rose first off on scratch.
Hillis was fourth off the line in his Lynx FJ and eventually took
the handicap win from the hard charging Brian Wilson (Brabham BT5)
who started from rear of grid. Jonathon Williamson and Don Thallon
closely followed to complete the top four placings in their Formula
Junior’s. Chris Reeks finished fifth in his Elfin Hallmark Formula
Vee.
Groups Q & R sports and racing
cars provided solid racing, although Vivian King did have it all his
own way across the weekend dominating in the RALT RT4. This was even
after he, and fellow RALT driver Peter Landen had a very scary moment
off the start in race one almost coming together as the RT4 flicked,
but both got away safely. Race two, and they finished with King first,
from Landen (RALT RT1) second from the great horsepower of Rob Tweedie
– Elfin MS7 and Aaron Lewis’ Chevron B42 F5000 who were
only tens of a second apart all race, as to were the dice of Ian Ross
– Elfin 360 and Malcolm Miller – Birrana.
Group S Production sports cars
showed up with a decent sized field, but put on some excellent racing
weekend long. It was a Porsche benefit at the front between Bryan
Taylor and Terry Lawler, who swapped places frequently. In race two
it was a mix of horsepower, good driving and car handling in the dice
of the race between the British front runners of Brett Morse’s
Sunbeam Tiger vs. Tony Dains’ Triumph TR6. Dains was behind
all race, but never too far away from Morse’s tail till he took
3rd away from Morse briefly on the 7th lap of the eight lap race,
but only briefly as Morse quickly snatched it back on the final few
corners.
A very enjoyable and exciting
weekend was had by all, including the official’s who were supplied
with gourmet salad lunches from Subway, and the superb catering on
Saturday evening in the hospitality suites.
We’ll see you all at the
next historic race meeting!
