30th
Historic Winton - Race Meeting report
The
historic motor races at Winton in Victoria’s north were held
recently for the thirtieth time on its traditional yearly date –
the last weekend in May. The Austin 7 Club’s Historic Winton
race meeting has now established itself as Australia’s longest
continually run all-historic race meeting, and also now boosts the
title of the only race meeting in Australia that combines both historic
car and bike racing.
Of this year’s large overall
entry list a strong group of 120 of bikes entered with a staggering
22 side-cars. Away from the track, one of the event’s major
sponsors Shannons provided the “Shannons Classic Car Park”
which featured a large range of enthusiast’s most loved possessions
on display.
“Cars are our Stars”
was Historic Winton’s official slogan, and the car
s
delivered. They included the famous Chamberlain 8 along with what
could be stated as the largest turn-up of Aussie-built cars in recent
years, mainly of which were competing.
Formula Ford’s were combined
with Group Q & R racing, and had a somewhat eventful weekend.
Saturday afternoon’s race saw Phil Randall involved in a racing
incident, which saw him taken to Wangaratta hospital overnight for
observation. Then in Sunday’s feature race three Ford’s
collided on the final lap with David Nethercote (driving father Rob’s
car) being turned over and skidded along the ground (track and dirt),
but survived un hurt. Barry Johns and Chris Ralph were the other two
in the incident, in which some fellow competitors on their cool-down
lap pulled over to offer their assistance, mainly in putting the Nethercote
car back on its wheels. Both David and Phil are fine, with the car’s
needing some repairs. The victor in the Formula Ford’s main
race was Tom Tweedie, who narrowly beat Nick McDonald. In the faster
cars Andrew Makin in a relatively underpowered March 73B got off to
a flying start in the eight-lap race, which he maintained throughout
keeping at bay the competition from Andrew Robson driving the RALT
RT4.
In the M & O Racing field
Murray Bryden driving his Lotus MRC 22 Formula Junior won the handicap
race on Sunday morning, whilst Ken Bedggood in the Penrite Oil’s
Brabham BT 16 won the other two setting a new lap record in the final
race of 1:02:2078 This may be attributed to the fact that Bob Cracknell
in the Elfin 600B was storming through from the rear of field to finish
second ahead of Tim Kutchel (BT18) & Ed Holly (BT15) after having
mechanical problems in an earlier race.
A Penrite Oil car also dominated
the Group LB Sports and Racing races with the Lola Mk1 taking two
wins in the hands of Keith Simpson. Keith took home the Mark Dymond
Trophy in Sunday afternoon’s race. The dice of the race was
between Stuart Powell (Faux Pas), Bill Hemming (Elfin Streamliner)
and John Medley (Nota Formula Junior) who finished within a second
of each other.
The historic touring cars fielded
a strong 60+ field over two grids with the faster qualifying cars
on the track first. In the starch races Tony Hubbard was unbeatable
in his Chevy Comaro streaking the field. Bob Cox (Mustang) was next,
and reportedly tried everything he could to try and stay on the tail
of Hubbard all weekend. Russell Pulvin is really showing incredible
pace in the Datsun 1600 recording at fastest time in thigh 1:10’s,
and now has his sights set on making it past the 289 Mustang of Jervis
Ward.
The Group SC production sports
cars were separated from the SA & SB field for a reason historicracing.com.au
doesn’t know, but the SA & SB races were weekend highlights.
The Marcos GT of Roger Ealand won the two starch races, in a car which
is so under-powered when compared with others on the track. By others
we’re talking about the cubic-capacities under the bonnet of
the Chev Corvette’s of Graeme Hooper and Paul Sabine, and also
the two genuine Shelby American GT350’s of Ian Ross and George
Nittis. Ross lites up the tyres in an awesome start to the final race,
but soon came un-stuck with a spin, which put him at the rear with
the whole of Victoria hearing the sound of the high-revving Shelby
as it roared before becoming a late retiree.
The SC cars were combined with
M, O, Q & R Sports cars (that was a tongue-twister in commentary!)With
Phil Verwoeret triumphant in his RS Carrera Porsche in the SC finishing
in eighth place overall. Overall victor in the scratch races was Paul
Mander who only had to tap the accelerator in the Tiga SC83C2 to fend
off others, mainly John Smith in the Stephen Fryer MRC Lotus T23.
Excitement was created by another Ian Ross who raced his simply awesome
to look at (& hear) MRC Repco – with a rare 5 litre motor
as he carefully handled the Can-AM car around the track finding its
limits a couple of times in spins.
There were over 40 race events
across the weekend, which means that memories of every inch of every
event sometimes fade so that’s the brief report on Historic
Winton for 2006 – a great meeting!
