Race Reports
and Results
Phillip Island 6
Hour Regularity 2007
(updated regularly)
Team Terribly Serious! Team Laid Back!
Marcus Hancock Stewart Webster
Michael Japp Hung Do
Mark Teirney Darren Sharp
Alex Webster Tony Rogers
Spencer Harrison (late withdrawal) Jason Carroll
Unfortunately, Spencer Harrison who had recently bought a car to use in the 6 hour, found a death rattle while doing a service just prior to the event. Rather than quickly rebuild the motor before the event, he decided to pull out but still came down for the weekend to lend a hand…. And thank god for that, as almost every car he put a spanner to at some point!
The weather was perfect on Saturday practice, with everyone getting a run to get themselves into the groove as well as get their tyre pressures set. We had the usual suspects of helpers, Andrew Vidler and Peter Williams (aka Mr Upwey) as team managers, Brett (news reader), Richard (fuel boy), as well as others that drifted in and out on both days.
Sunday arrived and the weather was threatening to turn ugly. The track was a little wet from some morning drizzle. I was first up in my 1967 911S. It was this time a year ago that I debuted the car, and since that time I have done some small changes that have helped the car and I improve about 8-9 seconds a lap. Of course I have had a lot more seat time in the car and have become more confident, but it was nice to be running in the low 2 minute times.
The start of the 2007 regularity was a little chaotic, with the warm up lap having many drivers swerving to get some heat in the tyres. The track was still a little greasy and I had a feeling that there was going to be some action early. My feelings were right, as I was coming through Honda, the SC boards were shown as the Commodore of one of the quick teams had mounted the tyre wall and done significant damage to the car (and tyre wall). Cold tyres, wet track, cold brakes, and cold brain.
After 3-4 laps under the safety car, which gave us some time to clear a dry line, the safety car pulled off it was full throttle. I had a great dice with a V12 Jaguar for a while, but he was impeding my times up and I was not getting a clear lap. As a result I was no where near my nominated 2.02. 15 laps later I was in the pits.
We had fine weather for the first stints for everyone, however the second stints were nothing short of scary. The rain clouds loomed, and then all hell broke loose for the last two and a half hours. I have some video on my YouTube site www.youtube.com/aewebster, and from that you can see just how bad the conditions where. With the heavy rain, all our times were no where near our nominated time, and while we were out to win, we did not take the competitive attitudes of our competitors such as Porsche Club (who did one lap and then pitted for a driver change for the entire rain period) or Weltmeister (who just parked their cars for 2 hours).
At the end of the day, it was great to be able to get lots of wet weather experience, however given 40 cars on the track and the lack of visibility and traction, it was downright scary and dangerous. However, despite the danger, there were relatively few incidents that caused any real damage to cars.
By the end of the regularity in 2007 we were once again not featuring in the top 10, however we all had fun, and again vowed to return next year. Given the actions of some of the teams, there were protests lodged, and despite being awarded first place, Weltmeister later had their winning reversed, only for Porsche Club of Victoria to be instated as the new winner. The organizers of the event held a meeting/debrief a week or two after the event to iron out some of the issues for the 2008 event, to prevent the same occurrences as the 2007 event, which were clearly not in the spirit of the event.
In 2008 the event will be held in late August, and thus will not clash with the Grand Final, but it will potentially be slightly poorer weather. Given the weather in 2007 though, I can’t see it being much worse!
We hope that we will have some more entrants for 2008, with some of the NSW boys expressing interest, and other Victorian members potentially wanting to also get involved. Lessons learned from the 2007 event showed that 4 cars is the perfect number per team. It allowed every driver to get 90 minutes on track during the race, which is a LOT of DRIVING! The 5 car option is also good for those drivers that think that they don’t want to do more than 60 minutes on track, but it does allows for any potential problems with cars.
BRING ON THE 2008 EVENT!
RESULTS:
Team Terribly Serious 27th
Team Laid Back 37th