Race Reports
and Results
Phillip Island
Historics 2007
The Phillip Island Historics is the pinnacle event on the historic calendar. It always has a turnout of over 450 cars, and this year it was over 500!
This was the first time I would actually 'race' at Phillip Island, and while nervous I was also very excited! The great thing about Phillip Island is that it is a big track, long, fast, with plenty of places to pass, and be passed. With approx 50 cars on the Group S grid, it was sure to be exciting!
Friday practice I was trying to get in the groove. I was happy that I had taken the car out just a few weeks earlier to ensure that the car felt good and nothing reared its head. When I was out on the Friday the only thing that happened was a throttle linkage dropped off and left me with only one bank. At first I thought I had totally lost all power, but quickly I thought it must have been a linkage. I quickly headed back to our area in the pit paddock, and opened the bonnet. I snapped the linkage back on and headed back out, only to have the session end just a lap later. Neverthe less, there was another practice later in the day and that should allow me to check pressures on the tyres. I know it sounds boring but that was all there was to do!
Saturday morning and I qualified my 1967 911 S in 25th position on the grid. I was pretty happy with that, as that was approx mid field.
The first race was somewhat of a comedy. First of all, Ian Ross and another car had issued on the start line, as yellow flags were waving madly before the flag dropped. I thought that we were going to be led around on another warm up lap while those cars where started or removed from the grid. However, unaware of what was happening, the 10 second board was out and I quickly grabbed first and dumped the clutch as the flag dropped. Cars went in all directions as even more cars and drivers were also caught unawares of what was happening. I managed to snatch a few places on the start and watched at cars left the track all over the place. Just before the completion of the first lap, the red flags were shown and the race was to be restarted. Phew!
The restart was less chaotic - thankfully! I managed to improve my results over the three races over the weekend, to do a best time of 2.03. This was about 2 seconds quicker than I started the weekend on. Overall the weekend was very successful.
My father Stewart used his 1954 Speedster in the regularity and was very successful in pedaling the old bathtub in around 2.30 which was a good time considering that there were approx 65 cars on the track in each session!
Click here to see the videos of the race