What WAS nice, was to see both Wayne Walker and also the Aussie Retro 'Stalwart/Initiator' Steve King turn up to race in what is in many ways a rather pointlessly 'Titled' "Retro Nat's",..as it Sure has been a long time AND a rather rare occurance of Any Interstate racers Ever turning up for the event !!,.. but I digress,..
With the fact that there was Only the Five of us, Qualifying was dispensed with and Starting Lanes were chosen by 'Draw' which was OK, although considering the Temperature and the State of 'Prep' the Track was in, I am sure some rather fast times could have been turned,.. Especially by the Qualifying Expert,... Mark !!,..especially when one considers the lap times he was doing in Both races !!
CanAm:
Once again, I was Extremely Disappointed with the Newer chassis I have built, even after re-setting the Guide Height to suit the Small track and having a reasonably good motor, the new car is consistently 3 to 4 tenths Slower than 'Old Faithful',.. so was a somewhat Easy choice as to which car I would be running, to even be in with a remote chance,.... and perhaps Remote was a good choice of Phrase, compared to Mark's performance !!
In a fashion somewhat reminiscent of Cody's performance in last years Nat's, Mark Very Quickly set about 'Colouring Himself Gone', from the Start and Never looked back, setting a 'blistering' pace (as can be seen from both his lap Times and bracket totals), doing Sub 5 Sec' laps on 5 of the 8 lanes !!
Darryl did His best, to try and keep him Honest and I was Driving as hard as I could to try and keep within 'Coo-ee' of Darryl, Our lap Times and bracket totals were Very close throughout but these days Darryl doesn't make Many (If Any) unforced errors and to be honest I had a few too many Minor de-slots !! A case of at times trying Just that wee bit too hard,.. which, as we All Know, is never a good thing to amass Laps !!,.. LOL
I did manage to keep him relatively close for Most of the race,.. even making it into 2nd in the 5th bracket but Darryl had Already run Purple and Black, whereas I had Not.
I had managed to eek out a slender 1 Lap lead after the 6th and going into the 7th bracket (Purple for me and Orange for Darryl), and I was somewhat amazed and pleased to See that I had Only lost the One lap, ending equal on 238 laps,.. but I still had to run on Black and with Darryl on White it was going to be a Foregone conclusion as to the final outcome LOL Darryl finishing 3 laps up on me at the end.
Considering How Little track time either Wayne OR Steve has done on Any track this year, let alone the HSC Small track, it has to be suggested that they Both did quite well,.. with Wayne having the Upper hand race long really but it could be seen that Both of them were Starting to Motor along quite well after getting a few laps under their belts and would have Undoubtedly been far closer had they been racing more often more recently !!
Wayne running his Warmack I believe, with Steve running a 'Loaner' provided by Darryl.
The final outcome, was an almost Identical outcome to the Recent Geoghegan, with the members of FAT racing, once again taking the top Spots, in the Same positions and (as it would appear from the photos of Both events), the Identical Chassis AND Bodies !!,.. lol All 3 of us doing better totals than in the recent Geoghegan Trophy race. Which, (for myself) was a more pleasing outcome.
Mark had very few 'offs' and overall was a pretty fast & clean race, with Few Real dramas, if any apart from the Individual annoyance we may have felt from our Own de-slots !!
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F1:
Once again, Mark Reigned Supreme in the F1 race, holding down the Top 'spot' from the start and finishing with an even Bigger 'margin' on us than in the CanAm race.
Mark used the Same chassis as in the Geoghegan, whereas both Darryl and I ran different chassis, myself running My First F1 chassis, which has always been a rather good car, fortunately with Steve K running the car Darryl used in the Geoghegan and Wayne running a JK chassis (I think).
In a similar fashion to the CanAm race, this was probably even Cleaner and was a very enjoyable and fast race.
Darryl, Steve and myself all managed to swap and hold some of the podium positions at various points during the race, with there being Only 1 Lap between all 3 of us for the first 3 brackets !! With Steve and Myself holding 2nd and 3rd until the 4th bracket where I was on Black and Steve on Purple, which was when Darryl, having already Started on Black, managed to Edge past us Both, moving into 2nd and then held it to the end.
After dropping to 4th after running Black in the 4th bracket, I managed to regain 3rd and keep that position to the end but Only with a 3 lap advantage over Steve, until the final bracket finally finishing 5 laps up and Slowly clawing my way ever so slightly closer to Darryl.
I had a disastrous run on Black, even for me, which realistically put Paid to any chance of catching him and even Had I done a better lap total I would still have been a lap or more realistically 2 laps behind. It would help, if he Fell Off more,.. but alas, he Doesn't !!,.. LOL
Steve was quite obviously driving with More confidence as well after getting his brain back Into the HSC Small Track 'Mode' and Wayne was I think struggling a bit with both lack of overall recent track time AND a car that may perhaps Not have been handling as well as he would have ideally Liked it to be.
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I think overall though, we All had a great night's racing, that was as is often the case a very pleasant, humorous and enjoyable event and social outing.
Was Great to see and race once again with Both Wayne & Steve and perhaps typically, the Track, was once again extremely well prepared and in Great Racing Shape and condition and our usual band of marshalls' James, Joe and Greg, once again did their Excellent Job at what is so often a relatively Thankless task so Once again Our 'collective' Thanks for your regular and tireless efforts to help make Our racing happen AND be Fun !!
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Which could Only have made for an even better and more competitive event, apart from merely supporting Both the Class generally AND James !!
With the 3 members of FAT racing being a reasonable 'Portion' of the usual 'Suspects' regularly turning up to race On Either track !! and with Both Mark AND Darryl Away overseas for quite a few weeks, I am somewhat concerned over just How many entrants we may have for the next few races,.. IF Any !!!
Anyway,.. once again,.. just another typically Fun evening's racing Retro's at HSC,.... I just Hope there will continue to be More !!!
