Street Cars - Race Report - Barbagallo Raceway - 6 July 2013 Fine weather and cool temperatures and a chance to sample the life of the V8 teams (minus the hospitality) in the infield garages greeted Street Car competitors for the first race in over 4 months at Barbagallo Raceway. This was the 3rd meeting in 2013 for Street Cars and for many, the first outing for the season. We had 2 first timers to racing in Brett Williams with his beautifully prepared RX7 and Ryan Palazzolo in his awesome ex-time attack Evo. Brad was racing his SR20DET powered Datsun 1600 for the first time after a major rebuild and Franz Esterbauer, also in his first race season, was in a freshly loaned Evo after using Ivan Tan’s WRX for the first 2 meetings of the year. Andrew Stevens’s 180SX had seen a new power-plant go in and was looking to do something special today. Denver Parker has put on some new wider 10” rims and V8 Supercar brakes as well as some suspension tweaks with a hope to put down some better lap times. Once the cobwebs were blown out, qualifying times showed the trend for the day with some good times put down. Unfortunately Brett got caught out with cold brakes at the end of the main straight ending up in the sand. Luckily he managed to put down a lap time and no damage was done so he could get to start his first race. The start of the first race saw everyone get away cleanly with Andrew breaking away from Paul Kluck’s Skyline to establish a comfortable lead which he was able to maintain and settled down to establish a new outright Street Car long circuit track record of 60.3112 and cruise to victory. This previous record of 61.0368 was set in 2005 by Kerry Wade in an RX7. Paul in his Skyline and Laurie Whittome in his RX7 had a close tussle for the remaining podium positions in the first race with Laurie taking 2nd place with Paul just over 0.7 second behind in 3rd. Meanwhile, the rest of the field was contending with a large field of Street Cars and Improved Production Cars of varying speeds and abilities and dealt with the challenge well. There were battles throughout the field with both IPC and Street Cars dicing for position. The new starters, Brett and Ryan came from sprint type events so shortly after getting through the nerves and excitement of their first multi-car standing start took over as they each completed their first overtakes. They are now hooked! Brett kept it on the black stuff and Ryan made excellent progress through the first half off the race but faded in the last few laps. Denver and Franz matched each other, lap for lap, and their battle saw them both retain their qualifying positions with Denver finishing fourth and Franz fifth. Brad Cuss finished only one position below his qualifying position in 8th despite a 3rd lap encounter with an IPC’s wheel kissing his door resulting in a recoverable spin. The 2nd race was reverse grid with the 12 IPC and 13Street Cars mixed through the field in the opposite order to their finish in race 1. Needless to say, this produced some exciting racing with the first incident occurring moments after the start as Laurie’s RX7 swung out and made contact with Paul’s left front wheel bumping him off the track and inevitably leading to his temporary departure off the track due to a damaged rim and deflated tyre. However, possibly a first in Street Car Racing at Barbagallo, he was able to re-enter the race after a wheel change at a pit-stop in the infield garages and complete the race and salvage a few valuable points. The next incident also involved Laurie’s RX7 as he encountered a rapidly slowing chain of cars at the right hander at the crest forcing him to swing out to try to avoid contact. Unfortunately, he clipped the rear of this slowing car which sent him spinning into the drivers side of Denver’s Skyline, spearing him off the track towards the down to Con’s corner. Luckily Denver didn’t sustain more than cosmetic panel damage and was able to recover onto the track and finish credibly in 6th position though Laurie was not so lucky, ending his race with extensive front end panel damage and a broken right rear wheel. Shortly after the first lap maelstrom a safety car was called after which a hard charging Franz was able to jump to the lead for the first time in his short racing career. However another newer arrival, Ryan, was trying hard to spoil the party and used his Evo’s phenomenal pace to take the lead which he held to the end. Unfortunately for him a 60 second penalty for a start infringement saw him hand the win to Franz for the first win of his career. Andrew’s record pace from race 1 was diminished as he nursed a diff sounding like it had enough and he nursed it to a sound 2nd with Ian MacPherson holding down a solid 3rd place. Kim Ledger made solid progress through the field and kept out of trouble to score 4th place with Brad following not too far behind in a respectable 5th place. The 3rd and final race saw a more orderly start and a settling down to a brisk pace with many setting their fastest laps of the day. Franz had a great start and held the lead for most of the first lap till Andrew Stevens restored order and took the lead. A hard charging Kim Ledger chased Franz for the whole 10 laps making him earn his hard fought 4th place. Paul was fighting hard through the field from his lowly 11th spot on the grid to be on Andrew’s tail by lap 5. This got Andrew’s attention and forced him to pick up the pace by nearly a second a lap despite trying to show some mechanical sympathy to his symphonic diff! This threat was short-lived as Paul’s Skyline suffered a loss of power steering and a broken gear stick in quick succession. Despite this, Paul managed to hold onto 2nd place and ward off a threat from the very fast Evo piloted by first-time racer, Ryan, after he suffered brake failure while trying to pass coming into turn 7 and narrowly avoided beaching himself in the sand-trap. Ryan relinquished his challenge and was happy to hold onto a well-deserved 3rd place. Laurie managed to pilot his battle-scarred RX7 into 5th place despite handling compromised by different tyres on his rear end (the car turned well in right-handers which is the main thing!). Brad in his Datsun, Denver in his Skyline and Ian MacPherson in his WRX had their own battle-royal with the 3 in a tight 9 lap tussle with Brad keeping it all together to take 6th with Denver less than 0.6 seconds behind in 7th and Ian less than 0.2 seconds behind in 8th. Scott Petersen put in a solid performance after mechanical gremlins saw him drop out early of the first 2 races to complete all 10 laps and work his way through the field to come in a credible 9th. The U2L competition saw Neil Pollard’s Toyota Sprinter take out a solid 3 wins over Kelvin Sharp’s BMW to take the U2L’s for the day. The Outright results saw Andrew take out the win with Franz take out 2nd Spot and Kim in 3rd. The consensus was a fantastic day’s racing was had by all. We loved the big grid, we loved the (sometimes too) close racing and we loved being in the infield, V8 Supercar garages. Bring on the July 28th Invitational meeting!
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 14:29:14 +0000
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