DTC – Friday 14 August 2020

By Daryl Wilson, Photos Steve Johns.

The 3rd LCQ Lakeside Driver Training Centre Timed Laps event for the year was on the Friday public holiday for the Royal Queensland Show, better known as “EKKA” Day. Due to Covid-19 the “Ekka” was cancelled this year and the Ekka public holiday was moved from its traditional mid-week Wednesday to the Friday to give BrisVegas people a long weekend holiday.

The long weekend break combined with several other events also scheduled for the weekend ie, MG Car Club Mount Cotton Hill Climb, Noosa Hill Climb meant that many of our regulars escaped for the weekend or had other commitments. Shane Murphy, Jon Young, Dick Reynolds and Jason McGarry had all committed to the Noosa Hill climb, plus Andrew Row and partner Bridie Moran who headed off for the weekend escape! This translated into a smaller than usual field of 17 entrants and only 15 runners on the day.

Special thanks to Jason McGarry who detoured to Lakeside on his way to Noosa, to help set up and do the scrutineering.

Unfortunately for Jason and the others going to the Noosa Hill Climb, the traffic north to the Sunshine Coast was extremely heavy, so they had a horror run.

The day started off foggy and a little cool, around 14c for you poor southerners who are doing it tough as I write this! Gideon did the driver briefing and we were about to start at our usual time of 9.00am, when the QR Lakeside Supervisor arrived to tell us we could not start until 9.30am! Unsure why the change of time, but probably has to do with the complaining neighbours!

Despite the track being a little dirty from a previous Skid pan and drifting group everyone soon got into the groove and times dropped steadily. Dick Reynolds was running his rebuild engine Mark 2, (we won’t mention Mark 1!) for the first time and was initially unimpressed as he felt little improved performance on the short track. However he came back with a big smile on his face after running the long track, he was heard to say lots more torque over 3000 rpm! It seems his new Cams/Power band is much more suited to the faster flowing longer track.

Brian Meade a new LCQ member had his first track outing in his Lotus Exige 350 and put together some good times to be in the top 7 on the short track and top 5 on the long track. Father and son duo of Graham and Byron Maxwell ran their very tidy and quick Lotus Elise with Byron pipping dad by 0.282sec on the short track and a mere 0.0018sc on the long track. Other Lotus members Juan Renato Laporta, David Yule, Campbell Anderson and I made up the small Lotus field. Colin McKay drove his Lotus Elan up from the Gold Coast in the fog and heavy traffic to see his friend Colin Berneville- Claye run and was soon drafted into action as Timekeeper. Thanks Colin for your help.

As is usual we had a few newbies on the day Colin Berneville- Claye ran his very tidy Fraser Clubman for his first outing after a period of maintenance, repair and rebuild. We also had a group of guys running in Mazda MX5’s, Peter & Callum MacLeod, Gary & Calum Balinger and Peter Cox. Calum Balinger the fastest on the day on both the short track and the long track.

Gideon Street was on fire blitzing everyone being almost 2 seconds faster on the short track with a best time of 46.521sec and on the long track with a best time of 54.842sec, very impressive. See full list of best times for both courses attached.

A great day with perfect weather after the foggy start, everyone had lots of runs and a well organised event thanks to Gideon. This was the first time we have used the RACERS entry and login system and despite a few minor glitches everyone seemed to manage the change and it should only be better for future events.

Keep your eye on the LCQ Club Calendar for the final scheduled 2020 LCQ Lakeside DTC on Sunday 20 September 2020. This is scheduled to be a round of the Interclub Challenge, so please be quick if you plan to enter.

Lakeside DTC – Short Course 1

Lakeside DTC – Long Course 2