Lotus Club Queensland
Dedicated to the promotion and enhancement of the Lotus experience
Login
Register
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Membership
    • Member Login
  • Events
    • Calendar
  • Motorsport
    • Lakeside DTC Timed Laps
    • LAKESIDE DTC RESULTS
  • Magazine
  • For Sale
    • Merchandise
    • Classifieds
  • Posts
  • Galleries
  • Directory
    • Suppliers & Parts
    • Advertisers
  • Archives
Shane-on-karrassel

Interclub Regularity Challenge – May 2015

Beyond Blue Regularity Run – Lakeside Raceway
Interclub Challenge – Round 4

By Liam Philp. Photos by Gloria Wade.

It was an early pilgrimage to Lakeside on a crisp Sunday morning. With the threat of rain looming, my trust in Google’s “cloudless sky” prediction was faltering. Everyone trickled in before the drivers’ briefing at 8:30 and all eyes were split between the shiny new BMW i8 and the sky.

It was my first time driving in anger at Lakeside, so whilst paying extra attention to Doug, I was incredibly pleased to learn that I was facing the prospect of driving in anger for the first time at a track which has supposedly killed more people than every other track in Australia combined. My eyes turned to the darkening sky and I crossed every finger and toe I could.
 
Predictably this did nothing. As soon as the briefing was over the heavens opened up. It was lightly raining as Paul in his bonkers PRB and Martin in the red-hot Elise set out for the first practice session, followed in the second session by the twin S1 Elise’s of Clive and Cameron. The general consensus was “a little bit slippery.” It looked like I would be in for quite a learning curve.
 
As I followed Dad’s Europa out past the blend line, I soon realized that “a little bit slippery” was someone’s impersonation of Kimi Raikkonen. The track was like an ice rink. Following the advice of our fellow team members, I began aggressively weaving the car and using the brakes in order to get as much heat into the tyres as I possibly could. Before I knew it, I had spun coming into the Carrousel, on the out lap. I’m told the footage went straight to YouTube. The news wasn’t all bad however, as Ken had promptly gone ahead and spun on the exit of Hungry, so I was spared a lecture about keeping the car “safe”.
 
As Tony (NB MX5) and Shane (Lotus Seven), left for their run, there were the finest hints of a dry line appearing. The second practice was much drier and times dropped significantly. As great as it was to finally see some sunshine, it confused us all as to what times we would nominate for our regularity runs. The general consensus was to nominate three seconds slower to cover for rain. Unfortunately we all should have placed our trust in Google, as the skies cleared and we all were forced to drastically back off in order to keep as close to our nominated times as we possibly could.
 
By the time the first regularity run was upon us, the track was dry as a bone. We were all getting into the swing of things, which meant that we had all realized that we were driving much faster than our nominated times. Everything was going swimmingly till the second regularity run. Shane had trouble with his Seven which wouldn’t go away and Ken had an apparent boost leak, causing him to be lapped twice by yours truly, much to his annoyance. My gloating was short-lived, however, as I had my first taste of British reliability when I lost all power coming into Hungry, turning the Seven from a snorting, angry-sounding Ford, to a wimpy Boxer. After a quick shortcut to the pits, the issue was diagnosed as a fuel pump going on strike and refusing to pump fuel. Surprisingly the only Lotus reliability jokes overheard were those from our own camp.
 
After lunch, despite some gallant efforts from our remaining teammates, our points standings dropped due to our retirements. Tony, Clive and everybody else put in some very consistent laps, to try and keep our standings on the leaderboard ahead of at least a few.
 
I must say that regularity is a lot harder than it looks, particularly when you’re given the opportunity of running on a dry Lakeside with little to no traffic. The real challenge was trying to resist the temptation to plant your right foot on the floor. Unfortunately the constrained and disciplined efforts of our team mates were not enough to negate the points toll of the wounded cars, Team 1 of Paul, Cameron, Tony and myself ended up eleventh of fifteen, whilst Team 2 of Martin, Clive, Ken and Shane ended up eighth.
 
Even though we had clearly been defeated, I can’t fault the camaraderie and team spirit within the Lotus drivers. Everybody was willing to offer advice, joke around or simply lament our standings on the scoreboard. The team aspect of the event made the day incredibly fun. It wasn’t just ourselves against the clock, it was the team. Gloria Wade took some fantastic photos, which really detailed the situation at hand, as well as some great shots of us on track.
 
The wounded cars were diagnosed, Shane having a distributor problem, Ken having an apparent boost leak and myself having a fuel pump that refused to pump fuel. The former two were able to drive their cars home, whilst I lucked out and sat in a tow truck. Hopefully all the cars can be repaired before our next event. Nothing like great British engineering and reliability!
 
Despite our club v club on-track battles, everybody at the event was there to support Beyond Blue, a charity which works to raise awareness and understanding of anxiety, depression and suicide; something which affects us all. In total the day raised $7,200 for Beyond Blue; a fantastic amount which I’m sure will be put to good use.
 
While the results on the leaderboard were not as we had planned, I can safely say that everybody thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The cars all looked great and were all setting somewhat consistent times. I’m told that with a good result at the DTC event, the Lotus Club could be in with a shot of taking out the overall Inter-Club Challenge, and rightfully so. I hope to see as many of you there as possible.

15-Martin-mixing-with-the-BMWs 28-Liam-on-the-eastern-loop 27-Liam-following-Ken-onto-the-eastern-loop 26-Clive-on-the-eastern-loop 25-Cameron-on-the-eastern-loop 24-Cameron-approaching-the-eastern-loop 23-Martin-on-the-eastern-loop 22-Clive-entering-the-eastern-loop 21-Shane-coming-out-from-under-the-bridge 19-Shane-on-karrassel 18-Ken-on-karrassel 17-Liam-on-karrassel 16-Martin-and-Paul-just-having-fun 1-Preparing-for-the-day 14-What-a-difference-a-lap-makes 13-Paul-creeping-up-on-the-Ferrari 12-Tony-on-the-Straight 11-Tony-and-Shane-ready-to-go 10-Liam-in-the-line-up 9-Carsten-and-Tom 7-More-showers-looming-above 6-Heading-for-a-wet-run 5-Down-came-the-rain 4-Fourth-member-of-Team-2-Paul 3-Team-1-Shane-Martin-Ken-Clive-Team-2-Cameron-(rear)-Liam-Tony 2-All-ready-to-go
[Show thumbnails]
Peak Crossing Run – April 2015 DTC – Saturday 20 June 2015

Related Posts

mp-banner

Events, Gallery 2022, Homepage, Racing

Morgan Park Sprints R4

gold-rush-banner

Events, Gallery 2022, Homepage, Racing

Gold Rush Hill Sprint – 2022

leyburn-banner

Events, Gallery 2022, Homepage, Racing

Leyburn 2022

Random images

15.Lunch-orders Pits 4-Winding-mountain-road-3 jeff Margaret-Olleys-home 19-Shane-on-karrassel Mike-with-Shane-in-the-background Go-or-Stop- Jason-HPE 6-Breakfast-at-Birches-3 Artist-at-work IMG_5310 IMG_0744 003 IMG_4861 IMG_4398 IMG_6850 image_258 image_113 lot_022 Europa's Full-House 20180916_081808 the-meeting gw_Vyvyan heading for the bridge gw_Elise & Exige production line up Garry Phil-Maria-Nick-George_gw In Transit Now Im Mad IMG_9118 20170226_071358 MG-8134 IMG-0174 Liam James Lotus display in the street 2000 to Current Sports Cars emr-1 The nose as shaped IMG_0101 122_2240_IMG IMG_8494 IMG_4298 lot_001 IMG_0296 IMG_0036 Preparing-for-the-Concourse Mar-main-73 main-34 122_2259_IMG IMG_0323 MG_6932 main-33 MG_7081 P1080270 F1000019 090131_JSS_Zwartkops_013a P1010443 A_quiet_cuppa_at_Lotus_Hilton IMG_7752 IMG_5039 IMG_7621 IMG_7618 MG_4300 IMG_7919 IMG_7786 PICT7261 P1060553 Morgan P1060298 Lakeside_pits P1020790 n751569074_589940_6390 IMG_8094 DSC03823 0069 IMG_20210925_095015 Taking in the fresh air Sevens healeys-by-the-score MG_3933 Elan-row Briefing award-daryl-wilson joe's-1947-alfa-1 IMG_0296 Raw IMG_0307 Lotus-Plus2-3 Last Run Barb-at-Jones-Winery P1020960 Justin-SamMike_GW tonys-eleven IMG_1901 Jen and Dick liam's-exige main-57 main-42

Recent Articles

  • Morgan Park Sprints R4
  • Kev’s Big Day Out
  • Duratec Elise – better late than never
  • Gold Rush Hill Sprint – 2022
  • Marburg Pub Run – 4 Sept 2022
  • Unique +2 Road Trip to Brisbane
  • Leyburn 2022
  • August 2022 DTC

Latest Gallery Images

20220220_093834 20220220_093818 20220220_093827 20220220_093743 20220220_093812 20220220_093730

Search articles by category

Archived articles

Lotus Club Queensland
© Lotus Club Queensland   |   Site by Black Eye Studios