Lakeside DTC – Sunday 21 June 2020

Story and photos by Andrew Row.

Morning Session – Molloy Beats Stokell

Well the title says it all really. Evan Molloy managed to take the DTC track lap record off Paul Stokell. There is nothing that brings more joy to a Lotus owner than beating Paul, we don’t even care if it wasn’t a fair fight.

Plenty of excitement in getting the first post Covid track day underway. Even the weather gods were happy to oblige, with a perfect day after the previous day’s rain. A little help from the ever enthusiastic Ken and Pauline Graham soon had the donut clear of puddles for the start of a great day.

With Covid rules only allowing for 20 at the track for each of the morning and afternoon sessions, we were all in for plenty of runs – the morning session managing thirteen before lunch. Made for little wait times between runs, but somewhat less social as a consequence. Also missing the competitive banter of the 7 lads, with them all choosing the afternoon session.

Evan led the way all morning, edging closer to the lap record, and then lowering it a couple of times. Gideon and Lindsay chasing hard behind. Lindsay having his share of spins whilst pushing strongly in pursuit. Ken and Pauline were ever competitive between themselves, Pauline taking the day by a hundredth of a second. She certainly peddles the Datsun hard, with a bit of a hair-raising spin through Turn 1. I shared the Graham’s pain of tyres well past their use-by-date – time for a new set now track days are back on.

Cam Anderson had his first run at the DTC in his Exige. After building pace all morning he left with the appropriate grin. I’m sure he will now be another regular.

Thanks to Bridie for coming out and running the timing all morning. Much appreciated by all. Evan kindly took her for a lap in his S1 Exige after the competitive runs were done. She has been hunting for something quicker than her automatic Corolla ever since.

Afternoon Session

By Daryl Wilson. Photos Shane Murphy and Steve Lennox.

After the Covid-19 lockdown it was good to finally get back to doing what we do and run again at Lakeside on the Driver Training Centre.

Due to the Covid-19 restrictions we had to split our usual all day event into two half day sessions. As luck would have it; it was a perfect Queensland day with no sign of the rain that had been predicted and going by the morning session the track was clean, dry and fast.

The “A” team of Gideon Street, Andrew Row, Jason McGarry and Bridie Moran set up for the day and ran the morning session which saw Evan Molloy better Paul Stokell’s track record of 44.856 sec with an impressive 44.672 sec run.

In the afternoon it was the turn for the “B” team of Steve Lennox, Shane Murphy and Daryl Wilson to take over and marshal the entrants. After the usual formalities, driver sign on, scrutineering and driver briefing it was time for the afternoon group to hit the track and see who was the fastest of the group.

Jon Young (aka Smokin’ Jon) got off to a flyer immediately doing a 48.624 sec run. Jon was closely followed by Mike Jones in his Toyota 86 with a 49.658. Jon and Shane Murphy both in Sevens battled all day as they usually do with Jon being fastest overall of the afternoon group.

Another notable performer on the day was Eckhard Schwarting in his Porsche Cayman S which I believe may have been his first outing in the car. Eckhard slowly whittled his times down over the day from 50.163 sec to his best of 48.926 secs.

The Jones family, all four Holden Sporting Car Club members were there with their 1968 Lotus Europa and 2008 Locost Special. Gwyneth and Cordelia shared the Locost with Gwyneth taking the honours with a best time of 51.214 sec against Cordelia best time of 51.816 sec.

Michael and Lloyd shared the Europa with Lloyd’s best run of 55.411 sec to pip Michael‘s best of 58.486 sec.

Overall most drivers had 12 runs and a good time appeared to be had by all – see best time results below.