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
agp-banner

Lotus at the 2019 Australian GP

Early last year I was invited to exhibit my Flintstone Lotus 23B in a display of forty historic race cars at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

Story by Peter Boel, Photos Ron Wilkin.

The participation included a ticket to the entire event for myself and 2 helpers. Also included was the offer of a drive on the GP circuit on the Sunday morning of the event.

I’d not been to the AGP for some years so it seemed the perfect opportunity to give the event another look. My friend Ron, a fellow racer from NZ, was keen to be one of my ‘helpers’ and his son who lives in Australia was going to join us. It’s a long drive from Brisbane to Melbourne and back, particularly towing my ‘toyhauler’, so an extra driver would make the journey a lot more comfortable. The annual Historic Race Meeting at Phillip Island is the weekend before the AGP and the event always has a large entry of fabulous race cars. So also entering this event made good sense given the long drive.

We chose to go south to Phillip Island via the Newel Highway with one overnight stop on the way. Despite some really terrible sections, the highway is generally quite a good drive but even so it was a hard slog with a big trailer on the back. The last time I’d taken this route was years ago on the way to the Australian Lotus Clubs get together in Adelaide. My memory of that drive was of cold frosty mornings and lush green countryside. This time it was really hot and the countryside for the entire trip was brown and barren. The drought had certainly taken a grip of the outback.

We arrived at Phillip Island Wednesday afternoon with practice planned for Thursday and the three day event starting with qualifying Friday morning. Typically, we weren’t allowed into the track on the Wednesday to unload so it was bedlam at the entry to the tunnel into the track on the Thursday morning and a mad scramble to get ready for the first practice session. However, once we got out on to the track it was a joy to drive on – fast and flowing – just the way I like it.

PI isn’t the top of my list of favourite tracks but it’s not too far down. The Group M and O race field had 33 entrants and I was generally running 8th or 9th in the races with a best time of 1m 40s – pretty happy with that.

Sadly I fell foul of the race officialdom. The red flag came out in the second lap of race 3 and the car in front of me jumped on the brakes leaving me no option but to pull out from close behind and just overtake him. Jumping on the brakes as well was certainly not an option. I immediately slowed down, in turn passed by the car I’d overtaken. However, the deed was done and I was summoned to face the CAMS marshals who fined me $200 and excluded me from the next race. The exclusion from a race effectively cost me another several hundred dollars when valuing track time against cost of participation. In what other amateur sport are you penalised many hundreds of dollars by a punitive officialdom for making a mistake? Not happy! Certainly won’t be going back to any Victorian events in the future. Their officials are mean.

So on to the AGP. The forty historic race cars were grouped on a grassy area just behind the grandstands fronting the main straight. We took it in turns to man the display giving each of us plenty of time to view the action from different parts of the circuit.

Albert Park isn’t really the greatest place to view the F1 spectacle but you get a great sense of the speed of these cars at points where you can get really close to the track. We ended up watching the race on a giant screen set up not far from our display area. Probably had a better view of the race from there while downing a few beers.

Originally the Sunday track outing to show off our cars was to be a gentle drive at under 100kmh behind a pace car with no overtaking. However, at the Sunday briefing we were told we could overtake but only on the straights. When we did get out on the track the pace car disappeared in a cloud of dust and was not seen again leaving us free to circulate the track as we liked at what was described later as a spirited display. I certainly made terminal speed in top at a few locations. The circuit is not the most exciting track I’ve driven on, but I was most surprised at how dirty and bumpy it was. I thought the F1 brigade expected better. Overall the historic display was a great success with thousands of enthusiasts coming by to talk to us about our cars.

We returned to Brisbane via the Hume and Pacific Highways, stopping overnight at my favourite Motto Farm motel in Raymond Terrace. Their free breakfast is hard to beat.

The historic display will happen again at this year’s AGP but without me. Been there done that.

The-Flintstone-Lotus-on-display-at-the-AGP
Getting-ready-to-go-out-onto-the-track-at-the-AGP
Michael-Bennett’s-lovely-Lotus-12-at-Phillip-Island-they-don’t-make-them-like-that-any-more-lr
On-the-dummy-grid-PI-getting-ready-to-go-out-lr
Photo-of-the-flinstone-on-track-not-actually-at-AGP-or-phillip-I-2-lr
Photo-of-the-flinstone-on-track-not-actually-at-AGP-or-phillip-I-lr
Warming-up-the-Flintstone-Lotus-at-Phillip-Island-lr

[Show slideshow]
Magazine out now DTC Personal Bests

Related Posts

mp-banner

Events, Gallery 2022, Homepage, Racing

Morgan Park Sprints R4

kevs-banner

EMRs, Gallery 2022, Homepage

Kev’s Big Day Out

duratec-banner

Articles, Homepage, Technical

Duratec Elise – better late than never

Random images

IMG_0431
martin
28-Liam-on-the-eastern-loop
Mike-with-Shane-in-the-background
23-Three-amigos
MG_6592
MG_6052
8-Lotus-vs-Holden
5-LCQ-members-photo-distribution
05
6-Breakfast-at-Birches-3
IMG_4890
Morning_tea_pits
IMG_0016
IMG_8621
118_1808_IMG
IMG_8776
IMG_3905
121_2169_IMG
121_2125_IMG
IMG_4415
Set Go
20220220_093714
Photo-28-11-20-8-29-28-pm
Rob-Parer-leading-the-pack-by-SDPICS
The-Surf-Club-Mooloolaba-function-room-was-a-perfect-venue-R-Messenger
20180415_135231
Mt-Cotton-Hillclimb-Sep17-02
Martin
Colin and Robyn
efi
MG_9632
Old Boys
Paul giving it a belt
dtc-ken-philp
20160522_101521
Loti lining up for the challenge
John Barram 3436
Clive-in-late-afternoon
11-Michael-Ian-Moira-Daryl-Norma-Peter-Mal-Tim-Carol-Alex-Clive
Mike-Driscolls-DType
main-8a
IMG_5139
IMG_7313
GIC1
Mar-main-46
Jan-Nothing-better-than-having-wind-in-your-hair
Uphill-racer
Jason
IMG_7125
Geoff-in-his-Honda-powered-Elise
Secret-mens-business
image004
P1010415
IMG_0034
IMG_0331_1
Antibes_France
P1080248
IMG_0305
IMG_0001
DSC03852
IMG_4908
IMG_8889
113_1306_IMG
112_1296_IMG
IMG_7408
IMG_3665
MG_4264
Early_arrivals_for_the_day
P1050537
P1050427
P1090175
IMG_3639
IMG_8037
IMG_8116
IMG_8125
IMG_0923
IMG_3937
P1090174
main-0
Dicke Eisenmann
Steves-nose
Big-public-interest-in-the-beautiful-Elevens
Spanner-check-at-Camp-3-Gobi-Desert
20201220_100254
Evans-exige-adding-its-own-lightness-by-spitting-the-inner-guard-out
unnamed-3
The Seven Challenge
Lindsay-relaxing-between-runs
Clive
The D-Type
Daryl & Vyvyan
P1020919
IMGP8730
cadillac-
Japanese-Maple
liam's-exige
Garry-with-presenter-Giles
IMAG6169
IMAG6218

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