MGCC Hillclimb at Mt Cotton
23rd February 2014
By Dick Reynolds
It all started:
“One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams…”
Sorry, wrong story!
Jason pensive!
Jon punting!
Dick ploughing!
Photos courtesy of
Stephen Ivanovich Photography.
Having convinced Jon Young that a Motorkhana is the best way to improve ones ‘on the limit’ driving skills, we both headed off to the Holden Sporting Car Club Motorkhana last weekend.
Now we both learnt a lot that Sunday, about going faster and safer. Unfortunately, for this particular MGCC event, Jon had no need for the safer. His off on Sunday afternoon appears to have happened due to unforseen mechanical failure. On the second loop the car veered to the right into the bank, with the video indicating the steering wheel directing the car left – with no apparent loss of traction in the equation. Jon was fine, but the front right corner of “His Little Girl” is a bit of a mess!
The previous day, Jason and Jon braved rather ordinary weather doing the Saturday component of the TSA SRA Hillclimb Series Round 1 at Mt Cotton. They both recorded times below their best, and put it down to practice. 51.07 and 51.6 respectively.
Sunday arrived, with my good self thrown into the mix. The weather was glorious, if a little windy, and the track fast. The wind blew down the sunshade adjacent to mine, which promptly blew mine and me down onto my shiny alloy bonnet. A crease and a bend directly next to the carby holes!
Two days later I repaired the bonnet with a rolling pin and some carefully placed carpet panels. Thanks Tony G for your advice, even if I stupidly didn’t follow it!
The Sunday times fell as the day went on, Jon from 51.6 down to 51.0 prior to his demise, Jason from 51.07 to 49.98 and 49.70 to 48.64 for myself. That gave us 31st, 26th and 19th respectively out of a field of 64 cars. A damn fine effort, if I do say myself!
At the conclusion of play, Jason very kindly trailered Jon’s Caterham over to Greg Bray’s for damage assessment – thank you Jason and Greg – and I went home to see how much of my tyres were left. I suspect we will all be back for the next one.
Dick
PS. Our thanks go to the MGCCQ people and CAMS for a great day.
Quote above is the opening line of Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”. Good read if you haven’t. Second quote is my article in the last mag.
And a couple of YouTube videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGoZptzU6a4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayQr5by-06Y
