QLD Supersprint Round 2 B Series

By Jason Patullo. Photos by Bride Moran and Hugh Goodfellow.

This year we have been experiencing some very unseasonal wet weather here in “Sunny Queensland” and this sprint weekend was no exception. We are becoming accustomed to sprinting in the wet. Even as I write this article its bloody raining. Despite this there was a great Lotus Club Qld turnout as we have come to expect with over 20 competitors, most driving Lotus, Mike’s Caterham, the Team Philip MX5 and the Row Racing Dominator.

Friday afternoon practice started off dry, this gave everyone the opportunity to test any changes they had made to their car after the last round, remembering the last round was wet, wet, wet, and resulted in the massive flood event of 2022. After 10 plus years of flogging his little K Series Elise around Morgan Park, Rob Stevens had his brand new, (only 1000km on the clock) FINAL EDITION Elise out on track for the first time. It definitely put a massive smile on his face. Practice was interrupted around 3:30pm by rain and most packed it up and went back to the Pit Stop Lodge for Friday arvo beverages and snacks.

As a result of the overnight rain the slicks stayed in their covers on Saturday morning. Thick cloud cover and no wind delayed the track drying out until around mid-morning. As the dry line started to form, we thought we were in for a chance to have some fun and set some quick times, but as luck would have it, after no rain for most of the morning the rain started to fall just as we were to pull out for our first run. It was a mixed bag for most of Saturday, you just had to be lucky to get a dry run in which, unfortunately for the Lotus crew, were few and far between.

The wet track proved difficult for some more than others, with one yellow Elise, (driven by yours truly) rotating onto the main straight and finding a home on the inside of the track for the remainder of the run. How fortunate we are that Mike and Maggie Goodfellow’s son Hugh was right there to capture the moment with a great sequence of photos.

Sunday rolled around and early on the track conditions were somewhat the same with heavy rain falling overnight. Fortunately, the wind started to pick up and on occasion we were blessed with the sun peeking through the thick cloud cover. For the first time all weekend the track started to dry out properly which gave everyone the opportunity to start posting some quick times. On the last couple of runs the two Lotus groups were consolidated which now had our group at eleven cars on track. This made it very exciting for some of the guys who took off last who were lapped by some of the quicker cars at the front making it great viewing for the spectators as well.

Sadly, on Sunday morning during one of the last runs of the event the Team Row Racing Dominator suffered a catastrophic engine failure and subsequently caught fire. The car was being driven at the time by the team’s number one driver Bride Moran. Her quick thinking prevented any injuries to herself and other competitors but unfortunately (or fortunately, depends which way you look at it), Andrew and Bride have a big restoration project ahead of them.

Despite the BBQ, a fantastic weekend was had by all. The results of the weekend saw 7 Lotus in the top ten with Geoff Noble again taking out P1. The class results were: