The Barn & Scotty’s Garage Social Run – 30th August 2015
Story by Peter Upham, Photos Gloria Wade & Vyvyan Black
It was a perfect late winter/early spring day for a topless run. Last night’s rain had cleared the air then cleared off, and we had 15 degrees and clear skies (the maximum for the day was about 22 degrees) perfect Lotus weather.
Norma and I were a bit late leaving New Farm, which worsened when we got as far as Newstead and found that access to the ICB (Inner City Bypass) was blocked by the Bridge to Brisbane Fun Run, so we had no way of getting to the Legacy Tunnel to get out of Brisbane the easy way; nothing for it then but to backtrack and go via Ipswich Road. Should have checked.
But we made it to the nominated meeting place at BP Yamanto with a couple of minutes to spare. Trouble was, there was no one there! A call to President Clive went to his message bank, but fortunately he called back.
It seems that everyone else understood that BP Yamanto actually meant BP Amberley. Everyone, that is, except two couples whom I prefer not to name, who both went to BP Blacksoil! At least at BP Yamanto we were only five minutes away.
At BP Amberley there was a good rollup. Cameron “U-Turns R Us” Campbell-Brown, who had organised the run, had brought his mate Chris Jordan, and Cameron’s beautiful (because it’s yellow) Series 1 Elise joined those of Clive and Gloria Wade, John and Penny Barram, and Mal and Chris Kelson. Vyvyan Black had his lovely red 1968 Elan Coupe, and Tim Moore his modern Europa. The remainder were in Series 2 Elises: Barry, Mark and his son Matt, and us. Mark’s Elise S was particularly impressive, being the Club Racer version in a very unusual shade of blue; we all salivated.
We left BP Amberley (did I mention that it was not BP Yamanto?) and headed through Rosewood and Grandchester, then off in the general direction of our morning tea stop at Gatton, via various back roads (some of which I had never driven before) and several u-turns. I laughed at a cactus growing out of the guttering of a building in Mulgowie, until I realised that it was probably because the 2013 flood had covered the building.
From Mulgowie we went through Blenheim and Woodlands, then the back way into Gatton; we even drove via some Gatton back streets to avoid yet another u-turn.
Morning tea was at the excellent Staging Post Café in the Lockyer Valley Cultural Centre, followed by an inspection of the adjoining Queensland Transport Museum, which was very interesting from a truck point of view.
Cameron pointed out to me the Commer with the “Knocker” (TS3) engine, a “very interesting” implementation of a horizontally-opposed configuration of which I had not before heard (look it up in Wikipedia – only the Poms!).
Onward from Gatton, via Grantham, Iredale, Blanchview, and one last u-turn for good luck, then to our lunch stop at The Barn and Scotty’s Garage. Lunch was well catered, and the company was excellent. Tim told us that his and Carol’s son Jeromy, who for years was with Triple Eight Racing as Craig Lowndes’ engineer, has now landed the dream job with Porsche, as Mark Webber’s performance engineer. He is based in Stuttgart, but travels the world with the Porsche 919 LMP1 Team for the FIA World Endurance Championship. They were competing in the Nurburgring 6 Hours (Round 4 of the WEC) that night, and I’m happy to report that the Webber/Bernhard/Brendon #17 car led a 1-2 result for the team. Tim, please pass our congratulations from all of us to Jeromy.
We obviously dallied too long at the lunch table, because there weren’t many left when it came time to allocate responsibility for reporting on the day. But it is a pleasure to write this, because it was a very enjoyable day: great roads, great cars and great company. Thank you Cameron for all the effort you put into organising it; as my old boss used to say, the price of efficiency is more work. I’d just like to mention that it was actually BP Amberley, not BP Yamanto.
