Welcome return to saleyards

MEMBERS of the South Eastern Automobile Club (SEAC) finally got to play at the Glenburnie Saleyards complex on Sunday, April 27, after missing out on three events because of the extremely dry weather conditions leaving too great a fire risk for competition to take place at the Heywood Wood Wine and Roses (extremely hot), SEAC Park (fire risk) and a Trial (forest too risky) in the surrounding council and forest roads.

Having been awarded the privilege of running the Australian Motorkhana Championship in October, director of the day, Bruce Hamilton, put together some quite challenging tests from the Motorkhana ‘Bible’, hinting that these tests could well be what to expect at the big event.

Reversing is a part of everyday driving for most drivers and will be included in the championship test selection, mandatory by Motorsport Australia for championship events, so, practice was the suggestion from the director.

The first test layout, titled ‘Hopkirk’ is an old favourite and is a challenging test for most car driver but, quite a simple test for the specials or is it??

Setting the pace on the first run, Scott Bradley’s Pulsar Wagon slipped through the forward, reverse, forward, reverse layout with relative ease with a very good time of 39.25 seconds, closely followed by Jason Sims in the Celica with a 40.63 seconds run.

Damien Wilson took to this test and was extremely quick with a time of 36.21 seconds, but those dreaded track markers were shaking a little too much and one of them decided to jump under the car, costing him a five second penalty – but the 41.21 total was still good for third placed points.

Next quickest, Dylan Maloney made it look easy in his Lancer, with a clean run of 41.33 seconds, Phil Wilson 5th with 44.44 (2 cone penalties), Max Viitanen 6th (44.63), Josh Munn 7th (44.73), Geoff Wilson 8th (45.83 including 1 cone penalty), Henry Sims 9th (45.99) and Will Argoon 10th (46.69).

Same test, second run, Phil Wilson made it to the top of the list, finding his way around all the cones in the recently acquired ‘special’ and a quick 30.05 seconds the time for others to try and beat.

Damien Wilson made a good effort and his 33.70 seconds good for second spot, Harry Bliss digging deep to push the pulsar around in 38.07 seconds for third points.

Scott Bradley drove a similar line to his first go, with a similar time of 39.37 seconds, this time only good enough for 4th spot.

Henry Sims also did well on this run, a 40.00 seconds listing 5th, William Argoon 6th (40.40) with another clean run in his very tidy AU Wagon, Geoff Wilson 7th (41.17), Jason Sims 8th (41.81), Dylan Maloney 9th (42.30) and Cohen Hamilton 10th (44.00).

Another test involving reversing, ‘Reverse Garage’, was the next layout and Phil Wilson, learning how a front wheel drive does things, set the time of 30.82 seconds for top points, Will Argoon pushed his Wagon hard and set an excellent time of 39.36 seconds for second spot, Scott Bradley 3rd (43.56), Harry Bliss 4th (44.77), Jason Sims 5th (47.01), Cohen Hamilton 6th (49.18), Geoff Wilson 7th (51.58, 2 cones), Damien Wilson 8th (54.18, 3 cones), Levi Staude 9th (55.10) and Rebel Skirving 10th in her Mustang (55.31).

Second run, Phil Wilson made it to top of the list with another quick blast of 30.26 seconds, Scott Bradley next with 39.48 seconds, Harry Bliss 3rd (42.80), Josh Munn 4th (44.65, 1 cone), Jason Sims 5th (45.26), Damien Wilson 6th (45.52, 1 cone), Geoff Wilson 7th (50.08, 1 cone), Rebel Skirving 8th (53.67), Cohen Hamilton 9th (54.95) and Max Viitanen 10th (57.02, 1 cone).

Half of the field managed to move track markers on this test, with a couple doing a different layout for a WD!

‘Paddy’ is another test that is almost guaranteed to be in the title event and involves quite a lot of reverse direction car control.

Phil Wilson topped the sheet even though one track marker got in the way, his 33.60 seconds just good enough to keep Damien Wilson in 2nd spot (34.82) with his clean run.

Harry Bliss made 3rd with 37.18 seconds, Geoff Wilson, also managing to leave markers alone, 4th (38.53), Scott Bradley 5th (40.48), Dylan Maloney 6th (46.51, 1 cone), Cohen Hamilton 7th (47.54), Josh Munn 8th (49.92, 1 cone), Henry Sims 9th (50.56, 1 cone) and Max Viitanen 10th (50.95).

Same layout, second run, Phil Wilson found more pace setting the bar at 28.14 seconds.

Damien Wilson had a big go, stopping the clock at 30.29 good for 2nd, Jason Sims found a good line and got home in 36.91 seconds for 3rd spot.

Harry Bliss made 4th (37.62), Geoff Wilson 5th (40.67), Dylan Maloney 6th (40.80), Scott Bradley 7th (41.41), Max Viitanen 8th (42.12), Henry Sims 9th (46.35) and Rebel Skirving 10th (54.80) with another clean run in the big Mustang.

Next layout to be conquered by the eager field was ‘Dollar’, a good test with a little reversing at the end.

Phil Wilson again made 1st with a 24.39 blast, Damien Wilson doing a great slide job for 2nd with 29.37 seconds, Dylan Maloney, getting quicker each event, made 3rd with 30.71, Harry Bliss 4th (31.85), Scott Bradley 5th (33.22), Cohen Hamilton 6th (33.61), Henry Sims 7th (33.71), Rebel Skirving 8th (34.16), Geoff Wilson 9th (35.50, 1 cone) and Josh Munn 10th (40.44).

Second pass, Phil Wilson 1st (25.22), Jason Sims 2nd (25.85) an excellent drive to be that quick, Henry Sims, in the same car, 3rd (32.36), Rebel Skirving 4th (32.55), Scott Bradley 5th (32.78), Geoff Wilson in his Peugeot ‘Cone Magnet’, 6th (33.45, 1 cone), Josh Munn 7th (34.17), Damien Wilson 8th (34.31, 1 cone), Max Viitanen 9th (34.56) and Harry Bliss 10th (38.13).

Similar layout, No Reversing,’Double Kidney’ is quick and requires good car placement to be fast.

Phil Wilson did it well for 26.10 seconds the time at the top of the scoresheet, Harry Bliss next with a well driven 28.93 seconds, Jason Sims 3rd (29.82), Cohen Hamilton 4th, making it look easy in the big Falcon (29.93), Henry Sims 5th (30.81), Rebel Skirving 6th (31.49), Scott Bradley 7th (33.91), Duke Bradley, same car as dad, 8th (37.01), Dylan Maloney catching a break with the system, his WD time of 38.91 seconds giving him 9th spot, Damien Wilson moving three markers for his 10th spot time of 43.22 seconds.

Second attempt at this enjoyable test, Phil Wilson found a quicker way home to stop the clock at 24.79 seconds.

Harry Bliss repeated his first go and scored second again with a neat 28.61 seconds run. Damien Wilson avoided those cones this run and his clean run of 28.80 seconds good for third points.

Another to get it right and quick, Dylan Maloney’s 28.86 seconds drive made 4th on the list.

Cohen Hamilton’s 29.02 second drive was well done and quicker than the first go, but only made 5th points this time around.

Jason Sims, another to trim time from his first run, dropped to 6th on the second attempt.

Rebel Skirving, enjoying the Mustang, made 7th with 30.62 seconds. Henry Sims 8th (31.13), Geoff Wilson 9th (34.72, 1 cone) and Scott Bradley 10th (36.39).

Last test for the day, ‘Noughts and Crosses’ is an enjoyable and quick test, if you have a small car and/or a hand brake.

Phil Wilson has a small car and made it look easy, 21.82 seconds for an easy steer home to first place, Damien Wilson also enjoying this test with his ‘slide style’ made it home in 2nd spot with a well driven 25.46 seconds. Cohen Hamilton also slid his way through in the big bird for 3rd spot (26.42), Jason Sims 4th (27.37), Henry Sims 5th (28.10), Max Viitanen 6th (33.07, 1 cone), Scott Bradley 7th (34.72), Josh Munn 8th (35.85), Dylan Maloney 9th (37.18) and Geoff Wilson 10th (41.69).

Same layout, last run for the day, Phil Wilson drove the same line as his first run, similar time of 21.75, first home.

Max Viitanen drove the Commodore well on this one and made it look easy with a quick time of 26.13 and 2nd spot points. Jason Sims also made it look easy and his 27.19 seconds drive good for 3rd.

Henry, having watched Dad, drove the family Celica the same way and his 28.56 seconds made 4th spot his. Josh Munn also had a go, as he normally does, and found enough tyre grip left to do a 29.36 seconds run and get 5th points.

Cohen Hamilton made 6th with 30.64 seconds, Dylan Maloney 7th (32.07), Damien Wilson 8th (33.19), Scott Bradley 9th (34.30, 1 cone) and Rebel Skirving 10th (38.61).

Thanks must go to the team of officials that give up their time to run these events – no officials means no events.

If you can, please offer your time to be an official at any event.