Morgan Park Historics - April 29 & 30

[DAVID PATERSON]

This weekend is the first ever Historic meeting at Morgan Park, Warwick, 200km south west of Brisbane. A combined program of lap sprints, regularity trials and circiut racing should offer something for everyone. A large field of classic sports and touring cars are entered for the regularities, an even larger field is entered for the timed sprints. Disappointingly though, there are small fields for the racing, so they have been combined into just 3 fields. The sports car races will feature just 5 cars, the historic racing car races will have just 7 cars. The highlight of the racing will surely be the Historic Touring car races. The 1.2km circuit is only licensed to practice 15 cars and race 12 and we have 12 historic touring cars entered. The only car in the pre'58 division is an Austin Lancer. The pre'65 division features two Cooper S Minis, one EH Holden 179 and one Chevy Nova 327. The remaining 7 contenders are in the '65-'72 division. These are a Mini Cooper S, my Datsun 1600, A MkII Cortina GT, a MkI Escort Lotus T/C and three LJ Torana XU-1s. Being such a small circuit we are expecting some very close racing and perhaps a few surprise results, with the little cars not being so hampered by a lack of horsepower. If you make the trek, pop into my garage and say hello, if not I'll let you know next week how I went.

[This message has been edited by DAVID PATERSON (edited 25 April 2000).]

[Crash Test]

Morgan Park meetings are the best of the year as far as atmosphere goes, without a doubt. Just be careful at the hairpin first time around, you might have to do a 3 point turn

I'd love to go, but i nay have a car

Will there be any night racing? They have some towers down there and the Geminis used them last year.

[DAVID PATERSON]

Saturday we are racing from 3pm to 8pm, yes my headlights and taillights do work. Sunday we race from 9am to 4pm. Looking forward to it!

[Crash Test]

I know when the Geminis were last there on a Saturday night they just kept racing until they fell asleep, a heap of their meetings finish the day after they started!!

I think the Datto will fly, not a HP track, more handling, but i guess it isn't that hard to overtake either. The track to me is sort of made up of a few miniture versions of big tracks. The first turn is kind of like turn 1 at QR, the 2ns and 3rd are sort of sweeping like Phillip Island, the Esses are dead ringers of of those at Sandown, the Hairpin and final turn are almost identical to Mallala. Great atnosphere, jealous i cant get there!!

Another thing, can you beleve that Brett Curran used to take his big tank there? It wold take up 1/2 the track!!

[DAVID PATERSON]

Well we had a bloody great time, so did everyone else and it seems likely this will be an annual event. It might even get to be as big as Leyburn. I was quite surprised that a short little country circuit could be so challenging. The track is a lot of fun and the driver is kept very busy. Definitely not a horsepower circuit, but there are few overtaking oppurtunities so qualifying and the drag race to the first corner are critical. There may be another meeting in a couple of months featuring Greminis, HQs, club Cars, sports sedans and Group N. Watch this space.

[Crash Test]

Told ya so I'm almost certain the Gemini guys will be having their meeting, last year they invited everyone to come along, but i don't think too many people took the invite.
How did you go with the results?

[DAVID PATERSON]

I qualified 8th out of 13. I spent the whole weekend dicing with a Mini Cooper S and an XU1 Torana. I qualified faster than them but they left me for dead off the line and I spent the rest of the race trying to dive over, under and around them. I really need more grunt!