Just home this morning after overnighting at Cowra (the tent had fulfilled its purpose, and one more night would have been one too many!). And it is STILL wet
Watching the start was amazing, I spent half an hour there before wandering over to the Chase - watching the sparks from the Audi brakes, and seeing the disks glowing. Haven't checked the photos yet, I hope there are some nice ones.
Then to Murrays, and Hell. Watched the Lambo bin it, and the Fazza retire. I was surprised at the lack of action there, everyone was pretty careful. The highlight here was, in a break in traffic, listening to the Ferrari accelerate all the way up to Griffins. Standing immediately behind the car you get the full effect of the exhaust note, and the "pop" of the gear changes. The intensity of the noise is almost at Formula One levels, and put everything else to shame.
I then drove up on top of the mountain, sadly for the organisers, I was spoilt for choice for a parking spot!
Considering track conditions, the pace of the leading cars across the top was very impressive. Also, with a few exceptions, the backmarkers handled the quick cars with a suitable level of respect. For a while, visibility was quite poor, especially with the amount of spray being thrown up. It was the first time that I can recall a white flag being shown for a competitor travelling at speed, as opposed to a damaged car or a car returning to the pits with a flat tyre. However, it was a good move on the part of the flaggies in the light of the speed differentials and poor visibility.
The commitment of the leading trio across the top, and from Skyline to Forest's Elbow, made spectating in those conditions very rewarding. Listening to the power go down out of the Dipper, and particularly out of Forest's Elbow, showed that these guys were not just fighting to finish but fighting to finish in front of the others.
Virtually every lap the Ferrari rear end would step out as the power went down. Interestingly, the exhaust note did not change as the TC kicked in, the system must be much more sophisticated than the ignition cut for the up shift, as there was a distinct bang with every shift.
I haven't taken a lot of notice of this race in the past, but I think that I will be back next year.
I won't offer the organisers any advice to the field next year, or improving crowd attendance, but I do think that some of the marshalling could have been better. At least one of the posts up top had basically packed up a couple of laps from the end (I know, it was a long, unpleasant day, but things can and do happen in the last few laps), and the responsiveness of another post (down below) left a lot to be desired.
I don't know what you do about the behaviour of competitors at accident scenes, as a clubman competitor myself I understand the tension between maintaining my competitive position against the cars in front of me and behind me, and the need to slow for the waved yellow. However, there was a lot of dangerous driving, particularly during the recovery of the Lambo when I would not have been surprised to see somebody replicate his manoeuvre with disastrous, and potentially fatal, results. The fact that both these incidents occurred at or close to the pit exit complicated the marshals' job, and the potential for a really nasty incident to occur.