The big V8s are coming to town....

[Crash Test]

As sung to the tune of "Santa Clause is coming to town"

This weekend the V8s are racing out at Willowbank, and i'll be there Sat and Sun (i would be there today having a ride in a GTP car..but Grrrrrrrr......darn new tax system comes into effect tomorrow and i've got to go to work [and a late night]....oh well...)

Well there isn't a cloud in the sky, it is absolutely freezing, and blowing a horrendous gale....so i'll be packing a few chap sticks!!

I will keep you updated over the weekend....stay tuned

[marcus]

Willowbank !!!!! V8's !!!!!! New tax system!!!!!! OMG

GST

guarenteed superb touring

have fun crash

[Crash Test]

Well today sucked.
Firstly, friday was freezing, so i wore my ski jacket and beanie, but it was boiling...
Secondly the one track action was a tag bit of a snooze fest...

anyways, here's some snippets:

- For a laugh and a half:
Ed Aitken's brand new HSV production car is a production car in the truest sense. Not only does the central locking work, but when a scruitineer went to look under the bonnet, he set off the car alarm! Needless to say there was a made rush to find the keys to shut the car down....

- The new owners of QR have tried some things differently than what they have in the past. This year all of the V8s teams have garage area nearest the pit bay. The paddock is then cut in half and the second half is devoted to "merchandise alley", which is open to the public, and allows a general admission pass to walk the whole way around the track without having to purchase a pit pass. The Formula Fords and Holdens are then grouped together in the members car park, as are the GTP and Nations Cup.

-While in the area of merchandise alley, the winner of the best hat award goes to Mitre10 racing. Why? Because i bought one It was also the first time i ever paid GST on anything...eeeekkkkkkkk......

-Rodney Forbes seriously does wear those dicky sunglasses all of the time when out of the car, but maybe he needs a pair of glasses while in it....he spent more time off the track than on it, causing a red flag in qualifying after numerous spins in practice.

- There may have been improvements made to the surface to satisfy V8 needs, but the track is noticably bumpier....there is a big bump at the turn into turn 1, and a bigger one down the back straight.

-Most professional team award goes to the Cat Racing outfit. Their whole pit is black and yellow, with "Cat" embroided table clothes and a set which would rival McLaren...all they need to do now is spend some money to get the car the fastest....

-While on things Caterpillar, Inky Tullochs truck is at the track doing promotional laps for the upcoming truck meeting.

-Those Paul Weel inflatable chairs are on sale....what a joke.....(if you want to knwo what im on about, check out the back page of Auto Fiction....)

-As seen in serious conversation: Wayne Cattach and Jeff Gresch....i wonder what they were saying....

-Garthy Tander had a shocker....didn't even make the top 50% in qualifying....there goes the tipping comp...

-Matt Mingay, the stunt bike from Mission Impossible was out there strutting his stuff, what a champion!

-Best noise in the universe: Ferrari Modena 360....wow...


[Edited by Crash Test on 1st July 2000]

[Diabando]

Crash Test...sounds excellent

As usual I got the TV version, being stuck down here in Vic...but we get our fair share of races down here

So - do tell...WHAT was the deal with Russell Ingall? from what I could see on TV, there was no reason for the $10,000 fine!! I know I must be wrong....but - did you see anything?

[marcus]

on first veiwing it seemed that Ingall was way out of line in punting Imrie...but after seeing the video again Im not so sure what happened..Ingall didnt really turn into him and Imrie didnt really turn across Ingall...but given the last lap or so when ingall was being blocked very badly by Imrie it just all seemed rather nasty the way the crash happened and did seem deliberate..the irony is that Larry came along and nearly cleaned up Imrie's car which would not have been a light crash at all..very strange how no one saw a 1350kg V8 supercar sitting in the middle of the track half way down the start finish straight..$10,000 ..bit steep..but who knows what went on in the stewards meeting...Imrie also got fined $1000 for blocking..i think we will hear more of this.

[Crash Test]

The Ingall crash...well....hmmm...well i was at turn 6 at the time and it looked like a grand mess...at the time we thought it was Ingall sitting in the middle of the track...but it obviously wasn't.

Well i guess my 2 cents on the issue would be that it could have been easily avoidable, Ingall was at fault, and it is about time they stuck it to him....he has been getting away with ti for too long...i will never forget Lakeside 98 when he nerfed half of the field off, but because none of it was on Tv he never got in any trouble...

But a bit of insight into the stack: The Gatorade car had a rear suspension (or something similar) which in turn dumped the contents of the diff onto the track. It was on this slippery matter that Lowndes was able to get past Skaifey...anyways, INgall was a bit wide on this stuff after Larko got by, and this allowed Imrie to get a good run...

Anyways, about the rest of the day:
R1 was the only good V8 race of the day, the other two were utterly boring....it was pretty sad really....

In fact in R1 they missed a hell of a lot of action back in the pack, if only they paid attention to the other 30 cars on the track appart from the red ones...

The Nations Cup was a bit of a bore too, they just need a lot more competitors..The Prod Cars probably put on the best show out of the lot of them, really good, hard panel crunching, all of the way down the field.

In fact was a bad day on the straights, as Dale Breeds FHolden had a loose going half way down the back straight as the cars were going 3 wide, but he put a wheel onto the dirt on the inside of the track, and spun into the outside wall.

Anyways, im sure there was a lot more that happened, will post more when i get the pics back...

[Crash Test]

Okee dokee, here's a few more things:

-Dirt: It was soooo dusty, im still sucking it out of my brain...

-Traffic: Last year it took 5 hours to get in, but this year we got straight in...but it did take a very long time to get out...

-A certain member of the 10 commentry team was seen chatting up a young blonde chick on Saturday...hmmmm

-Don't forget Bowes off going down the main straight....that was really really scary....unbelieveable...
Another thing was when Bowe got stuck in the sand about half way through the race, he stayed in his car. This was pretty dumb, because on the last lap one of the Lansvale cars had a wild spin and landed a matter of centimeters away on the drivers side of the car....that could have been very dangerous....

-Forbes: Had another shocker on race day with a heap more spins....someone needs to had a talk to him.

-Yellow and Red flags: It seems as though most of the drivers don't pay attention to what they are doing...in the warmup, 12 cars passed 2 red flags (1 of them before pit entry) before slowing...i know there is a bit of a problem at QR with some of the flag placements, but this was a lil silly...

-Perkins: WRT to the Imrie crash...well it isn't exactly something you expect to see...a car sitting in the middle of straight after the finish line...once again wasn't playing attention to the flags, he had passed at least one double yellow section, and then Jones who was the last person to have to dodge the car had to pass 2 flag points with waved yellows...

[Crash Test]

And heres some pics....(theres a heap more, wait and see if i can be bothered uploading them)


Championship leader Skaife


Glenn Seton


Mark Larkham leads a big bunch including Ingall and Radisich on the opening lap of R1


Brad Jones finds the bunker during Qualifying...


John Bowe in Qualifying with the brake warmers on the front..

Any requests for pics?

[marcus]

how about one of the gatorade car ????

best looking car out there