An enormous festival of exquisitely preserved historic cars graced the Sydney Motorsport Park GP circuit over the Nov 23-24 weekend, with a mixed bag of weather conditions thrown in.
A lengthy rain squall on Saturday gave competitors a wet track to negotiate throughout the morning, however it dried out for the afternoon, and finally blue sky and warm conditions prevailed on Sunday for a fantastic conclusion to another wonderful year of historic and classic racing for the HSRCA.
Featuring an extremely healthy entrant list of over 230 open wheel and tin top racers, with beautifully restored cars including a 1951 Cooper Norton Mk V, 1954 Porsche 356B and a 1962 Elphin.
Family cooperation was at its best over the weekend, as we watched Jim Catt assisting his son James to get one of their two family racing Porsches prepared for their joint run in Sb/Sc class, and Rod Hunwick ably assisting son Clay to prepare both of their family Corvettes. Clay had a busy day running the 1965 Corvette in four Regularity events, as well as a gruelling campaign in the Sb/Sc class, which was filled with adventure for him. His weekend started with a fuel clogging issue due to the foam inner of his fuel cell blocking the fuel supply, leaving him with a significant loss of power, and an eventual DNF in race one. Coming back hard on Sunday morning, from a rear of grid start, Clay worked hard to climb up from 29th place to a seventh-place finish.
In race three, his hard work ethic saw an unfortunate side clash with David Withers (Porsche 911) on turn 15, which saw both cars retire prematurely with flat tire and side panel damage. In race four, Hunwick came out hard again, and place a determined fifth spot. Unfortunately, Withers was unable to resume his place in the field in race four.
George Nittis’ thundering Shelby Mustang was consistent all day, but unfortunately a cadre of nimble but awesomely powered Porsches kept him from achieving a top three finish. The Porsches of Morgan (#41), Adler(#9) and Eames (#67) monopolised the podium.
– words and pics by Rob Annesley
look@shotbyrob.com.au