New Pitcrew! Lucas Youl

MY racing supporters will be excited to hear that Dave and Rach have been blessed with a new baby boy.

Lucas Eric Youl was born on Wednesday the 30th, at 2.40pm. Your wives and girlfriends (etc) will be interested to know that he was 3.02kg, and 50cm long.

New pitcrew!

I’m looking forward to getting him home shortly so he can help with some of those fiddly jobs, like wiring under the dash!

Oran Park Round 6 – The Final Round

What a fantastic weekend. After more than a year watching from the sidelines it was awesome to get back behind the wheel and race again. Particularly at such a special event – the final ever state round to be held at the Oran Park Grand Prix circuit.

All official race results can be found on Natsoft.

Qualifying on Saturday morning was a somewhat relaxed affair, given that the engine was fresh from a rebuild, so the running in process was to take place somewhat during qualifying. Given this, I qualified pretty much where I expected, right down near the tail of the field – hopeful of making my way through and up to the midfield during the first race on Saturday afternoon.

The Toyota stable of Youl and Jagger!

Things were all going to plan when I’d worked my way up to about 20th (from 27th) in the first few laps of the race. However, Geoff Fear (Pulsar) had an oil filter failure coming into the esses which left some oil on the track. I ran onto the grass as a result, and lost about 3 places. The rest of the race was run under safety car, as the Pulsar needed attention from the fire marshalls (no real damage done – he would be back to race on Sunday).

Race 2 on Sunday morning was to develop into an intense dual with Stephen Dellis (Mirage). Steve managed to get past under brakes coming onto the straight on the first lap (after a small series of love taps during the lap). However only one lap later I managed to get past him again at the start of the straight when he boxed himself in behind Phillip Larmour (Dolomite). For the remainder of the race he was never far from the rear bumper of the Corona. He had far more corner speed and grip, but the Corona had power (and size!) on its side. Despite being able to get alongside on a couple of occasions, I managed to hold him out for the whole race. It is a shame that the video (below) wasn’t looking out the rear of the car!

Race 3 on Sunday afternoon was another similar affair. This time Steve Dellis (Mirage) was able to get past early in the race and was too fast for me to keep up with. However he made a mistake at the end of the straight which resulted in the exit of both Dellis and Passfield (Datto 1600). I ended up finishing just behind Wildridge (Gridfilla Escort).

Once racing had finished for the weekend, one of the highlights of the whole weekend was to be able to have a BBQ on the main straight, and to actually walk the track for one final time.

Some enthusiastic racers walk the track to say goodbye

I need to say a massive thank you to Ashley Birks for the time he has put into the car over the past 6 months to rebuild the engine and get it ready for this meeting. Also, Al Palmer Repairs has continued to support MY Racing for the past 3 years. I appreciate Al’s support immensely. If anyone lives in the Penrith area and needs any servicing work done on their cars, I can’t recommend Al highly enough. (And make sure you let him know you’re a MY Racing supporter!)

Elderly driver 600km off course!

It isn’t his fault.

No irony or sarcasm intended – it isn’t his fault.

The system has let him, and the rest of the motoring public down. Again.

The person I’m referring to is an elderly driver. News headlines proclaimed: “Lost Driver Finds Himself in Wrong State”!

Huh?! I thought. Perhaps it is a slow news day, I supposed. Here he was, a lifetime resident of Albury or such. Got confused by one of these newfangled roundabouts and accidentally crosses the border to find himself in Wodonga, VIC. No problem, a quick U-Turn, back over the Murray to your worried wife at the ‘village’ and all is well again.

Sadly, this wasn’t the case. After setting off from a friends place in Yass, to return home to Pambula, on the NSW south coast, he found himself nearing Geelong! Some 600+ km away from his intended destination. “Eric was 630km west of Pambula, and 654km away from Yass, when his adventure ended.” http://bit.ly/3I2ivW

I’m sure ‘Eric’ is a nice guy. He seemed as much on the news reports. But, in my opinion, he shouldn’t have a licence. The fact that he had no idea where he was, tells me that he has paid scant regard to any major road directions signs for the preceding 8 odd hour journey.

I wonder if he pays the same amount of attention to a stop sign…

Or maybe a Give Way sign?

Not to mention those pesky little coloured lights – you know, the red, amber and green ones that are all over the place in the ‘big smoke’.

And then, at the end of the article (found here: http://bit.ly/3I2ivW) “Eric, who suffers slight dementia, and his wife were reunited on Tuesday afternoon, police said.”

Eh?! Slight dementia you say?! I’m glad I wasn’t sharing the same piece of road as Eric. I’m even more thankful my wife and daughter were safe on the roads in Sydney.

But I’m not angry with Eric. Not in the slightest. I’m angry at the system. And the media.

The very same system that seems hell bent on punishing drivers to within an inch of their licence (and sometimes further) for accidentally slipping over unrealistic speed limits one time too many. The system that enjoys continual revenue growth at the same time as an increasing road toll proves these punitive measures just don’t work. Yet here is Eric. An 80 year old dementia sufferer who accidentally finds himself 600km off course. Same system? You betcha! Doesn’t make sense to me.

And then, there is the media. Hell bent on vilifying anyone who might get enjoyment from motoring, anyone passionate about their car, and those who might occasionally go a little bit quick. This same media is portraying Eric as some kind of hero! Press conference with Police, news cameras, microphones in his face… you know, the stuff usually reserved for pop stars and traveling golfers with appearance fees 10 times the size of the winners cheque (which they will win anyway!). It just doesn’t add up to me.

But then… what do I know?

Nationals Entry List

This list of entered cars and drivers for the 2009 IPRA nationals has been released. You can read it here!

My tip for the weekend? No tip for outright, a very open field indeed.

I will tip however that there will be at least 2 U2L cars in the top ten come Sunday afternoon… perhaps even more!

I wish I was going…

Competitive U2L car – FOR SALE

Regular U2L competitor Graham Bohm is selling his genuine RS Mitsubishi Mirage. Great value at $14k.

Click on the picture below for more information.

This car for sale