Well that was the Winter Race Meeting. It was great to see that we were able to fill all the pods with 2 people, so thank you to everyone for turning out, including Driver Mike Miller. The day started out sunny and warm which made a pleasant change from the weather of the previous few days…..but it went downhill from lunch time, wet, windy and chilly!!!!

Racing was fast and furious with quite a few excursions into the sand for all the categories, Safety Car incidents, close encounters of the doorhandle kind but at the end of the day I feel that we had a good day’s entertainment (i.e. racing), apart from having to wait till we got back to the shed to have electricity at the lunch break.

We have lots of goodies coming up over the next few weeks, both at Barbagallo’s and around the State. Quit Targa West is the 15th to 18th August with a number of us volunteering to help with various stages over the 4 days including the VSCC City Sprint on Sunday 18th.

The next Race Meeting is on the following weekend, the 25th, hopefully with lots of Historics coming out as well as the Sedan Super Cup, so will the Ferrari’s have another battle with the Porsches (????) plus Formula Fords, Classics and Vees putting in an appearance, so this promises to be a good meeting to be at.

Once again can I ask Members to send me some of their pictorial memorabilia to put up in our Picture Gallery (rickbh.wfma@gmail.com).

There’s a 2-day Bike meeting this weekend (20th & 21st) and some good fast racing should be the order of the day so long as the weather holds out.

Sunday 21st also has a Hill Climb event at Jack’s Hill and for anyone who has never been its worth going to watch, go in from the entrance nearly at the track entry.

Today was a bike track ride day, again it was sunny with a chilly breeze. The track started off damp after last night’s rain so riders were a little hesitant till around mid-morning, then on a dry track they opened the throttle and let rip. Altho’ it was a track day, the experienced riders gave a demonstration of what can be expected at next weekend’s Bike Race meeting, it should be interesting to watch. There was only one major incident with an experienced rider high siding it going into T7 and ending up with a broken arm and wrist and a severely damaged bike, otherwise all of the riders from experienced to novices managed to behave themselves.

Also found out today the WASCC is hosting a “Christmas in July” next Saturday 20th July in the upstairs Media Centre, starting at 5.30pm and going till late. The club is planning to introduce the Barbagallo Raceway Youth Sponsorship initiative. The idea being to raise funds to encourage the youth of today into our great sport.The will be a catered dinner and a cash bar. This promises to be a great informal get-together and a chance for WASCC members, committee, staff and all categories of Officials to socialise, have a pleasant evening as well as raise funds for a good cause.

A full weekend of Historic Racing and Regularity events was only spoiled by a bitingly cold wind that was too lazy to go around the small band of dedicated Marshals who were able to turn out, so we all smiled and got on with the job.

Saturday started cold, with a cold track and cold tyres giving some drivers a bit of a problem when it came to turning corners, they preferred to go straight on into the sand!! The IPC boys were out in force and there were some interesting lines during qualifying and even more interesting racing later on. Needless to say with such a wide variety of cars we weren’t ever too sure who was going to come out on top. However they livened up our day when one enthusiast managed to drop a load of oil between FP4 and 5 which resulted in an entertaining 10 minutes as cars spun in all directions. Another spill from FP10 right round to FP1 and beyond didn’t give the clean-up crews much of a lunch break, but the afternoon went better. The Formula Vees managed to field a respectable number of entries and gave some good racing throughout the weekend. In the Formula Classics, Mike Henderson again proved too strong for his opposition while going round in sub-57 second laps, it’s a shame the other Ralt wasn’t able to compete.

Sunday wasn’t much warmer to start with, but we got fed breakfast by the WA Historic Touring Club….so thanks to them. Again our numbers were down, but again we managed. No IPC but they’ll be back at the end of the month. Formula Vee, Historic Sports and Sedans and Formula Classics made up the race program as well as the Historics doing the Regularity runs. It was great to see that the Minis still were able to give the 351 GTs a run, and there were some great battles between Ron Moller and Paul Stubber in their Comaro’s as well as between the Monaro’s and the Falcons.

The weekend was rounded off with the HQ Drivers putting and a very welcome BBQ, together with a couple of ales, topped off an interesting and enjoyable weekend. Sorry if you weren’t able to make it, maybe we’ll see you at the next meeting on 28th July. However a big thank you and welcome to the new members who came and also to the drivers who helped out.