The V8’s have come and gone and everything gets back to “normal”.

On behalf of everyone I want to say Thank You to the drivers who came and helped us out and to everyone else “Well Done” for all your efforts to make the whole weekend a success. We had tried to allocate you all to points where you could get the benefit of a different view of all the racing but it’s very difficult not being able to give anyone a break or a lunch-time move so we had to do the best we could.

It was also necessary to put experienced people in certain points that we knew had the capability of being able to teach the Young Officials just what we did, how we did it and why. I’m sorry if anyone thought that we had given any special treatment in our placements but the way we did it has proved that we did a good job as we’ve picked up a number of new members.

The CAMS Young Officials program seems to have been a great success, so all kudos to Doug and Tracey for all their efforts and the seriously high number of K’s they had to walk. From our perspective the reports that I have had back from the senior officials in 1, 9, 10 & 11 over the 3 days who had a number of these YO’s with them, is that the YO’s were asking the right questions, showed a great deal of enthusiasm for what we do and a number were keen to take this further by either signing up as members or staying on in the afternoon to get more experience.

I think we all got a great deal of enjoyment from watching the different categories racing and it was good to get the Aussie cars over here finally as they provided some interesting racing. The V8 Utes did their best to make sure no one went away without at least one bent panel and they all performed as we’d come to expect, hard, fast and furious. Hats off to our local drivers in the Super GT’s and Historic Touring cars who gave us a great display of fast driving, OK there were a few incidents but after all that’s motor racing.

The V8’s themselves certainly didn’t disappoint, with practice, qualifying and the actual races showing that every driver certainly earn their pay. 160k+ 2 wide through the esses with 20 other cars sitting centimetres off each other’s bumpers and no one touches, is testament in itself. It was GREAT to have Volvo record their first win here in the West and good to see that a number of different manufacturers were on the podium at the end of all 3 races.

We all have to say a special Thank You to Pete Morley for staring our days with a good breakfast… OK I know they did it down at McCracken House, but there is always something a bit extra about Pete’s egg and bacon sarnies.

I would like to say Thank You to Jan Jenzen for all her hard work and putting up with me nagging her for passes for the extra Flaggies, to Jackie and Debbie for making sure we all had plenty of food and drink and the all the organising people, the office staff and sundry helpers of the WASCC for putting on an excellent weekend.

Let us move on and make the rest of the year a success as far as our participation in the sport is concerned. Let’s keep our number up, encourage the new young members with guidance and mentoring and make 2014 a good year for all of us.

The Autumn Classic, 26 & 27th April, firstly let me say thank you to everyone who turned out for the 2 days, especially to those drivers who were able to help us out. We actually had a larger turnout than expected which is good BUT it would be helpful if people could let me know if they’ve changed their email addresses or even if they don’t receive any notices about upcoming race meetings that they know about.

We all had to attend the Officials Briefing given by Mike Holloway the acting Clerk of Course. Mike is from Victoria and the CoC at Phillip Island, I understand he will be the Assistant CoC over here for the V8s and this was a bit of a scouting mission to get the lay of the land and let us Officials know how he wanted the meeting to be run. We also had a run through of the new digital radio system and yes it is better than the old one and the headsets are better too. No buddy system so the communicator has to communicate to their offsider!!!

Saturday was a good day for racing, no major incidents… the usual off’s into sand traps but good fast and clean racing. The Saloon boys behaved themselves and the HQ’s gave us some close races. I had expected that Paul Stubber in his Camaro would give us some serious action but it wasn’t to be as unfortunately he had mechanical problems. Likewise, Steve Cherry in the Toyota Starlet was unable to give the cars best performance here since last year, again due to mechanical problems… that car is seriously quick when it’s going well.

The Historic categories were closely contested but again due to mechanical problems, Mike Henderson wasn’t able to compete but apart from a little hiccup at the start, the rest ran well. The Regularity events were evenly spaced around the track and although NOT races, it seems some drivers do need reminding of this!!!

Sunday was a different matter all together, practice/qualifying found some of the open wheelers and Sedans making light to heavy to write-off contact with the safety walls at various places around the circuit and fortunately I think pride was hurt more that body and the cars can always be fixed.

All the Formula Fords and Vees races were closely contested up the front with the rest of the field having their own battles. The IPC, Historic Touring cars had a few drop-outs due to mechanical problems but generally were fast and furious. The Super GT class saw a reduced field with less Porches out than was expected but still a fabulous sight to see that expensive machinery on track here in WA and with drivers with International experience giving us their time.

For once we actually had a good spectating crowd which is always a bonus… hopefully they will spread the word that we have a great facility, that is continually being upgraded, exciting racing, unusual and exotic race cars and a fun atmosphere.

The only sour note is that as Flag Marshals we have to be aware of what is going on track side and Mike Holloway pointed out to us at the Sunday briefing that we had missed 3 out of 4 rules infringements, overtaking under yellows, however we more than made up for this on Sunday with just about every flag point having to complete multiple incident reports… so many that some points actually ran out of the forms!!!!!

Well that’s it from me for this month, see you all at the V8’s 16-18th May when we will have some drivers with us as well as Flag points 1, 9, 10 and 11 being invaded by the participants in the CAMS Young Officials programme, we will have to explain to the what we do, how and why and hopefully encourage them to sign on and join us track side.