The Big Wet. Eastern Creek Skidpan, 11/2/12.
Filed under:
By Neil Blackbourn.
With Sydney’s monsoonal weather a great possibility we had a large field of cars and drivers keen to do some skids at the Eastern Creek Skidpan on Saturday.
The first event of the year for the CACA calendar in 2012 saw 38 entrants and 10 come and try competitors take on a sunny start to the 8 tests. With some water spreading issues with the skidpan not totally wet (yet!) some competitors were having issues with knowing what their new cars were doing.
This was not too much of a problem for the top 2 competitors for much of the day. Stephen Collins and Brad Glasson may have been driving two completely different cars (Suzuki Mighty Boy and Mazda 121 ‘bubble car’ with a 1.6 litre turbo engine!) but the rest of the field were tightly bunched not far behind. And with the V8 drive days being run on the main circuit we had an audience each time the Oliver’s 1600 started a test with older Oliver son Dave driving.
And when the heavens did open they made sure that the whole skidpan was soaked and so were some of the crew running the event, with new timers and marshals the event ran like clockwork despite the weather. And although there were issues with cones staying upright due to huge winds during the storm the winner was not in too much doubt until he WD’ed two tests from home. Brad did however have enough of a lead to win by less than half a second!
And with some amazing new cars running including an immaculate Supra 2.8 - with a turbo 3 litre engine and practically the whole of the Corolla back catalogue, not to mention a fleet of 121’s the year is looking like a whole lot of fun!
The head to head shootout at the end saw some heroics from some new members including one in her first event. Melissa Harris nearly knocked on the door of the top end of the shootout. Jules did her usual bang up job of most of the bloke’s egos and a laugh was had by all....as it usually is at the end of the skidpan day.
But all good things come to an end and thanks to a hardy crew the packup took not long at all and we left the skidpan to the drift boys under the late afternoon sun.
The next event for CACA is the first of the Criss Cross Khanacross series at Cataract Park. The next ‘Come and Try Motorkhana is at Ansell Park, on grass on the 14th April.