The South Eastern Automobile Club held its fourth autocross round at SEAC Park recently.
With the normal September weather this area receives, the track preparation had been coming along very well, until the couple of days of rain leading up to the event had left the race surface resembling a bowl of porridge.
Director Daniel Oldaker had been involved in the lead up and had confidence in the base of the race surface would stand up okay, so gave the green light to the event to run.
What a day to be awarded (by random selection, of course) the coveted number 1 car for the day and it fell on the club’s senior driver Geoff Wilson to lead the pack.
His first lap gave him fastest time of the day, until the second car floated around the sloppy surface.
About half of the field of 30 that chose to come out and play struggled to keep on track, let alone set any sort of pace, but, as the rest of the cars did their lap the track lost a lot of the slop on the top and actually had some grip underneath.
Having the benefit of a lightweight buggy and being of a smaller size as well, John Whitehead enjoyed setting the pace for heat 1 with a survival lap of 2:05.82 seconds.
Adam Jesse used all the available assistance from the Subaru WRX’s four wheel drive to be next in line, nine seconds behind.
Jayden Edwards was next, using his speedway skills to advantage another four seconds back, followed by Jason Sims drawing on his rally driving experience, to keep on the track and only be a couple of seconds back in fourth spot.
Luke Winterfield had his hands full, trying his hardest to get a clean lap, let alone be quick – finishing fifth, followed by Kyle Johnson having a good go in the tidy Datsun 1600, Henry Sims, Ashton Slotegraaf, Justin Devlin and Barry Edwards rounding out the 10 in the first heat lottery, showing the times were dropping as the loose topping had been relocated.
Heat 2 went all the way to Damien Brand in his CanAm Buggy enjoying the four wheel drive’s grip and a little of the turbo power that is available from the tiny engine.
Dion Becker made good use of his track position after making onsite repairs, setting a respectable 1:55.65 seconds lap on the ever-improving race surface.
John Whitehead bettering his first lap time by nine seconds had to settle for third, Adam Jesse reduced his previous run time by 14 seconds but was now fourth.
Jayden Edwards, also quicker by 18 seconds, was fifth, followed by Jason Sims, Luke Winterfield who still struggling with the difficult track, Kyle Johnson, Keith Cuttle who was enjoying the Commodore in the loose conditions and bettered his previous run by 33 seconds and Ashton Slotegraaf who enjoyed the greasy conditions and secured tenth on this reasonably tidy drive.
In heat 3 the surface was showing some grip in areas, but there were still some slippery spots to catch the unwary that got some speed and took off, only to find the next corner had some slop on top and gave no grip.
Damien Brand recorded a 1:46.89 on his third run on this patchy track to give him the fastest run from an improving Jayden Edwards.
Having worked hard on the first two heats and not reaped any reward, Luke Winterfield found a good line on most of the drying track and finished just behind Edwards, followed by John Whitehead and Adam Jesse.
Jason Sims had pulled his time back by another 12 seconds on this heat, but only made it to sixth, Dion Becker was next in another good run, followed by Damien Wilson, Kyle Johnson and Barry Edwards.
Damien Brand set a similar time to the last run in the clockwise direction, getting the top slot in the time sheet with a quick 1:46.26 seconds lap in the CanAm Buggy, Luke Winterfield nipping at his heels, followed by Adam Jesse, Jayden Edwards, John Whitehead, Jason Sims, Dion Becker, Kyle Johnson, Damien Wilson and Gary Brown.
After a lunch break for all, the track direction was changed to reverse direction, with a couple of small track variations, to keep the drivers interested.
Showing some black marks in a couple of spots, the track had dried out well and was providing a good surface for those that wished to attack where possible.
Luke Winterfield made it to the top of the list for heat 5 with his effort of 1:51.72 seconds the time to beat.
Damien Brand was half a second behind, followed by Jason Sims, Kyle Johnson, Jayden Edwards, Barry Edwards, Gary Brown, Damien Wilson, Geoff Wilson and John Whitehead.
