After the wet and wild Saturday a mainly overcast day greeted the Sunday competitors at Collie Motorplex with grids of Sports Sedans, Sports Cars, TA, Historic Touring Cars, Regularity and Formula Vees ready to battle it out on track.
HISTORIC TOURING CARS
A mix of cars you’d see out racing in the 60s, 70s, 80s hit the Collie track to open up the Sunday racing, in qualifying Dan Forster slotted his Morris COoper S ahead of Stuart Young’s LJ Torana GTR XU-1 with Simon Northey following in his Ford Mustang. The gap back to 5th was covered by just 1 second which was amazing considering the mix of cars on the grid.
Race 1 and 2 saw a standard pattern emerge with Cono Onofaro in his Morris Cooper S being sandwiched between two LJ Torana GTR XU-1s driven by Stuart Young in first and Scott Mackie in third.
By the end of Race 3 there were just 9 finishers in the category but up front Young stayed out in front and Dan Forster squeezed out Mackie for third position
FORMULA VEE
In the Formula Vee 1600 field, Mackenzie Matthews appeared to be trying an aero package on the 1600cc Formula Vee, however the marshals didn’t agree with the trial and called him back into the pits to make some changes.
Austin Pearson would finish 9 seconds up the road from David Caisley with Rod Lisson a further 3 seconds behind.
In the second race Matthews was back and proved that he didn’t need that aero package to finish on the podium with him taking 3rd position. Rod Lisson unfortunately suffered a DNF which left Austin Pearson out front again with Caisley 3 seconds behind.
The final race of the day saw Pearson take a clean sweep for the weekend with Caisley second again. Matthews rounded out the podium for a repeat of race 2.
Back in the 1200cc field, Brett Scarey took out all three races with David Campbell and Callum Lamont trading second and thirds.
REGULARITY
An often misunderstood category of racing as your main opponent is yourself, regularity requires precision driving to get your time as close to each other lap after lap.
Split into two grids, historic and modern, the modern field featured cars such as Toyota 86s, Subaru BRZ, VN Commodores, Honda Civics and Chevrolet Camaro ZL1s. Adam Ewing in his Toyota 86 was the most consistent in the modern group.
In the historic group, featuring classic open wheelers and sedans Tony Michelsen managed to stick closest to his nominated time in his Ford Mustang GT 350.
Special mention to John Skinner in his Zephyr Special (pictured above) for bringing out this amazing piece of racing history for a spin around Collie Motorplex.
SPORTS CARS, SPORTS SEDANS, TA
The big bangers! It seemed that the majority of the other categories were waiting for this category to head out on track with cars ranging from brand new track spec supercars such as the Audi R8 LMS through to home builds such as Ryan Humfrey’s Ford XE Falcon lining up.
In the first race Daniel Gonzalez broke the standing lap record held by Ryan Humfrey with a 1:09.0072. Humfrey unfortunately retired with electrical issues on the 10th lap and hastily got the car apart to find the problem and get it back out on track for the second and last race of the day.
Tim Wolfe finished in second in his 991 GT3 Cup car and Clint Harvey rounded out the top three in his MARC Ford Focus V8.
After a stressful break between races, Ryan Humfrey got his XE Falcon back out on track ready for a big battle between him and Gonzalez in the Audi which was about to be watched by the majority of the rest of the other category drivers of the day.
Humfrey started from the back of the pack and quickly made short work for most of the field getting into 3rd by the end of the bowling alley. He picked off Clint Harvey shortly after and in a late braking move into the chicane undercut Tim Wolfe to take the lead.
Meanwhile Daniel Gonzalez’s Audi R8 LMS suffered a mechanical DNF on the first lap and limped back to the pits after being lapped a few times. Gonzalez would then have his lap record taken off him with Humfrey putting in a 1:08.6604 to regain the lap record rounding out a spectacular weekend of racing at Collie Motorplex.
